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唐 Tang · 诗 Poem

池上

On the Pond

白居易

Bai Juyi

田园pastoral 写景scenery

山僧对棋坐，局上竹阴清。
映竹无人见，时闻下子声。
小娃撑小艇，偷采白莲回。
不解藏踪迹，浮萍一道开。

Mountain monks sit facing each other at chess, bamboo shade lying cool upon the board; hidden behind the bamboo, no one can be seen, yet from time to time the sound of a placed stone is heard.
A little child poles a little skiff, having stolen white lotus blossoms on the way home; not knowing how to hide her traces, she leaves one lane of open water parting the duckweed.

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Meaning

This pair of quatrains captures two scenes by the pond. In the first, mountain monks sit playing chess in the bamboo shade; the players are invisible, and only the intermittent click of stones reveals them, a stillness animated by faint sound. In the second, a small child poles a little boat, secretly picks white lotuses and rows back, quite unaware that the parted duckweed betrays her path. Together the poems distill Bai Juyi's late-life contentment: quiet to the point of Zen, and playful to the point of childhood.

山中僧人对面坐着下棋，棋盘旁边的竹林里绿荫清幽。翠竹掩映，无人看得见他们，只时时听到落子的声响。一个小孩撑着小小的船，偷偷采了白莲回来。他不知道要隐藏自己的踪迹，小船划开水面，浮萍向两边分开，露出一道水路。

Appreciation

The two five-character quatrains are set side by side, one painting stillness, one motion, each complete and mutually illuminating. The first builds its scene by subtraction: the monks vanish into the bamboo, and the closing line 'from time to time the sound of a placed stone is heard' renders the mountain quiet by faint animation — the deeper the silence, the clearer the click, a method inherited from Wang Wei's 'empty hills, no one seen, only voices echoing.' The second is a chain of action and consequence: the child poles, steals the lotuses, fails to hide her trail, and the duckweed parts to expose her — the words 'steal,' 'not knowing,' and 'one lane' write child psychology with nothing added, no metaphor, no hyperbole. Pairing the lofty leisure of the monks with the innocence of the child, the two miniatures show Bai Juyi's late manner of finding poetry in the most ordinary glimpses of garden life.

【白话串讲】白居易写《池上》：“小娃撑小艇，偷采白莲回”——小孩撑船偷采白莲。“不解藏踪迹，浮萍一道开”——他不知道藏踪迹，浮萍划开一道水痕。他写小孩的天真。【意象与手法】两首小诗并置：前首以动衬静，借「时闻下子声」反写山林之静，得王维山水诗之神；后首以连续动作写童趣，偷采、不解、一道开，因果相生，白描传神，童真跃然纸上。【情感与主旨】白居易晚年退居洛阳，心境闲适，此诗写池上闲景与小儿情态，于平淡中见生活之趣，寄托了诗人返璞归真、随物观化的闲适情怀。【名句点睛】常考「不解藏踪迹，浮萍一道开」的童趣白描与因果之妙，以及前首「时闻下子声」以动衬静的写法。

Background

'On the Pond' comes from Bai Juyi's late years of comfortable retirement, included among his 'Two Quatrains on the Pond': the first four lines picture monks at chess, the second four a child gathering lotuses, both things seen at his pond. In old age he retired to Lüdaoli in Luoyang, where he built a residence with a dug pond and planted bamboo, living the leisurely life he described as 'salary enough for wife and children, garden and pond to nourish body and mind.' His poetry turned from the satire of the New Yuefu and Qinzhong Songs to poems of ease; the pond poems record the small daily scenes of his garden. In early life he had attacked the abuses of the age; in later life he pursued the ideal of 'knowing contentment and preserving harmony, singing out one's nature,' holding that 'the world's best thing is yellow unstrained wine, the world's idle man the white Attendant.' His plain, almost colloquial language continues his famous claim that even an old woman could understand his poems, the mark of his 'shallow-cut, easy' style. The Tang's flourishing Chan culture is reflected in the monks at chess, and the two glimpses — one still, one moving — show the fineness of observation and the calm of mind of his old age. These pieces, kept in the later collection of the Bai Changqing ji, stand with 'Watching the Fish' and 'A Note to Liu Nineteen' as representatives of his late-life miniature poems, sketches of his 'middle reclusion' in a garden official's life.

