宋 Song · 词 Ci lyric
西湖月
West Lake Moon
初弦月挂林梢,又一番西园,探梅消息。
粉墙朱户,苔枝露蕊,淡匀轻饰。
玉儿应有恨,为怅望东昏相记忆。
便解珮、飞入云阶,长伴此花倾国。
诗腰瘦损刘郎,记立马攀条,倚阑横笛。
少年风味,拈花弄蕊,爱香怜色。
扬州何逊在,试点染吟笺留醉墨。
谩赢得、疏影寒窗,夜深孤寂。
By whitewashed walls and vermilion doors, mossy branches with dewy buds, lightly powdered, softly adorned.
The Jade Lady must bear a grudge, gazing wistfully back, remembering the Lord of the East.
Then she unbuckles her pendant, flies into the cloud-steps, to keep forever company with this flower of fallen states.
The poet's waist grown slender, like the Liu lad, I recall mounting the horse to pluck a branch, leaning on the rail to play the flute.
The flavor of youth: fingering the blossoms, toy with the stamens, loving the fragrance, pitying the hue.
He Xun still lingers in Yangzhou — let me tint the verse-sheet, leaving drunken ink.
In vain I win but a sparse shadow by the cold window, lonely in the deep of night.
Meaning
A moonlit visit to view the plum blossoms becomes a song of the flower's lonely splendor and the poet's own isolation. Through the figure of the Jade Lady who remembers a lost lord, the plum carries a quiet lament for a fallen former age. The poet likens himself to devoted plum-lovers of old, yet all ends in a cold-window solitude.
在粉白的墙与朱红门之间,苔痕点点的梅枝缀着带露的花蕊,淡淡地匀施着轻妆。那如玉儿般的梅花该是有幽恨的吧,正怅然遥望,忆念着当年的东昏侯。到头来只落得疏落的梅影伴着寒窗,在夜深时一派孤寂。
Appreciation
The lyric animates the plum by personification, weaving it with the poet in a single sorrow. Dense allusions — the Jade Lady, the Eastern Faint Prince, the unbuckled pendant, He Xun, the sparse shadow — build a lone-rugged mood without clutter. Opening in ornate splendor and closing in cold loneliness, it is a late-Song model of 'writing deep sorrow in an ornate brush.'
【白话串讲】 黄子行写西湖月:“初弦月挂林梢,又一番西园,探梅消息”。“粉墙朱户,苔枝露蕊”——“玉儿应有恨,为怅望东昏相记忆”——他写探梅与旧事。 【意象与手法】梅人双写,以玉儿、东昏、解珮、何逊诸典织成孤峭意境;由探梅、写梅、咏梅终归寒窗孤寂,繁而不乱。 【情感与主旨】托梅写名花零落、故朝难望,物我同悲,是宋末遗民咏物词丽而能哀的代表。 【名句点睛】「玉儿应有恨,为怅望东昏」以美人喻梅暗寓故国之思;「谩赢得、疏影寒窗」由瑰丽收孤冷,繁华落尽见真淳。
Background
Huang Zixing, styled Xiaoshan, lived at the end of the Song and beginning of the Yuan; his lyrics are collected in Tang Guizhang's Quan Song Ci, with a清峭 style between the Southern Song elegant lyric and the exile poet's bitter plainness. This lyric 'West Lake Moon' is a plum-singing piece: the upper stanza writes moonlit plum-viewing, the plum's posture and its grudge; the lower stanza writes the poet loving and singing the plum, ending in cold-window loneliness. The line 'the Jade Lady must bear a grudge, gazing wistfully back remembering the Lord of the East' uses the Pan Yu'er–Eastern Faint Prince allusion to liken the plum, darkly bearing the fall of a famous flower and the hopelessness of the former lord, in the same path as the late-Song exile poets' 'entrusting sorrow to objects.' 'He Xun in Yangzhou' and 'sparse shadow by cold window' follow the Du Fu, Lin Bu and Jiang Kui plum-singing line. The whole binds the plum's lone purity, the man's loneliness and the dynastic change together; it was likely written at the time of the transition, when the poet was alone and drifting — a representative late-Song plum lyric of double-writing object and self with far-reaching entanglement, also revealing Huang Zixing's manner of writing deep sorrow in an ornate brush.
