唐 Tang · 诗 Poem
古柏行
Song of the Ancient Cypress
孔明庙前有老柏，柯如青铜根如石。
霜皮溜雨四十围，黛色参天二千尺。
君臣已与时际会，树木犹为人爱惜。
云来气接巫峡长，月出寒通雪山白。
忆昨路绕锦亭东，先主武侯同閟宫。
崔嵬枝干郊原古，窈窕丹青户牖空。
落落盘踞虽得地，冥冥孤高多烈风。
扶持自是神明力，正直原因造化功。
大厦如倾要梁栋，万牛回首丘山重。
不露文章世已惊，未辞剪伐谁能送。
苦心岂免容蝼蚁，香叶终经宿鸾凤。
志士幽人莫怨嗟，古来材大难为用。
its branches like bronze, its roots like stone.
Frosted bark sleek with rain, forty arm-spans around,
its black-green color piercing two thousand feet of sky.
Ruler and minister have long since met their hour with the times,
yet the tree is still cherished by men.
When clouds come, its breath stretches to the length of the Wu Gorges;
when the moon emerges, its chill joins the whiteness of Snow Mountain.
I recall how yesterday my road wound east of the Brocade Pavilion,
where the First Sovereign and the Martial Marquis shared one shrine.
Towering branches stand ancient over the plain,
deep and dim the painted beams, the doors and windows empty.
Upright and rooted, it has indeed held its ground,
yet darkly solitary and tall, it meets many a fierce wind.
That it stands firm is the strength of spirits;
that it grows straight is the work of Creation.
A great mansion about to topple needs beams and ridge-poles —
ten thousand oxen turn back: the load is heavy as a hill.
Though it never displays its figured grain, the world has marvelled at it;
never refusing the axe, who could carry it away?
How could its bitter heart escape the gnawing of ants?
its fragrant leaves in the end shelter phoenixes of the night.
Men of purpose and men in retreat, do not sigh and complain —
since ancient times, timber of great girth has been hard to use.
Meaning
Written in exile at Kuizhou, Du Fu's song takes the vast cypress before Zhuge Liang's temple as a mirror of his own and his age's plight. The first half draws the tree in gigantic, almost mythic strokes — bronze branches, stone roots, a trunk forty spans round, its darkness touching the clouds of Wu and the snow mountains. The second half turns the tree into a parable: a toppling house needs its timber, but no one can move it. The closing consolation — great timber has always been hard to use — voices both personal resignation and the grief of a wasted age.
孔明庙前有一棵老柏树，树干如青铜，树根如磐石。霜皮溜雨，围有四十围；黛色参天，高有二千尺。君臣际会已是往事，树木犹为人所爱惜。云气来时可接巫峡之长，月出时寒气通雪山之白。回想昨日绕锦亭东而过，先主武侯同在一庙之中。崔嵬的枝干在郊原上古拙苍劲，窈窕的丹青画栋，门户空虚。落落盘踞虽然得地，冥冥孤高却多受烈风。扶持它自是神明的力量，正直的原因原是造化的功劳。大厦将倾，需要栋梁之材；万牛回首，因其如丘山之重。不露文章已使世人惊叹，不辞剪伐，又有谁能运送？苦心岂能免于蝼蚁之侵，香叶终将为鸾凤所宿。志士幽人莫要嗟怨，自古以来，材大之人难被重用。
Appreciation
[Plain Paraphrase] A huge cypress grows before the temple of Zhuge Liang, its bulk and height almost supernatural, its presence filling the landscape; ruler and minister are gone, yet the tree remains. It is the very timber a collapsing house needs, but it is too vast to move, too honest to display itself, too great to be used. So the poet ends by comforting all unused talent: great timber has always been hard to employ. [Structure] The first twelve lines describe the tree's body and setting; the last twelve read it as a moral and political parable, so description quietly becomes self-portrait. [Imagery] Bronze, stone, frost, Wu Gorge clouds and snow-mountain moons give the tree cosmic scale, while ants and phoenixes crowd its bark and leaves, so the tree contains a whole world of petty harm and noble recognition.