《池上》是白居易晚年闲适生活的即景之作，收入《池上二绝》，前四句写山僧对棋，后四句写小娃采莲，同为池上所见。白居易晚年退居洛阳，于履道里营建宅园，凿池种竹，过着「俸禄及妻孥，园池养身心」的闲适生活，其诗亦由讽喻转向闲适，《池上》《池上二绝》等皆写园林池沼中的日常琐景。诗人早年以《新乐府》《秦中吟》抨击时弊，晚年则追求「知足保和、吟玩情性」的人生境界，认为「世间好物黄醅酒，天下闲人白侍郎」，池上之景正是其闲适心态的外化。此诗语言浅近，近乎口语，与白居易「老妪能解」的诗学主张一脉相承，是其「浅切平易」风格的代表。唐代禅风炽盛，山僧对棋的题材亦折射出当时山林禅寺的日常生活，诗人以旁观者的闲眼摄取两个镜头，一静一动，恰成对照，显示其晚年观物之细与心境之闲。此诗收入《白氏长庆集》后集，与《观游鱼》《问刘十九》等同为晚年闲适小品的代表。诗人晚年奉行中隐之道，所谓「大隐住朝市，小隐入丘樊，不如作中隐，隐在留司官」，池上小景正是其园林栖隐生活的写照；以二十字写一两个寻常镜头，而禅意与童趣俱在其中，可见白诗由讽喻转闲适后的审美取向。

Art

The work is really two five-character quatrains placed side by side, one painting a realm of stillness, one a burst of motion, mutually reflecting. The first states its matter plainly — mountain monks sit facing at chess — then lets bamboo shade fall cool upon the board; the third line removes the players behind the bamboo so that no one is seen, and the last renders them by ear: the stones' click, arriving at intervals, proves the game goes on. This is writing by not writing, stillness set off by motion: the mountain quiet is so complete that only the fall of a stone can be heard, and the clearer the click, the deeper the silence around it — the very spirit of Wang Wei's 'empty hills, no one seen, but voices lingering.' The second quatrain is four beats of continuous action and causal inference: the child poles, steals the white lotuses, does not know to hide her trail, and the duckweed parts in one lane — because she cannot hide, the parted weed betrays her, and the theft stands exposed. The single word 'steal' and the phrase 'not knowing' exhaust child psychology, while the parted duckweed implies the calm of the water and the lightness of the boat. One still and one moving, one refined and one homely, the monks' lofty leisure beside the child's innocence is the typical late-Bai way of watching life.

此诗实为两首五绝并置，一写静境，一写动态，合观则相映成趣。前首写山僧对棋：首句「山僧对棋坐」直陈其事，次句「局上竹阴清」以竹阴写环境之清，三句「映竹无人见」写人隐于竹影，末句「时闻下子声」以声写人——棋手虽不可见，落子之声却时时传来，人以声在，境以声显。这正是不写之写、以动衬静的手法：山林之静，静到只有棋子落盘之声可闻；而棋声愈清晰，愈见四围之寂静，深得王维「空山不见人，但闻人语响」之神。后首写小娃采莲：小娃撑艇、偷采白莲、不解藏踪、浮萍一道开，四句全是连续动作与因果推演——正因为不解藏踪迹，所以浮萍分开、踪迹自露，天真烂漫之态毕现。一个偷字、一个不解，写尽儿童心理；浮萍一道开的画面，又暗示了水面之平静与船行之轻快。两首一静一动，一雅一俗，山僧之高闲与小娃之天真并置，正是白居易晚年闲适诗观照生活的典型方式。