黄子行,号霄山,宋末元初人,其词见唐圭璋《全宋词》辑录,风格清峭,介乎南宋雅词与遗民清苦之间。《西湖月》此阕为咏梅之作,上片写月下探梅、梅姿与梅恨,下片写诗人爱梅咏梅、终归于寒窗孤寂。词中「玉儿应有恨,为怅望东昏相记忆」以潘玉儿、东昏侯之典拟梅,暗寓名花零落、故主难望之慨,与宋末遗民咏物词「托物寓哀」的取径相通;「扬州何逊」「疏影寒窗」则沿杜甫、林逋、姜夔咏梅一脉。全词将梅之孤洁与人之孤寂、朝代之代谢绾合,约作于易代之际、孤身飘零之时,是宋末咏梅词中物我双写、寄托遥深的代表,亦足窥黄子行以丽笔写沉哀的一格。此词以梅为吟咏主体,而借玉儿东昏之典暗寓故朝之思,在宋末咏梅词中别立一清峭之格。黄子行虽史传不详,然从词中「怅望东昏」「冷烟残月」等语,可味出易代之际文人托物寓哀的普遍心境。其以丽笔写沉哀,较之王沂孙之隐晦、张炎之清空,别有一种秾而能峭的气度。读此词,宜知其非徒咏梅,实借梅以写身世之零落与故国之怅惘,方不负其寄托之深。
Art
This lyric animates the plum by personification, making plum and man interchange without trace. The upper stanza 'by whitewashed walls and vermilion doors, mossy branches with dewy buds, lightly powdered, softly adorned' writes the plum's plain makeup in boudoir colors; 'the Jade Lady must bear a grudge' suddenly figures the plum as a resentful beauty, giving vegetation a temperament; 'then she unbuckles her pendant, flies into the cloud-steps' uses the goddess-unbuckling-pendant allusion to write the plum drifting into the cloud-steps, strange and splendid. The lower stanza 'the poet's waist grown slender, like the Liu lad' compares the poet to himself, 'He Xun still lingers in Yangzhou' compares him to the former plum-singing worthy, 'let me tint the verse-sheet' writes his obsession with the plum, ending in 'in vain I win but a sparse shadow by the cold window, lonely in the deep of night,' moving from ornate to lone. The whole uses allusions like layered embroidery, yet is strung through the thread of 'viewing the plum — writing the plum — singing the plum — the lone plum,' rich yet not chaotic, a model of 'writing deep sorrow in an ornate brush' among short and long tunes. Its structure opens with viewing the plum, continues with singing it, closes with the lone plum, while inserting the Jade Lady, Liu lad and He Xun between, weaving object, self and antiquity; figuring the plum as Jade Lady and goddess gives it human resentment and immortal grace, imagination strange and beautiful; ending in cold-window loneliness moves from splendor to cold, the structure opening and closing grandly.
此词以拟人手法写梅,使梅通人、人通梅,物我交融而无痕迹。上片「粉墙朱户,苔枝露蕊,淡匀轻饰」以闺阁设色写梅之素妆;「玉儿应有恨」忽将梅拟为幽恨美人,赋草木以性情;「便解珮、飞入云阶,长伴此花倾国」更以神女解珮之典写梅之飘入云阶,奇想瑰丽。下片「诗腰瘦损刘郎」以诗人自况,「扬州何逊在」以咏梅前贤自比,「试点染吟笺留醉墨」写爱梅之痴,终以「谩赢得、疏影寒窗,夜深孤寂」收束,由绮入孤。全词用典如叠绣,却以「探梅—写梅—咏梅—孤梅」的脉络贯穿,繁而不乱,是小令长调中「以丽笔写沉哀」的范例。全词以探梅起,以咏梅承,以孤梅结,而中间以玉儿、刘郎、何逊诸人穿插,物我古今交织,繁而不乱。其拟梅为玉儿、为神女,使梅具人之幽恨与仙姿,想象奇丽;终以寒窗孤寂收束,由瑰入冷,章法大开大合。长调最忌散漫,此词以「梅」字一线贯穿,铺叙中自有收束,足见黄子行于长调结构具一定功力,亦见宋末咏物长调章法之缜密。
Allusions
