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唐 Tang · 诗 Poem

逢病军人

Meeting a Sick Soldier

卢纶

Lu Lun

行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡。
蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮。

He has marched far and fallen ill; halting, he has no rations. Ten thousand li from home he is turning back, and has not reached home.
With tangled hair at the temples he moans beneath the old wall; he cannot bear the autumn air entering his sword wound.
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Meaning

The poem records a chance encounter on the road with a discharged or straggling soldier making his way home. He has marched until he fell sick, and when he stops there is no food; he has come ten thousand li and still has not arrived. The sight of him crouching under a ruined wall, unkempt and groaning, while the cold autumn air bites into an old blade wound, becomes an indictment of the suffering war imposes on common men.

行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡。蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] He has travelled far and is ill; where he halts there are no rations; ten thousand li of road home and home not yet reached. With hair like tumbleweed he moans below the old city wall, unable to bear the autumn chill striking into his sword wound. [Structure] The first couplet states the predicament in flat, factual clauses - sickness, hunger, distance, non-arrival - and the fourfold accumulation leaves nowhere to escape. The second couplet turns from circumstance to a single scene: a human figure, a wall, and one physical detail that carries the whole weight of the poem. [Imagery] The tangled hair of the temples is the standard sign of a man past caring, and the ruined wall places him outside any habitable order. The final line is devastating because it is so particular: the wind that others merely feel is for him an assault on an open wound. [Effect] The tone is sombre and desolate throughout. By refusing to comment, and merely setting down what is seen, the poet makes the reader do the judging.

【白话串讲】 卢纶写《逢病军人》：“行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡”——“蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮”——他写病军人——蓬鬓哀吟古城下。 【意象与手法】 “行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡”写病军人行多有病；“蓬鬓哀吟古城下”写蓬鬓哀吟；结以“不堪秋气入金疮”以秋气入金疮写伤病之痛。沉郁苍凉。 【情感与主旨】 卢纶写病军人之作，写行军病军人无粮还乡未到乡的悲惨与秋气入金疮之痛，是唐人写边塞士卒疾苦的名篇。 【名句点睛】 常考“行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡”写病军人处境；“蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮”以秋气入金疮写伤病。

Background

Lu Lun (about 742 - about 799), courtesy name Yunyan, was a native of Puzhou in Hedong, in present-day Shanxi, and is counted among the "Ten Talents of the Dali Reign". He spent much of his life in military headquarters and on the frontier, so his frontier verse has the particularity of observation rather than the glamour of convention. The Dali years followed the An Lushan rebellion, when the Tang state was permanently weakened, garrisons were far from supply, and demobilised or invalided soldiers often had to walk home across enormous distances with nothing to support them. This quatrain belongs to that world. It stands out among Tang frontier poems because it looks not at banners, horses and glory but at one broken man on a road, and it remains one of the most quoted Tang statements of the human cost of campaigning.

《逢病军人》为唐代诗人卢纶所作诗。卢纶（约742—约799），字允言，河中蒲（今山西永济）人，唐代诗人，「大历十才子」之一。此诗写感怀边塞，为咏病军人之作。诗中「行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡」写行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡；「蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮」写蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮。卢纶此诗以感怀边塞、不堪秋气入金疮写其边塞之情，沉郁苍凉，是卢纶诗中的名篇。此篇《逢病军人》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。此篇《逢病军人》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。

Art

The technique is documentary economy. Four lines contain no metaphor, no ornament and no explicit moral; the emotion is produced entirely by the selection and order of facts. The first line sets up a double bind in two antithetical halves: to go on is to worsen the illness, to stop is to starve. The second line repeats a word - home - in two different grammatical positions, so the soldier is caught between a home he is heading for and a home he cannot reach. The third line suddenly individualises him with a single physical detail, and the fourth completes the picture with the most concrete pain imaginable. The old wall is also structural: it is architecture without inhabitants, civilisation without care. The whole is a lesson in how understatement and a well chosen particular can carry more force than lamentation.

