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现代现代 · 诗 Poem

狱中题壁

Written on the Prison Wall

戴望舒

Dai Wangshu

如果我死在这里，朋友啊，不要悲伤，我会永远地生存在你们的心上。
你们之中的一个死了，在日本占领地的牢里，他怀着的深深仇恨，你们应该永远地记忆。
当你们回来，从泥土掘起他伤损的肢体，用你们胜利的欢呼把他的灵魂高高扬起，然后把他的白骨放在山峰，曝着太阳，沐着飘风：在那暗黑潮湿的土牢，这曾是他唯一的美梦。

If I die here —
O friends, do not grieve;
I will live for ever
in your hearts.
One of you has died
in a cell in the land occupied by the Japanese;
the deep hatred he carried —
that you must remember for ever.
When you come back, from the earth
dig up his wounded limbs,
and with your shout of victory
lift his soul on high,
and then place his white bones on the mountain peak,
to the sun's exposure, the wind's baptism:
that dark, damp earthen cell —
that was once his only dream.

Listen

Meaning

The poem is written by a poet in a Japanese prison, and it is written as a set of instructions for the living. If he dies there, he asks his friends not to weep because he will live in their memory. The death is then described in the third person, as though the poet were already outside it: one of you died in an occupied cell, carrying a hatred that must be remembered. On the day of victory the body should be dug up and the bones set on a summit to the sun and the wind — a cruel detail which inverts the cell it came from. The closing line is the poem's wound: that dark and damp place was once the prisoner's only dream.

如果我死在这里，朋友啊，不要悲伤，我会永远地生存在你们的心上。你们之中的一个死了，死在日本占领地的牢里，他怀着的深深仇恨，你们应该永远地记忆。当你们回来，从泥土掘起他伤损的肢体，用你们胜利的欢呼把他的灵魂高高扬起，然后把他的白骨放在山峰，曝着太阳，沐着飘风：在那暗黑潮湿的土牢，这曾是他唯一的美梦。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] The speaker faces the possibility of his own death and dictates what should be done with him. He begins with the condition (if I die here) and the consolation (do not grieve, because I survive in you); he then describes the death generically so that he can describe the treatment of the body; and he closes by making the cell the dream it replaced.
[Structure] The movement is from the hypothetical to the ritual. The first stanza is a conditional and a comfort; the second changes the person to third and lists the facts of the death; the third and longest is a sequence of imperatives — dig up, lift, place — which grow in ceremony until the closing couplet withdraws all of it back into the prison.
[Imagery] The poem's images are almost all physical: earth, limbs, bones, a peak, sun, wind, a cell. The two halves of the final stanza function as an antithesis without being announced — above, the bones exposed to sun and wind; below, the dark, damp cell — and the reader is expected to supply the moral comparison. Nothing is symbolic in the ordinary sense: the bones are not a victory emblem until the poem makes the cell, not the mountain, its point.

【白话串讲】戴望舒写《狱中题壁》：“如果我死在这里，朋友啊，不要悲伤”——“我会永远地生存在你们的心上”——“当你们回来，从泥土掘起他伤损的肢体”——他狱中题壁——我会永远地生存在你们的心上。【意象与手法】以“如果我死在这里”的假设起笔，坦然交代死后的遗愿——请朋友们不要悲伤，记住他的仇恨，并在胜利之日把他的白骨曝于太阳与飘风之中。以极冷静的笔调写极炽热的感情。【情感与主旨】戴望舒被日军逮捕入狱时题于狱壁之作，把个人的死亡嵌入民族抗战的胜利叙事之中，是抗战诗歌中兼具坚毅与柔情的不朽名篇。【名句点睛】常考“如果我死在这里，朋友啊，不要悲伤”写死之坦然；“我会永远地生存在你们的心上”写精神永存。

Background

Dai Wangshu (1905–1950) was born in Hangzhou and became the leading symbolist poet of modern China, known for 'the improviser of the rain lane'. He went south in 1938 and edited the supplements of the Hong Kong newspaper 'The Star Island Daily' in the service of the anti-Japanese cause. When Hong Kong fell in the winter of 1941, the Japanese seized numerous writers and editors, and Dai was arrested in the spring of 1942, imprisoned, and tortured without confessing. This poem was written in prison in April 1942 and scratched on the wall. He was released, later went to Beiping, and died in 1950.