'Jade Lady' refers to Pan Yu'er, favored concubine of Xiao Baojuan, the Eastern Faint Prince of Southern Qi; the History of the South records the Prince carving gold into lotuses for her to walk on, saying 'each step breeds a lotus.' Here the Jade Lady figures the plum, and 'gazing wistfully at the Eastern Faint' figures what the plum remembers (the former lord, the former dynasty), darkly holding the sorrow of fallen and homeless. 'Unbuckling the pendant' uses the tale of Zheng Jiaofu meeting the Han River goddess who unbuckles her pendant to give him (Liexian Zhuan); here it writes the plum like a goddess unbuckling her pendant and flying into the cloud-steps, strange and fresh. 'Liu lad' refers both to Liu Chen meeting the immortals at Tiantai and to Liu Yuxi's Xuandu Temple poems; here 'the poet's waist grown slender' compares the poet's thinness to his deep love of the plum. 'He Xun in Yangzhou' uses Du Fu's 'still like He Xun in Yangzhou' — He Xun was a Liang-dynasty magistrate at Yangzhou whose office had plum he often sang over, becoming a plum-singing story. 'Sparse shadow' is rooted in Lin Bu's 'sparse shadows by the clear shallow water.' These allusions are all plum-singing tradition; the poet reweaves them into his own lone-ruggedness.
「玉儿」指潘玉儿,南齐东昏侯萧宝卷之宠妃,《南史》载东昏凿金为莲令潘妃行其上,谓「步步生莲花」;此处以玉儿喻梅,以「怅望东昏」喻梅之所念(故主、故朝),暗含零落无依之悲。「解珮」用郑交甫汉水遇神女解珮相赠之典(《列仙传》),此处写梅如神女解珮飞入云阶,瑰奇生新。「刘郎」兼指刘晨天台遇仙与刘禹锡玄都观诗,此处「诗腰瘦损」以诗人瘦损自况爱梅之深。「扬州何逊」用杜甫「还如何逊在扬州」——何逊为梁代扬州法曹,廨舍有梅,常吟赏其下,遂成咏梅故实。「疏影」则本林逋「疏影横斜水清浅」。数典皆咏梅传统,经词人重织,自成孤峭。上述玉儿、东昏、解珮、刘郎、何逊、疏影诸典,皆咏梅传统中习用之故实,而黄子行熔铸于一词,各得其宜:以玉儿写梅之怨,以东昏写梅之所念,以解珮写梅之飞,以何逊写己之痴,以疏影写梅之境。宋人咏物重隶事,此词用典之密而能化,正得宋贤之法。学者循典以求,自见梅与古、物与我在词中如何叠印成一片孤峭之境,亦知咏物词之妙,全在使故实皆为我用。
Commentary
Huang Zixing's lyric is found in the Quan Song Ci, and the Qing anthology Ci Zong also records his object-singing works. Modern scholars discussing late-Song plum lyrics mostly revere Jiang Kui, Wang Yisun and Zhang Yan, yet Huang Zixing's 'double-writing plum and man, ornate yet able to grieve' deserves to stand among them. The line 'the Jade Lady must bear a grudge, gazing wistfully at the Eastern Faint' figures the plum as beauty and the former lord as lament, in the same key as Wang Yisun's 'New Moon' 'even with the will to be round, bowing deep, who meets in the fragrant path'; its 'sparse shadow by cold window, lonely in the deep of night' desolation shares the lone-window plum-shadow realm of Jiang Kui's 'now I seek the faint fragrance again, already entered the small window's horizontal scroll.' Today's readers should, amid the splendor of whitewashed walls and cloud-steps, feel the poet's homeless, perilous life and his thought of the former dynasty, to honor the depth of his entanglement. The Ci Zong records Huang's object-singing works, and modern studies of late-Song plum lyrics often mention him. His double-writing plum and man, ornate yet able to grieve, seen beside Jiang Kui's ethereal-clear and Wang Yisun's hidden-austere, reveals the many faces of late-Song plum singing. Beyond the Jiang-Zhang-Wang masters one should keep Huang Zixing's path, to see the full manner of a generation's object-singing lyrics.