【白话串讲】 杜甫写《古柏行》：“孔明庙前有老柏，柯如青铜根如石”——“霜皮溜雨四十围，黛色参天二千尺”——“君臣已与时际会，树木犹为人爱惜”——“云来气接巫峡长，月出寒通雪山白”——他写古柏——柯如青铜根如石。 【意象与手法】 “孔明庙前有老柏，柯如青铜根如石”写古柏之形质；“君臣已与时际会，树木犹为人爱惜”由古柏及诸葛亮之君臣际会；“大厦如倾要梁栋、万牛回首丘山重”写栋梁之材而无人能用；结以“志士幽人莫怨嗟，古来材大难为用”点出怀才不遇之旨。托物抒怀、沉郁顿挫。 【情感与主旨】 杜甫咏诸葛亮庙前古柏之作，借古柏写栋梁之材无人能用，以“古来材大难为用”写怀才不遇之慨，是杜甫咏物诗中的名篇。 【名句点睛】 常考“孔明庙前有老柏，柯如青铜根如石”写古柏之形质；“志士幽人莫怨嗟，古来材大难为用”写怀才不遇。
Background
Du Fu (712–770), the 'Sage of Poetry', wrote this song in the Dali era (766–770), when he was a wanderer in Kuizhou, in present-day Fengjie, Chongqing — old, ill, and far from the court. The Kongming Temple there honored Zhuge Liang, the perfect minister of Shu Han, and shared its grounds with the shrine of Liu Bei, the First Sovereign, whose meeting with Zhuge Liang was the classic 'ruler and minister finding their hour'. Du Fu's admiration for Zhuge Liang was lifelong, and the ancient cypress before the shrine inevitably became an emblem of loyal greatness — and, by extension, of his own unemployable greatness. The poem belongs to the great series of works from his Kuizhou years.
《古柏行》为唐代诗人杜甫所作歌行体长诗。杜甫（712—770），字子美，自号少陵野老，河南巩县人，唐代伟大的现实主义诗人，世称「诗圣」。此诗作于唐代宗大历年间，杜甫流寓夔州（今重庆奉节）时。孔明庙即武侯祠，夔州有武侯庙。诗中「孔明庙前有老柏，柯如青铜根如石」写古柏之形质；「君臣已与时际会，树木犹为人爱惜」由古柏及诸葛亮之君臣际会；「云来气接巫峡长，月出寒通雪山白」写古柏之气韵；「落落盘踞虽得地，冥冥孤高多烈风」写古柏之孤高；「大厦如倾要梁栋，万牛回首丘山重」写栋梁之材而无人能用；「志士幽人莫怨嗟，古来材大难为用」点出怀才不遇之旨。杜甫一生怀才不遇、颠沛流离，此诗借咏古柏，以古柏之材大难用，写自己及天下志士之怀才不遇，托物抒怀，沉郁顿挫，是杜甫咏物诗中的名篇，也是「诗圣」借物写怀的典范。此篇《古柏行》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 poem's art is scale and transformation. Du Fu draws the cypress at superhuman size — forty arm-spans, two thousand feet, its breath reaching the Wu Gorges, its chill the snow mountains — then gives it moral qualities, 'upright and rooted' and 'straight by Creation's work', so that the tree stands for integrity itself. The couplet 'a great mansion about to topple needs beams and ridge-poles — ten thousand oxen turn back: the load is heavy as a hill' is the pivot from description to parable: the age needs the timber and cannot carry it. The ending converts private bitterness into a historical law, and the famous 'grave and halting' (chenyu duncuo) rhythm of Du Fu's late style runs through every long, weighted line.
此诗艺术上以「托物抒怀、由物及人」见长。全诗二十四句，前十二句写古柏之形质与气韵，后十二句由古柏及人、抒怀才不遇之慨。首段写古柏之形质：「孔明庙前有老柏，柯如青铜根如石。霜皮溜雨四十围，黛色参天二千尺」，写古柏之干如青铜、根如磐石，四十围之粗、二千尺之高，写其形质之伟岸；「君臣已与时际会，树木犹为人爱惜」，由古柏及诸葛亮之君臣际会；「云来气接巫峡长，月出寒通雪山白」，写古柏之气韵，气接巫峡、寒通雪山。中段写古柏之孤高：「崔嵬枝干郊原古，窈窕丹青户牖空。落落盘踞虽得地，冥冥孤高多烈风。扶持自是神明力，正直原因造化功」，写其枝干崔嵬、孤高盘踞、多历烈风。后段由物及人：「大厦如倾要梁栋，万牛回首丘山重。不露文章世已惊，未辞剪伐谁能送。苦心岂免容蝼蚁，香叶终经宿鸾凤」，写栋梁之材而无人能用；「志士幽人莫怨嗟，古来材大难为用」，点出怀才不遇之旨。全诗托物抒怀，由物及人，沉郁顿挫，是杜甫咏物诗中的名篇。
Allusions
Kongming is Zhuge Liang; the 'Martial Marquis' is his posthumous title, and the 'First Sovereign' is Liu Bei, with whom he shared one shrine — the line 'ruler and minister have long since met their hour with the times' recalls their ideal meeting. 'A great mansion about to topple' echoes the old saying that when a great mansion is about to fall, a single beam cannot support it, a stock image for a dynasty needing true talent. The phoenix, which roosts only on sacred trees, stands for noble men who alone recognize greatness; the ants boring into the trunk stand for petty men who corrode it. The forty spans and two thousand feet are hyperbolic measures that give the tree its mythic solidity.