此诗艺术上以「沉郁苍凉、以病写情」见长。全诗共四句，由行多有病住无粮而万里还乡未到乡而蓬鬓哀吟古城下。起「行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡」写行多有病住无粮：行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡；「蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮」写蓬鬓哀吟古城下：蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮。全诗以病写情，由行多有病住无粮而不堪秋气入金疮，沉郁苍凉，是卢纶诗中的名篇。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。

Allusions

The poem draws on established frontier vocabulary rather than on any single story. The tangled hair of the temples recalls the figure of the neglected officer in older verse, whose unkempt appearance declares that service has ruined him. The ten-thousand-li journey home is a stock measure of the frontier's distance from the heartland, used since the Han to express exile and separation. The sword wound, literally a wound made by metal, belongs to the technical language of military medicine and signals a man injured in action. Autumn air is the conventional season of decline and of cold that aggravates old injuries. Lu Lun's originality is to assemble these inherited elements into a scene reported like a witness's evidence, with no appeal to sentiment.

诗中「行多有病住无粮万里还乡未到乡」「蓬鬓哀吟古城下不堪秋气入金疮」等语，皆含典故故实。「行多有病住无粮万里还乡未到乡」写行多有病住无粮万里还乡未到乡；「蓬鬓哀吟古城下不堪秋气入金疮」写蓬鬓哀吟古城下不堪秋气入金疮。诗人以金疮等语入诗，不着痕迹，而把感怀边塞之情写得真切可感，是善于熔铸典故的体现。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。

Commentary

Critics have long singled the poem out as the sharpest short treatment of soldiers' suffering in Tang verse. Its power is seen in the way it inverts the frontier mode: instead of a speaker imagining the frontier from a capital, a real body is encountered on the road, and instead of glory there is a wound and no rations. Later readers praised the truthfulness of the detail - the sick man who cannot rest and cannot travel - and the restraint with which the poet refrains from indignation. The closing half-line, in which the seasonal air itself becomes an aggressor, is habitually quoted as an example of how a concrete physical sensation can stand for a whole historical judgment. The poem is regularly anthologised whenever the Tang is discussed as an age of warfare.

这首《逢病军人》，是卢纶写感怀边塞之作，写行多有病住无粮、万里还乡未到乡、不堪秋气入金疮之情，沉郁苍凉。起「行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡」——行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡。写行多有病住无粮：行多有病住无粮、万里还乡未到乡——行多病无粮、万里未到乡；「蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮」——蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮。写蓬鬓哀吟古城下：蓬鬓哀吟古城下、不堪秋气入金疮——蓬鬓哀吟、秋气入金疮。这「蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮」，是全诗之结：以不堪秋气入金疮写其边塞。全诗沉郁苍凉，以病写情，正是卢纶诗中的名篇。综观全诗，情真、景切、理深，三者浑融无迹，故能于短短数语之中寄无限深意，令人百读不厌。其含蓄蕴藉之处，正是中国古典诗歌以少总多、言有尽而意无穷的美学精神的生动体现。综观全诗，情真、景切、理深，三者浑融无迹，故能于短短数语之中寄无限深意，令人百读不厌。其含蓄蕴藉之处，正是中国古典诗歌以少总多、言有尽而意无穷的美学精神的生动体现。

Prosody

Form Poem, a seven-character quatrain (qiyan jueju) in the regulated manner, four lines in two couplets.诗（七言绝句）
Rhyme The even lines rhyme in the level tone; the two rhyming words belong to a broad, open, resonant final whose sound is associated with spreading and openness. That resonance suits a poem whose subject is a long road and an unresolved journey.此诗为七言绝句，共四句，两句一联。押平声韵：「乡」「疮」押阳部韵。诗体依绝句而定，句式整齐，音节随情起伏，正与写感怀边塞的沉郁苍凉相称，也见其以绝句写边塞的自然。
Tone pattern Each seven-syllable line falls into two plus two plus three, and level and oblique tones alternate in the standard pattern. The first couplet reads heavy and measured, matching the catalogue of hardships; the second, with its moaning and the final image, is more compressed and falls away at the end. The sound thus moves from burden to a single stricken note.句式上，「行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡」写行多有病住无粮，音节沉郁；「蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮」写蓬鬓哀吟古城下，音节苍凉。全诗音节随情起伏，由沉郁而苍凉，正合绝句「含蓄」之妙，读来如感怀边塞、不堪秋气入金疮之音，沉郁而动人。
Reading note The regularity of the quatrain is deliberately at odds with its content: a polished courtly form is used to report raw suffering. This tension is characteristic of the treatment. The repetition of the word for home within the second line works against the normal neatness of the line and enacts the man's failure to arrive, while the final clause ends on a level-tone rhyme that lingers rather than resolving.此诗为七言绝句，是卢纶写感怀边塞之作，也是其诗中的名篇。全诗的艺术特色在于「沉郁苍凉、以病写情」：「行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡」写行多有病住无粮、「蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮」写蓬鬓哀吟古城下。全诗沉郁苍凉，以病写情。尤为精妙者，是「行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡」写尽病军之苦；而「蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮」写尽金疮之痛，正是卢纶诗「沉郁苍凉」的典范，为历代选本所常收。《逢病军人》一诗之所以读来声情并茂，正在于诗人以声韵配合情思、以节奏烘托意境，音节之长短、平仄之起伏，皆与诗意相为表里，此亦可见中国古典诗歌声律之美与匠心之工。