此诗作于1942年4月，时戴望舒被日本宪兵逮捕、囚禁于香港监狱。戴望舒（1905—1950），浙江杭州人，现代著名诗人，中国现代象征派诗歌的代表，「雨巷诗人」。1938年他南下香港，主编《星岛日报》副刊，宣传抗日；1941年底香港沦陷，日军大肆搜捕抗日文化人，戴望舒于次年春被捕入狱，在狱中遭受严刑拷打而坚贞不屈。此诗即写于狱中，题于狱壁，是他在生死关头的心声。「如果我死在这里」的假设，不是对死亡的恐惧，而是对死亡的坦然预演；「你们之中的一个死了」「在日本占领地的牢里」，则以冷静的第三人称叙述自己的可能牺牲，仿佛一个旁观者在安排后事。全诗的核心，是把个人的死转化为民族记忆的一部分：「他怀着的深深仇恨，你们应该永远地记忆」，要求生者记住的不是他的死，而是他怀着的仇恨；「用你们胜利的欢呼，把他的灵魂高高扬起」，则把个人的死亡嵌入民族胜利的叙事之中，使牺牲获得意义。戴望舒出狱后，于1949年3月由香港奔赴北平，次年病逝。这首诗，连同他的《我用残损的手掌》，共同记录了一位中国诗人在民族最危难时刻的坚毅与深情。

Art

The poem's central device is the hypothetical, which turns death into a scenario that can be rehearsed and therefore survived. The second device is the change of person: 'one of you has died' puts the speaker outside his own death, and from that distance he can arrange his own funeral. Third, the poem is built almost entirely from verbs of handling — dig, lift, place, expose — so that the reader is given a ritual to perform rather than a feeling to sympathise with. The technique of running the lines over each other (enjambement) keeps the sentences flowing while the stanzas break, and the last stanza's rhythm turns from urgent to declarative and then collapses into the two short sentences of the close. Finally, the poem's restraint is its most calculated effect: no word of grief is allowed until the final line, which arrives like a blow after the ceremony is over.

此诗艺术上最突出的特点，是以「假设」与「转述」造成距离，于冷静的叙述中藏炽热的感情。全诗以「如果我死在这里」的假设开篇，把死亡从可怕的现实变为可以预演的未来，从而消解了死亡的恐惧；「朋友啊，不要悲伤」「我会永远地生存在你们的心上」，以温存的叮咛写死的超越——身死而精神长存，诗人以「存在」对抗「死亡」，一开始便奠定了全诗「虽死犹生」的基调。中段转入「你们之中的一个死了」的第三人称叙述，把自己称为「一个」，仿佛抽身局外，冷眼安排身后之事；「在日本占领地的牢里」「他怀着的深深仇恨」，点明牺牲的时间、地点与意义，措辞冷静而分量千钧。末段写胜利日的想象：「从泥土掘起他伤损的肢体」「用你们胜利的欢呼，把他的灵魂高高扬起」「把他的白骨放在山峰，曝着太阳，沐着飘风」，三个动作层层递进，由「掘起」到「扬起」再到「曝晒」，把白骨安置于山峰之上，让太阳与飘风为之洗礼，死亡的悲壮于此升华为永恒的庄严。结句「在那暗黑潮湿的土牢，这曾是他唯一的美梦」，忽然收回，把胜利日的辉煌与狱中的黑暗对照起来——原来这曝日沐风的愿景，正是狱中囚徒唯一的美梦，于回环之中写尽狱中生活的残酷与希望的执著。全诗叙事线索清晰，抒情克制深婉，把死亡、记忆、胜利三个层次熔铸于一个连贯的意象序列之中，是抗战诗歌中艺术成就最高的篇章之一。

Allusions

Though the poem is modern and contains not one borrowed phrase, it is thick with inherited forms. The image of white bones exposed to sun and wind descends from the song of the fallen in the Chu Elegies, where the warrior carries his sword and bows and keeps his heart unaltered though head and body part; and from the knight who gives his body to the realm's trouble and treats death as home. The ceremony of greeting a dead man with praise connects it to the older practice of summoning a soul back. 'Bear witness in the history books' belongs to the same family — the belief that a death acquires meaning only when it is remembered and recorded — and the dark cell with its single dream recalls the long Chinese tradition of the writer imprisoned who still watches for a brighter age.