诗中「先主武侯」「大厦如倾」「万牛回首」等语，皆含典故故实。「先主武侯」指刘备与诸葛亮，诸葛亮辅佐刘备建立蜀汉，君臣际会、鱼水相得，杜甫「君臣已与时际会」即写此，「先主武侯同閟宫」写先主与武侯同庙受祭，见君臣相得之意；「大厦如倾要梁栋」用《庄子》及古代以大厦喻国家、以梁栋喻贤才之意，《文中子》有「大厦将倾，非一木所支」之说，写国家需栋梁之材；「万牛回首丘山重」写万头牛回首而拉不动，因其如丘山之重，极写古柏（栋梁之材）之重，也暗含其才之大而难用。诗人以先主武侯、大厦梁栋、万牛回首等典入诗，不着痕迹，而把古柏之形质与栋梁之材难用之慨写得真切可感，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。
Commentary
The 'Song of the Ancient Cypress' is one of the most celebrated poems in the Chinese tradition of writing on objects (yongwu), and its closing line — 'since ancient times timber of great girth has been hard to use' — has passed into the language as a proverb about wasted talent. Critics have always paired it with 'Climbing the Heights' and 'Traveling by Night' as a summit of Du Fu's late, 'grave and halting' style. Its deepest achievement is structural: a tree description that, line by line, becomes a self-portrait and then a verdict on an entire age that cannot use what it most needs.
这首《古柏行》，是杜甫咏诸葛亮庙前古柏之作，借古柏抒怀才不遇之慨，沉郁顿挫，是咏物诗中的名篇。开篇写古柏之形质：「孔明庙前有老柏，柯如青铜根如石。霜皮溜雨四十围，黛色参天二千尺」——孔明庙前有一棵老柏树，树干如青铜，树根如磐石；霜皮溜雨，粗有四十围；黛色参天，高有二千尺。写古柏之伟岸，树干如青铜之坚、树根如磐石之固，粗四十围、高二千尺，极写其形质之高大。接着由古柏及人：「君臣已与时际会，树木犹为人爱惜」——君臣际会已是往事，而树木犹为人所爱惜，由古柏想到诸葛亮与刘备的君臣际会，树木尚因君臣之故为人爱惜；「云来气接巫峡长，月出寒通雪山白」——云气来时可接巫峡之长，月出时寒气通雪山之白，写古柏之气韵，气接巫峡、寒通雪山，气韵非凡。中段写古柏之孤高：「落落盘踞虽得地，冥冥孤高多烈风」——落落盘踞虽然得地，冥冥孤高却多受烈风，写古柏孤高盘踞而多历烈风；「扶持自是神明力，正直原因造化功」——扶持它是神明之力，正直是造化之功，写其正直天成。后段由物及人、点出主旨：「大厦如倾要梁栋，万牛回首丘山重」——大厦将倾需要栋梁，而万牛回首拉不动它，如丘山之重，写栋梁之材之重；「不露文章世已惊，未辞剪伐谁能送」——不露文章已使世人惊叹，不辞剪伐又有谁能运送，写其有才而不自炫、却无人能用；「苦心岂免容蝼蚁，香叶终经宿鸾凤」——苦心岂能免于蝼蚁之侵，香叶终将为鸾凤所宿，写其虽遭小人之侵而终为高士所仰；「志士幽人莫怨嗟，古来材大难为用」——志士幽人莫要嗟怨，自古以来材大之人难被重用。这一结，是全诗的主旨：古柏材大而难为用，正如志士怀才不遇。杜甫以古柏自比，也以之写天下志士，托物抒怀，沉郁顿挫，正是「诗圣」借物写怀的典范。
Prosody
Line by line
孔明庙前有老柏，柯如青铜根如石。
Before the Kongming Temple stands an ancient cypress,
its branches like bronze, its roots like stone.
孔明庙前有一棵老柏树，树干如青铜，树根如磐石。
Before the temple of Zhuge Liang stands an ancient cypress; its boughs are like bronze, its roots like stone.