黄子行此词见《全宋词》,清人《词综》亦录其咏物诸作。近人论宋末咏梅词,多以姜夔、王沂孙、张炎为宗,而黄子行此类「梅人双写、丽而能哀」之作,实可厕身其间(参近人咏物词研究对宋末「寄托」一体之通论)。此词「玉儿应有恨,为怅望东昏」以美人喻梅、以故主寄慨,与王沂孙《眉妩·新月》「便有团圆意,深深拜,相逢谁在香径」之托喻同调;其「疏影寒窗,夜深孤寂」之凄,与姜夔「算如今、重觅幽香,已入小窗横幅」同一孤窗梅影之境。今人读之,当于粉墙朱户、解珮云阶的瑰丽中,体贴词人孤危无寄的身世与故朝之思,方不负其寄托之深。清人《词综》录黄子行咏物诸作,近人论宋末咏梅词亦每及之。此词梅人双写、丽而能哀,与姜夔之清空、王沂孙之隐涩并观,可见宋末咏梅之多种面目。今之治词史者,于姜张王诸家之外,亦当存黄子行此一路,方见一代咏物词风之全。其以丽笔寓沉哀,尤足证易代之际文人托物自处的普遍心态,文献与审美价值俱未可轻,宜与同期遗民词并读。
Prosody
Line by line
粉墙朱户,苔枝露蕊,淡匀轻饰。
By whitewashed walls and vermilion doors, mossy branches with dewy buds, lightly powdered, softly adorned — the plum's plain boudoir-like makeup.
在粉白的墙与朱红门之间,苔痕点点的梅枝缀着带露的花蕊,淡淡地匀施着轻妆。
Between the white wall and the red door, the lichened boughs hold dewy buds, faintly and lightly adorned.
此句以闺阁设色之法写梅之素妆,「粉墙朱户」是背景,红白相映,先布下富丽而静谧的庭院;「苔枝露蕊」写梅枝着苔、花含清露,见其幽洁;「淡匀轻饰」四字最妙,将梅拟为淡妆美人,不事浓抹,恰合梅花清雅本色。三句由环境而枝蕊而神韵,层层点染,不着「梅」字而梅已盈纸。这种「以人写花、以花写人」的笔法,是宋人咏物「不即不离」的常法,亦见黄子行设色之雅,于秾丽庭院中独取梅花之清,反差中见精神。
This line writes the plum's plain adornment in the manner of coloring a boudoir. White wall and red door are the background, white against red, first laying a rich, still courtyard. Lichened boughs, dewy buds write the plum boughs in moss and the flowers holding clear dew, showing their seclusion and purity. The four words faintly and lightly adorned are subtlest, comparing the plum to a beauty in light makeup, no heavy painting, exactly matching the plum's elegant nature. The three lines move from setting to bough and bud to spirit, layer by layer, never writing the word plum yet the plum filling the page. This way of writing the flower through a person and the person through a flower is the Song art of object-poem neither too close nor too far, and it shows Huang Zixing's refined coloring: amid the rich courtyard he chooses only the plum's cleanness, drawing spirit from the contrast.
玉儿应有恨,为怅望东昏相记忆。
The Jade Lady must bear a grudge, gazing wistfully back, remembering the Lord of the East — the pivotal line that figures the plum as a beauty mourning a lost lord.
那如玉儿般的梅花该是有幽恨的吧,正怅然遥望,忆念着当年的东昏侯。
The jade-like flower must harbor grief, gazing sadly as it remembers the Lord of Donghun.
此句是全词托喻的关捩。「玉儿」以潘玉儿喻梅,「应有恨」赋梅以人之幽怨,将草木之物性升华为家国之悲——玉儿所怅望的「东昏」,既是故主,亦暗喻已逝的故朝;梅之零落,即玉儿之飘零。一笔双关,物我同悲,正是宋末咏物词「托物寓哀」的典型笔法。词人不明言亡国之痛,而借美人名花之「怅望故主」曲曲传出,含蓄而力重,与辛弃疾「iscusst」之直、王沂孙之隐异曲而同工,最见寄托之深。
This line is the hinge of the ci's allegory. Jade-like compares the plum to Pan Yu'er, and must harbor grief endows the plum with human resentment, raising the plant's nature into the grief of a fallen state: the Donghun whom the jade girl gazes toward is at once the old lord and a hidden metaphor for the dead dynasty; the plum's scattering is the jade girl's drifting. One stroke, double entendre, thing and self grieving together - the typical late-Song art of object-poem lodging sorrow in the thing. The poet never plainly names the pain of a fallen country, but conveys it circuitously through the beauty and the flower gazing toward their old lord, reserved yet weighty - sharing the depth of寄托, with Xin Qiji's directness and Wang Yisun's reticence, each in its key.