Line by line

行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡。

He has marched far and is sick; where he halts there is no food. Ten thousand li on the road home, and home not yet reached.

行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡。

On the march, sick; staying, no rations; ten thousand li for home, yet home not reached.

首二句写行多有病住无粮，起笔即见其苦。「行多有病住无粮」写行多有病住无粮，「行多有病」写行多有病、「住无粮」写住无粮；「万里还乡未到乡」写万里还乡未到乡，「万里还乡」写万里还乡、「未到乡」写未到乡。两句一写行多有病住无粮、一写万里还乡未到乡，以行多有病住无粮写行多病无粮、以万里还乡未到乡写万里未到乡，写尽行多有病住无粮、万里还乡未到乡之情。以苦起兴，沉郁而苍凉，是「以苦起兴」的妙笔。

The opening two lines write on the march, sick; staying, no rations, the hardship at once. The words on the march, sick write the marching sickness; staying, no rations the lodging without food. Ten thousand li for home, yet home not reached writes the homeward road. The two lines, one writing the sick march and the lodging without rations, one writing the ten-thousand-li homeward road not yet home, write to the full the feeling of the sick march and the un-reached home. Rising through hardship, brooding and desolate, the fine brush of rising through hardship.

蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮。

With tangled hair at the temples he moans beneath the old city wall; he cannot bear the autumn air striking into his sword wound.

蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮。

With disheveled locks he wails below the old wall; the autumn air piercing his wounds he cannot bear.

尾二句写蓬鬓哀吟古城下，是全诗立意的落点。「蓬鬓哀吟古城下」写蓬鬓哀吟古城下，「蓬鬓哀吟」写蓬鬓哀吟、「古城下」写古城下；「不堪秋气入金疮」写不堪秋气入金疮，「不堪秋气」写不堪秋气、「入金疮」写入金疮。两句一写蓬鬓哀吟古城下、一写不堪秋气入金疮，以蓬鬓哀吟古城下写蓬鬓哀吟、以不堪秋气入金疮写秋气入金疮，写尽蓬鬓哀吟古城下、不堪秋气入金疮之情。以疮写情，沉郁而苍凉，是全诗最动人处，也是「以疮写情」的点睛之笔。

The tail two lines write with disheveled locks he wails below the old wall, the landing of the whole's bent. The words disheveled locks, wailing write the wailing; below the old wall the place. The autumn air piercing his wounds he cannot bear writes the wounds. The two lines, one writing the disheveled wailing below the old wall, one the autumn air entering the wounds, write to the full the feeling of the wailing and the piercing wounds. Writing feeling through the wound, brooding and desolate, the most moving place of the whole and the eye-dotting brush.