首二句写古柏之所在与形质，起笔即见其伟岸。「孔明庙前有老柏」写孔明庙前有一棵老柏树，「孔明庙」点出古柏之所在，为武侯庙前之柏，含对诸葛亮的追念之意，「老柏」见其年岁之久；「柯如青铜根如石」写树干如青铜、树根如磐石，「如青铜」写树干之坚劲，「如石」写树根之牢固。两句一写其所在、一写其形质，以青铜、磐石写古柏之坚劲牢固，起笔即见其伟岸气象，也为后文写其材大难用作铺垫，是「以物起兴」的妙笔。
The opening two lines name the ancient cypress's place and form, its grandeur at first brush. 'Before the temple of Zhuge Liang' — the cypress before the shrine of the Marquis of Wu, carrying remembrance of Zhuge Liang, 'ancient' its great age; 'boughs like bronze, roots like stone' — bronze for the trunk's strength, stone for the roots' hold. One line its place, one its form, bronze and stone for the cypress's toughness, grand from the outset, and a setup for 'the greatest timber is hardest to use' below.
霜皮溜雨四十围，黛色参天二千尺。
Frosted bark sleek with rain, forty arm-spans around,
its black-green color piercing two thousand feet of sky.
霜皮溜雨，粗有四十围；黛色参天，高有二千尺。
Its frosted bark, slick with rain, spans forty handbreadths; its dark color, reaching the clouds, stands two thousand feet high.
此二句极写古柏之高大，是全诗写其形质的高潮。「霜皮溜雨四十围」写霜皮溜雨、粗有四十围，「霜皮」写树皮之色如霜，「溜雨」写树皮光润溜雨，「四十围」写其粗壮，环抱四十围；「黛色参天二千尺」写黛色参天、高有二千尺，「黛色」写树色之青黑如黛，「参天」写其高入云天，「二千尺」写其极高。两句以四十围写其粗、以二千尺写其高，极写古柏之高大，虽有夸张而正见其材之伟岸。以围数尺数写树，具体可感，是「以数写物」的妙笔，也为后文「材大难为用」作了铺垫。
These two lines strain to write the cypress's height, the climax of its form. 'Frosted bark, slick with rain, spans forty handbreadths' — frosted bark, rain-slick, forty handbreadths around; 'dark color, reaching the clouds, stands two thousand feet high' — the green-black cypress reaching the sky, two thousand feet tall. Forty for its girth, two thousand for its height, exaggeration that yet shows the majesty of the timber; writing the tree in measured spans makes it concrete, and again sets up 'the greatest timber is hardest to use'.
落落盘踞虽得地，冥冥孤高多烈风。
Upright and rooted, it has indeed held its ground,
yet darkly solitary and tall, it meets many a fierce wind.
落落盘踞虽然得地，冥冥孤高却多受烈风。
Lofty and coiled, it holds its ground; dim and solitary, it endures the fierce winds.
此二句写古柏之孤高，是全诗由写形入写境的关键。「落落盘踞虽得地」写落落盘踞虽然得地，「落落」写其卓然独立之态，「盘踞」写其根深盘结、踞于其地，「虽得地」见其虽得其所；「冥冥孤高多烈风」写冥冥孤高却多受烈风，「冥冥」写其幽深高远，「孤高」写其独立高耸，「多烈风」见其孤高而多受风雨。两句一写其得地、一写其孤高受风，以「虽得地」与「多烈风」相对，写尽古柏虽得其所而孤高多难之境，也暗含志士孤高而多历患难之意，是「由物及人」的转折之笔。
These two lines write the cypress's lonely height, the pivot from form to setting. 'Lofty and coiled, it holds its ground' — its proud independence, roots coiled deep; 'dim and solitary, it endures the fierce winds' — dark and towering, yet beaten by wind and storm. 'Holds its ground' set against 'endures the fierce winds' writes the tree's plight: standing where it belongs, yet lonely and harried, secretly figuring the noble man who stands apart and suffers hardship — the turn from object to person.
大厦如倾要梁栋，万牛回首丘山重。
A great mansion about to topple needs beams and ridge-poles —
ten thousand oxen turn back: the load is heavy as a hill.
大厦将倾，需要栋梁之材；万牛回首，因其如丘山之重。
When the great hall totters, such beams are needed; ten thousand oxen turn back, for it is heavy as a hill.