Allusions

Though the language is plain, the imagery carries tradition. The game of chess: go has been the refined pastime of scholars since Han and Wei; the Shishuo Xinyu records the tale of Wang Zhi, who watched immortals play in the mountains until his axe handle rotted, so monks at chess became a sign of mountain reclusion, this poem's first half quietly echoing the far-off 'rotted handle' legend. The bamboo: one of the 'three friends of winter,' beloved since Prince Qiu of Jin declared he 'could not live a day without this gentleman,' and 'bamboo shade cool' carries the six-century link of bamboo with lofty men. The white lotus: rising unstained from the mud, symbol of the Buddhist Pure Land ever since Huiyuan's White Lotus Society on Mount Lu, so that a child stealing white lotuses writes a sacred object in homely play — Bai's way of dissolving Chan into the everyday. The duckweed: rootless, usually an image of drifting fate (as in Wen Tianxiang's 'my life bobs like duckweed beaten by rain'), but here the parted lane of weed is purely a picture of the water's surface, one of the few light-hearted uses of the image. The poem wears its allusions without a trace: every image comes from what stands before the eyes, which is precisely Bai Juyi's gift of 'using the ordinary to reach the extraordinary.'

此诗用语浅近，然意象多承传统。其一是棋的意象：围棋自汉魏以来即为士人雅好，《世说新语》载王质入山观棋、烂柯而归的传说，山僧对棋遂成为山林隐逸生活的符号，此诗前首正以棋写闲，暗含烂柯的悠远意味。其二是竹的意象：竹为岁寒三友之一，晋人王子猷「不可一日无此君」，竹阴清三字兼写竹色之翠与境界之清，承六朝以来竹与高士相联系的审美传统。其三是白莲的意象：莲出淤泥而不染，为佛教净土之象征，东晋慧远在庐山结白莲社，白莲遂与禅林结缘；此处小娃偷采白莲，以俗趣写圣物，正见白乐天将禅意化入日常的功夫。其四是浮萍的意象：萍为无根之草，古诗多以之喻飘零（如文天祥「身世浮沉雨打萍」），然此处浮萍一道开只写水面之景，童趣盎然，是浮萍意象少有的轻快用法。全诗用典不着痕迹，意象皆从眼前景中来，正是白居易「用常得奇」的本色。

Commentary

'On the Pond' in a mere twenty characters exhausts the charm of childhood, a famous piece of Bai Juyi's contentment poetry and a classic of the child theme in Chinese verse. The couplet about the unknowing child and the parted duckweed, its causal plainness drawing the little one's innocence, has been on lips for a thousand years and anthologized in countless children's readers; its value lies in writing the truest manner in the shallowest language. In literary history, Bai's plain manner carries down from Tao Yuanming and Wang Wei to the Song 'Bai style' and Yang Wanli's Chengzhai manner of childlike delight — Yang's 'children run fast chasing yellow butterflies, flying into the rape flowers, nowhere to find' shares this very spirit. The monks at chess show his late turn toward Buddhism, the motion-against-stillness method descending directly from Wang Wei's 'Bamboo Studio' and 'Deer Fence.' The pairing of monk and child, still and moving, mirrors the two sides of his late life: a heart resting in Chan yet keeping its childlike core. With 'Watching the Fish' and its companions, these poems display his ideal of 'shallow words, deep thought' — a specimen of Tang poetry's turn from grandeur to plainness.