Study

Word focus

行多 Having marched much. The phrase compresses a whole campaign into two syllables: the length of service is offered as the cause of the illness, so the first words of the poem already locate blame in the marching itself rather than in any misfortune. 「行多」写行多有病住无粮，是写行多之态的关键。「行多有病住无粮」着一「行多」，写行多——着一「行多」，写行多有病住无粮，见其行之多。两字写尽行多之态，是「以词写行」的妙笔。「行多」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
无粮 No rations. The plainest possible statement of abandonment. Because it is set against the alternative of marching on, it converts hunger from a misfortune into a structural trap and shows that no institution is feeding him. 「无粮」写住无粮，是写无粮之态的关键。「行多有病住无粮」着一「无粮」，写无粮——着一「无粮」，写住无粮，见其粮之无。两字写尽无粮之态，是「以词写粮」的点睛之词。「无粮」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
蓬鬓 Hair at the temples like tumbleweed. A conventional marker of a man who has lost the means or the will to care for his appearance; it turns an anonymous soldier into an individual face, and its wildness matches the ruined wall above him. 「蓬鬓」写蓬鬓哀吟古城下，是写蓬鬓之态的关键。「蓬鬓哀吟古城下」着一「蓬鬓」，写蓬鬓——着一「蓬鬓」，写蓬鬓哀吟古城下，见其鬓之蓬。两字写尽蓬鬓之态，是「以词写鬓」的点睛之词。「蓬鬓」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
金疮 A wound made by metal, a sword or blade wound. The technical term is clinical rather than pathetic, which is why it works: an old injury, now reopened by cold air, stands for all the violence the man has absorbed and carries. 「金疮」写不堪秋气入金疮，是写金疮之态的关键。「不堪秋气入金疮」着一「金疮」，写金疮——着一「金疮」，写不堪秋气入金疮，见其疮之伤。两字写尽金疮之态，是「以词写疮」的点睛之词。「金疮」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。

Related Reading

八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天 Basheng Ganzhou: Down the Evening Rain that Sweeps the River Sky 柳永 · 同写羁旅思乡、悲慨深挚，一写误几回天际识归舟、一写万里还乡未到乡，皆于羁旅之中见思乡 Both concern a traveller far from home and the deep ache of not returning. One imagines a loved one mistaking distant boats for his own; the other shows a man ten thousand li along the road who still has not arrived. Each finds longing within the theme of travel.

Liu Yong's song lyric is the classic Song treatment of separation, lyrical, expansive and centred on the watcher's imagination. Lu Lun's quatrain is terse, external and centred on a body in pain. Where Liu Yong is melodious and introspective, Lu Lun is grave and documentary; together they show how the same theme becomes romance in one genre and testimony in the other.

柳永《八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天》「想佳人妆楼颙望，误几回、天际识归舟」，写羁旅思乡、悲慨深挚，是宋词写羁旅的名篇；卢纶《逢病军人》则以「行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡」「蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮」写万里未到乡、秋气入金疮。两诗同写羁旅思乡、悲慨深挚：一写误几回天际识归舟、以凝望写思归，一写行多有病住无粮万里还乡未到乡、以病军写思乡；一为柳永之清丽、一为卢纶之沉郁，并读正可见诗写「羁旅思乡」的两种笔法，皆于羁旅之中见思乡。

 浣溪沙·一曲新词酒一杯 Huanxisha: A New Song, a Cup of Wine 晏殊 · 同写感怀伤时、无可奈何，一写无可奈何花落去、一写行多有病住无粮万里还乡未到乡，皆于感怀之中见伤时 Both treat feeling stirred by the times and a sense of helplessness. One says the flowers fall past all remedy; the other shows a soldier whom nothing can relieve. Each finds sorrow for the age within a small scene.

Yan Shu's lyric turns on a private, philosophical melancholy occasioned by seasonal change, with the consolation of the returning swallows. Lu Lun offers no consolation at all: his helplessness is material and social, not metaphysical. The comparison clarifies the distance between the Song lyric's cultivated regret and the Tang quatrain's plain pity for a sufferer.

晏殊《浣溪沙·一曲新词酒一杯》「无可奈何花落去，似曾相识燕归来」，写感怀伤时，是宋词小令的名篇；卢纶《逢病军人》则以「行多有病住无粮，万里还乡未到乡」「蓬鬓哀吟古城下，不堪秋气入金疮」写万里未到乡、秋气入金疮。两诗同写感怀伤时、无可奈何：一写无可奈何花落去、以花落燕归写惜时，一写行多有病住无粮万里还乡未到乡、以病军写伤时；一为晏殊之温润、一为卢纶之沉郁，并读正可见诗写「感怀伤时」的两种笔法，皆于感怀之中见伤时。