谩赢得、疏影寒窗,夜深孤寂。
In vain I win but a sparse shadow by the cold window, lonely in the deep of night — the close that collapses all earlier splendor into cold solitude.
到头来只落得疏落的梅影伴着寒窗,在夜深时一派孤寂。
In vain it wins - only sparse shadows by the cold window, solitary in the deep of night.
结句由前文探梅、写梅、咏梅的热闹笔意,陡然收束于「谩赢得」三字——一切吟赏、一切寄托,终归「疏影寒窗」的孤寂。「谩」字(徒然)最沉,道尽爱梅之痴、咏梅之劳,到头成空。「疏影」本林逋清雅之境,此处着「寒窗」「孤寂」,则清转化为冷,雅转化为哀。全词以瑰丽起、以孤冷收,如繁华落尽见真淳,亦如故国梦回唯余寒窗。此即咏物词「收束处见真际」的范例,于淡语中蓄不尽凄凉,最耐寻味。
The closing, after the lively strokes of seeking, writing and singing the plum, suddenly contracts into the three words in vain it wins - all the chanting, all the allegory, ends in the solitude of sparse shadows by the cold window. The word in vain is heaviest, exhausting the obsession with loving the plum and the labor of singing it, all coming to nothing. Sparse shadow was Lin Bu's clear, elegant realm, yet here, with the cold window and solitude, the clear turns cold and the elegant turns sorrowful. The ci opens in splendor and closes in solitude, like true simplicity seen when splendor has fallen away, or like the cold window left after a dream of the old homeland. This is the model of the object-poem showing its truth at the close, holding endless desolation in plain words, most worth the lingering reading.
Study
Word focus
Related Reading
Compare this related work with the poem above through theme, imagery, tone, and emotional movement.
姜夔《疏影》「苔枝缀玉……昭君不惯胡沙远,但暗忆、江南江北」亦以美人(昭君)喻梅、以江南之忆寄漂泊之悲,与黄子行「玉儿应有恨,为怅望东昏」同一梅人双写、托喻身世之法。姜词以「清空」胜,野云孤飞;黄词以「孤峭」胜,丽而能哀。二家皆宋末咏梅大家,一雅正、一清峭,并观可见南宋咏梅词「寄托」传统的两种落点,亦见同一母题在风格光谱上的不同呈现。
山园小梅·疏影横斜水清浅 山园小梅·疏影横斜水清浅 林逋 · 「疏影」意象之渊源 Related readingCompare this related work with the poem above through theme, imagery, tone, and emotional movement.
黄子行结句「疏影寒窗」之「疏影」,直接承林逋「疏影横斜水清浅」这一咏梅千古名句。林逋以隐士之眼写梅之清幽,遂立梅花审美之极则;黄子行则于易代孤境中取其「疏影」而接「寒窗孤寂」,使清雅转为凄冷。由林之西湖孤山到黄之寒窗残夜,同一意象跨越两宋,由盛世隐逸之赏转为乱世孤士之伴,时代之感自在其中,亦见经典意象在承传中的精神位移。
和裴迪登州东亭送客逢早梅 和裴迪登州东亭送客逢早梅 杜甫 · 「何逊在扬州」句法之祖 Related readingCompare this related work with the poem above through theme, imagery, tone, and emotional movement.
黄子行「扬州何逊在,试点染吟笺留醉墨」显用杜甫「东阁官梅动诗兴,还如何逊在扬州」之典——何逊为梁代扬州法曹,廨舍有梅,常吟赏其下,遂成咏梅故实。杜诗以何逊自况,黄词亦以何逊自比,皆借前贤咏梅之痴写己之爱梅。由杜之唐律到黄之宋词,同一「何逊扬州」原型跨越数百年而活力不减,可见咏梅书写谱系的强大承传,亦证宋词点化唐诗意典的深厚功力。