《池上》以短短二十字写尽童趣，是白居易闲适诗中的名篇，也是中国诗歌史上儿童题材的经典。诗中「不解藏踪迹，浮萍一道开」二句，以因果相生的白描写出小娃的天真，千百年来脍炙人口，被各种儿童读物选录，其艺术价值在于以最浅的语言写出最真的情态。从文学史看，白居易的浅近诗风上承陶渊明、王维的平淡传统，下开宋代白体诗与杨万里诚斋体的童趣一路——杨万里「儿童急走追黄蝶，飞入菜花无处寻」正与此诗同趣，可见其影响。前首山僧对棋则显示白居易晚年向佛的心境，以动衬静的手法直承王维《竹里馆》《鹿柴》，是盛唐山水诗法在晚年的余响。全诗两首并置，一僧一童，一静一动，恰是白居易晚年生活的两面：栖心禅悦而仍存赤子之心。此诗与《观游鱼》等同题之作，共同展示了白居易「言浅思深、意微词显」的诗学理想，在唐诗由雄浑走向平易的转变中具有标本意义。

Prosody

Form Two five-character quatrains ('Two Quatrains on the Pond')五言绝句两首（《池上二绝》）

Rhyme The first quatrain rhymes in the level-tone geng-qing group (qing, sheng); the second in the hui-hai group (hui, kai). Each rhymes separately with bright, level sounds matching the easy mood.前首押平声庚青韵：清、声；后首押平声灰咍韵：回、开。两首各自成韵，韵脚响亮，声调平和，与闲适的意境相称。

Tone pattern Both are four lines of five characters, broadly observing regulated-verse rules ('mountain monks sit facing at chess' beginning oblique, 'a little child poles a little skiff' beginning level), with alternating level and oblique tones, a gentle rhythm, and occasional entering-tone characters (ju, zhu, ying, bu, ji) creating slight, crisp pauses.两首皆为五言四句，近体格律大体合律（如「山僧对棋坐」为仄起，「小娃撑小艇」为平起），平仄交替，节奏舒缓，间以入声字（局、竹、映、不、迹）制造轻微顿挫，声情清雅。

Reading note The 'Two Quatrains on the Pond' are two five-character quatrains, small and compact to match the smallness of the subject. The quatrain prizes restraint: each is twenty characters, the first painting stillness, the second motion, each complete yet reflecting the other. In rhyme, the first uses the geng-qing group (qing, sheng) with a bright vowel, clear and ringing, fitting the cool bamboo shade; the second uses the hui-hai group (hui, kai) with a more open vowel, spreading and relaxed, fitting the light movement on the water. The tonal patterns broadly follow the rules, but Bai Juyi does not strain for strictness, allowing an occasional unruly character to keep the language natural — precisely the phonetic face of his style of 'using the ordinary to reach the extraordinary, lodging depth in shallowness.' The rhythm moves in the two-two-one or two-one-two beats of five-character verse, and with single-syllable verbs (pole, steal, pick, hide) the poem reads like household talk with no sense of carving. Twenty characters build a complete scene: the first renders silence through sound, the second closes feeling with scenery, sound and mood interlocking — a model of the short poem of idle feeling, and proof of Bai's power to make poetry of daily trifles.《池上二绝》为两首五言绝句，体制短小精悍，正与内容之琐细相称。绝句体贵在含蓄，此二首皆二十字，前首写静、后首写动，各自完整又互相映衬。用韵上前首押庚青韵（清、声），韵腹明亮，读来清越，正合竹林清幽之境；后首押灰咍韵（回、开），韵腹较开，读来舒展，正合水面轻快之景。平仄上二首大体合近体律度，但白居易不刻意求工，偶有拗字而不避，保持语言的天然流畅，这正是其「用常得奇、以浅寓深」风格的音律体现。节奏上五言二二一或二一二的节拍，配以单字动词（撑、偷、采、藏），读来如叙家常，毫无雕琢之感。绝句以二十字写一个完整场景，前首以声写静，后首以景结情，音律与意境配合无间，堪称以短章写闲情的典范，也显示了白居易将日常琐事入诗并赋予诗意的能力。

Line by line

山僧对棋坐，局上竹阴清。映竹无人见，时闻下子声。

Mountain monks sit facing each other at chess, bamboo shade lying cool upon the board; hidden behind the bamboo, no one can be seen, yet from time to time the sound of a placed stone is heard.