此二句写栋梁之材而无人能用，是全诗抒怀的关键。「大厦如倾要梁栋」写大厦将倾需要栋梁之材，「大厦如倾」以大厦将倾喻国家危难，「要梁栋」写其需要栋梁之材，而这古柏正是栋梁之材；「万牛回首丘山重」写万牛回首而拉不动、因其如丘山之重，「万牛回首」写万头牛回首相望而拉不动，「丘山重」写其重如丘山。两句一写国家需材、一写其材之重，极写古柏作为栋梁之材之重、之难运——材虽大，而无人能致之于用。以大厦、万牛写栋梁之材之重与难用，含蓄而有力，是「以物喻人」的典范之笔。
These two lines write the beam that no one can use, the key of the poem's lyric. 'When the great hall totters, such beams are needed' — the tottering hall figures the imperiled state, in need of just such timber as this cypress; 'ten thousand oxen turn back, for it is heavy as a hill' — ten thousand oxen look back and cannot move it, so heavy is it. One line the state's need, one line the timber's weight, straining to show how heavy and how hard to move the beam is — great in size, yet no one can bring it to use. The hall and the oxen write the weight and futility, restrained and forceful.
志士幽人莫怨嗟，古来材大难为用。
Men of purpose and men in retreat, do not sigh and complain —
since ancient times, timber of great girth has been hard to use.
志士幽人莫要嗟怨，自古以来，材大之人难被重用。
Men of high purpose and hidden scholars, do not sigh; since old times, the greatest timber is hardest to use.
尾二句点出主旨，是全诗立意的落点。「志士幽人莫怨嗟」写志士幽人莫要嗟怨，「志士幽人」指怀才不遇之士，「莫怨嗟」以劝慰之语出之；「古来材大难为用」写自古以来材大之人难被重用，「古来」见其非一人一时之事，自古而然，「材大难为用」点出怀才不遇之旨。两句以劝慰之语点出主旨——材大难用，自古而然，志士幽人不必怨嗟。这劝慰之中，既有对古柏（亦自况）材大难用的感慨，也有对天下怀才不遇者的慰藉与自解，含蓄而深沉，是全诗由咏物到抒怀的归结，也是「诗圣」托物写怀的点睛之笔。
The closing two lines name the theme, the landing of the poem. 'Men of high purpose and hidden scholars, do not sigh' — the unrecognized, addressed with consolation; 'since old times, the greatest timber is hardest to use' — 'since old times' shows this is no single age, 'greatest timber hardest to use' names the grievance of unrecognized talent. In the consolation lies both grief for the cypress (and for himself) that great timber is hard to use, and comfort for all the unrecognized; restrained and deep, the gathering of the poem from object to utterance, the crowning stroke of the Poet-Historian.
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'Mooring by Night and Writing My Feelings' — 'Could my name become famous through fine writing? An official should retire, old and ill. Drifting, what do I resemble? A single gull between heaven and earth' — casts the self as a lone gull adrift on the river; 'Song of the Ancient Cypress' casts the self as an immovable giant tree. One is all motion, the other all stillness; together they are Du Fu's two masks of failure — the wanderer and the unusable timber.
杜甫《旅夜书怀》「名岂文章著，官应老病休。飘飘何所似，天地一沙鸥」，写晚年漂泊江湖、老病休官之悲，以天地沙鸥写尽孤寂飘零，是杜甫自写身世的名篇；《古柏行》则以「大厦如倾要梁栋，万牛回首丘山重」「古来材大难为用」借古柏写怀才不遇之慨。两诗同出杜甫之手、同写怀才不遇：一借古柏写材大难用、托物抒怀，一以沙鸥写飘零无依、即景自况；一咏物、一写怀，皆沉郁顿挫，并读正可见「诗圣」于咏物与书怀中一贯的怀才不遇之慨。
登高 Climbing the Heights 杜甫 · 同出杜甫之手，同写身世之悲，一以万里悲秋写漂泊之悲、一以材大难用写不遇之慨，皆见诗圣沉郁之怀 Both poems weigh a lifetime's sorrow with the grave, halting rhythm of Du Fu's late style.'Climbing the Heights', with its 'endless falling leaves rustling down, the endless Yangtze rolling on' and 'ten thousand miles of autumn sorrow, a lifelong sick man always a guest, alone I climb the terrace in my hundred years of illness', is Du Fu's most concentrated autumn elegy; 'Song of the Ancient Cypress' spreads the same sorrow across twenty-four lines and an ancient tree. One compresses a life into a single climb, the other expands it into a landscape — both are the 'grave and halting' music of his late years.
杜甫《登高》「无边落木萧萧下，不尽长江滚滚来」「万里悲秋常作客，百年多病独登台」，写登高所见之秋景与身世之悲，是唐诗登高诗最著名者；《古柏行》则以「志士幽人莫怨嗟，古来材大难为用」写怀才不遇之慨。两诗同出杜甫之手、同写身世之悲：一以登高秋景写漂泊老病之悲、沉郁顿挫，一以古柏托物写材大难用之慨、托物抒怀；一即景、一咏物，皆沉郁顿挫，并读正可见「诗圣」于不同题材中一贯的忧愤与深沉。