山中僧人对面坐着下棋，棋盘边的竹林里绿荫清幽；翠竹掩映之下无人看见他们，只时时听到落子的声响。

Mountain monks sit facing each other at chess; over the board the bamboo shade is cool. Hidden in the bamboos, no one sees them; now and then we hear the sound of a piece set down.

此四句写池畔山林之静，是全诗意境最幽微处。首句「山僧对棋坐」以白描直陈，点出人物与事件，两个僧人相对而坐、默然对弈；次句「局上竹阴清」转写环境，竹影落在棋盘之上，一个清字兼写竹色之青翠与境界之清寂。三句「映竹无人见」更进一层：竹叶掩映，连人影也看不见，视觉上彻底隐去了人物；末句「时闻下子声」则以听觉收束——人虽不可见，落子的声响却时时传来，以声写人、以动衬静，手法绝妙。这四句的妙处全在虚实的安排：人隐于竹（实者虚之），声出于局（虚者实之），于是山林之静不再是空洞的寂静，而是有棋声点缀的生机之静。这种写法直承王维「空山不见人，但闻人语响」，而更添几分禅意——对弈忘言，正是山僧超然物外的写照。

These four lines write the stillness of the woods by the pond, the most subtle mood of the whole. The first line, mountain monks sit facing each other at chess, states plainly in a plain drawing, pointing the persons and the event, two monks sitting face to face, silently playing. The second, over the board the bamboo shade is cool turns to the setting, the bamboo shadow falling on the board, the single word cool writing both the bamboo's green and the realm's purity. The third, hidden in the bamboos, no one sees them, steps further: the leaves veiling, even the human figure invisible, the persons wholly hidden from sight. The last, now and then we hear the sound of a piece set down, closes through hearing - though the men are unseen, the sound of the stones reaches us now and then, writing the man through sound and setting stillness off through motion, the art exquisite. The beauty of these four lines lies wholly in the arrangement of void and substance: the man hidden in the bamboo (the real made void), the sound issuing from the board (the void made real), so the woods' stillness is no empty silence, but the living stillness dotted with the chess sound. This writing directly inherits Wang Wei's empty mountains, no man seen, but now and then a human voice, yet adding a touch more of Zen - playing chess and forgetting words, exactly the mountain monks' portrait of detachment from things.

小娃撑小艇，偷采白莲回。不解藏踪迹，浮萍一道开。

A little child poles a little skiff, having secretly picked white lotus blossoms on the way home; not knowing how to hide her traces, she leaves one lane of open water parting the duckweed.

小孩撑着小小的船，偷偷采了白莲回来；他不知道要隐藏自己的踪迹，小船划开水面，浮萍向两边分开，露出一道水路。

A small child poles a small boat, stealing back with white lotus. He knows not to hide his tracks; the duckweed has parted in a line.

此四句写池上童趣，是全诗最见天真处。首句「小娃撑小艇」连用两个小字，小娃配小艇，形象稚拙可爱；次句「偷采白莲回」一个偷字写尽儿童心理——明知采莲或有不妥，却忍不住要采，偷偷地采了回来，自以为是秘密行动，天真中带着几分狡黠。三句「不解藏踪迹」是诗人的点破：小娃只顾采莲，根本没想到要隐藏踪迹；末句「浮萍一道开」以景结情——小船划过，浮萍向两边分开，露出一道清晰的水路，踪迹自现。四句因果相生：正因为不解藏踪迹，所以浮萍一道开；正因为浮萍一道开，偷采的举动便纤毫毕现。全诗无一字议论，只以连续的动作白描，而小娃的天真烂漫、诗人的会心一笑，都在这浮萍分开的一瞬间定格。白居易写儿童，不用比喻、不用夸张，只取一个镜头，便胜过千言万语。

These four lines write the child's play by the pond, the place most showing innocence. The first, a small child poles a small boat, uses the two small words together, the small child matched with the small boat, the figure childish and endearing. The second, stealing back with white lotus, the single word steals writes to the full the child's psychology - knowing well that picking the lotus is perhaps amiss, yet unable to resist, stealing back, thinking it a secret act, innocence touched with a touch of slyness. The third, he knows not to hide his tracks, is the poet's pointing-out: the child, set on picking the lotus, never thought to hide his trail. The last, the duckweed has parted in a line, closes feeling through scenery - the boat crossing, the duckweed parting on both sides, exposing a clear waterway, the track of itself appearing. The four lines breed cause and effect: precisely because he knows not to hide his tracks, the duckweed parts in a line; precisely because the duckweed parts in a line, the stealing is shown to the last thread. The whole has not one word of argument, only a continuous plain drawing of action, yet the child's innocence and the poet's knowing smile are fixed in that instant of the parted duckweed. Bai Juyi writing the child uses no meta-phor, no exaggeration, but takes one shot, and it outdoes a thousand words.

Study

Word focus

偷 'Steals' is the eye of the poem: not theft in a bad sense but a child's self-delighted secrecy — small transgression, private glee, and hopeless concealment all in one word. 「小娃撑小艇，偷采白莲回」之「偷」字，是全诗的诗眼，一个偷字把儿童的天真与顽皮写得活灵活现。偷在这里不是贬义的偷窃，而是儿童自以为是秘密行动的那份小心与得意——他知道采莲或许是不被允许的，或者只是想留一份只有自己知道的喜悦，于是偷偷地采了回来。这个字写出了三重心理：一是明知故犯的小小越轨，二是自以为无人知晓的得意，三是不善掩饰的稚拙。若用「采」「折」「摘」等字，便只剩动作而没有心理；一个偷字，动作、心理、神态俱全。白居易深谙儿童心理，故能以一字传神。唐人写儿童多用直笔（如胡令能「路人借问遥招手，怕得鱼惊不应人」写其警惕），白居易却以偷字写其天真，正见观察之细。后世杨万里「儿童急走追黄蝶」同写童趣，而偷字之妙，千古独此一家。

时闻 'From time to time hears' is the hinge of setting stillness off with motion: the intermittent click proves the game continues, and the ear replaces the eye to evoke the depth of the bamboo. 「映竹无人见，时闻下子声」之「时闻」二字，是全诗以动衬静的关键。时字写落子声的间歇性与反复性——不是一声两声，而是时时有声传来，说明棋局正在进行、对弈者心无旁骛；闻字写听觉的专注——人既不可见，声音便成了唯一的线索，诗人侧耳倾听，方知棋在竹阴深处。二字相合，妙处在以时间的延续写空间的幽深：棋声时断时续，正见竹林之深、棋局之久、心境之静。若作「偶闻」，则棋声稀疏，少了棋局进行中的生机；若作「频闻」，则落子急促，少了从容淡定的禅意。时闻二字不疾不徐，恰与山僧对弈的从容相称，也与全诗清幽的意境相合。诗人以耳代目，让读者随棋声想象竹林深处的棋局，虚处传神，正是唐诗炼字的典范。

一道 'One lane' measures the channel the skiff opens through the duckweed, betraying the child's trail exactly — the word that completes the picture's final touch. 「不解藏踪迹，浮萍一道开」之「一道」二字，写浮萍分开后露出的一条水路，是全诗画面感的最后完成。一道是量词，此处用得出奇制胜：水面本被浮萍覆盖，密密匝匝，小船驶过，浮萍向两侧分开，中间便现出一条窄窄的、清晰的水路。一个道字，把这条水路写得如一条道路般分明，小艇的去向、采莲的踪迹，便沿着这条道路一目了然。这道字还暗含轻松：浮萍是轻浮之物，小船轻轻划过，它便应声分开，恰见水面的平静与船行的轻快。若作「浮萍一片开」，则萍叶零落，失了水路的完整；一道则齐整鲜明，正与「踪迹」呼应——踪迹本是要藏的秘密，却因这一道水路而暴露无遗。二字轻轻落笔，童趣与画面同时完成，是白居易以常语造奇境的绝好例证。

池上