此诗为现代新诗，不事雕琢，而古典的意象与精神传统自在其中。「白骨曝于山峰」的意象，遥接汉魏以来「国殇」的传统——屈原《九歌·国殇》「带长剑兮挟秦弓，首身离兮心不惩」写战死者的魂魄，曹植《白马篇》「捐躯赴国难，视死忽如归」写牺牲的自觉，皆是忠烈之士以身许国的先声；而「白骨」曝于山峰、沐于飘风，又暗合文天祥《正气歌》「哲人日已远，典型在夙昔」的仰止之心与「留取丹心照汗青」的传世之志。诗中「胜利的欢呼」「把灵魂高高扬起」，则带有一种近乎祭仪的神圣感，可通于《楚辞》招魂的传统——以颂扬与欢呼来安顿逝者的魂魄，使牺牲获得仪式性的崇高。「土牢」与「美梦」的对照，又暗含司马迁「文王拘而演《周易》」的牢狱奋起之志与历代志士「身在缧绁而心向光明」的精神。全诗虽不用一个古典典故，而「国殇」「招魂」「汗青」的深厚传统如暗流般涌动于字里行间，使这首现代诗在骨子里承接着中国士人以身许国、视死如归的千年血脉，这正是戴望舒作为「现代派」诗人而深植古典精神的体现。

Commentary

This is one of the most disciplined poems of the war years, and it is read as such. What strikes a reader now is the coldness: a prisoner facing execution writes instructions, keeps the pronouns straight, and refuses to say a word of mourning until the last line — and that refusal is precisely what gives the ending its force. The famous close, that the dark damp cell was once his only dream, inverts the whole ceremony: the exposure of the bones, the shout of victory, the mountain peak, were all only a prisoner's imagining. Dai Wangshu himself walked out of the prison; it is said of the poem that he left it on the wall, and whether or not that is true, the poem has kept the promise its speaker makes. With 'My Wounded Hand' it stands as the two great poems of his life in Occupied Hong Kong.

读此诗，最值得注意的是它的「冷静」。一个被关在日军牢狱中、随时可能被处决的诗人，写自己的死，竟写得这样从容：先假设「如果我死在这里」，再叮咛「朋友啊，不要悲伤」，接着安排后事——记住我的仇恨，在胜利之日把我的白骨曝于山峰。这里没有一句悲啼，没有一个哀字，甚至连「死」字都说得如此平静，仿佛在交代一桩寻常的心愿。然而正是这种冷静，比任何哀号都更有力量：它不是对生命的漠然，而是对生命意义的清醒把握——我的死不是结束，而是民族记忆的一部分；我的白骨不只是白骨，而是胜利之后应当曝于太阳之下的见证。诗中「在那暗黑潮湿的土牢，这曾是他唯一的美梦」一句，最是沉痛：原来那位曝日沐风的从容，那位胜利后的庄严安放，都不过是暗黑土牢里一个囚徒的「美梦」。以「美梦」二字写狱中人的全部希望，反衬出狱中生活的何等残酷，也见出诗人对光明何等深挚的渴念。戴望舒后来活着走出了监狱，但他在狱壁上写下的这首诗，却让他永远地活在了民族记忆里——不是作为受害者，而是作为一个「虽死犹生」的诗人，一个把个人之死献给民族之生的志士。

Prosody

Form Modern free verse (unrhymed lines of irregular length)现代自由诗（无韵散文式分行）

Rhyme There is no fixed rhyme; the poem's sound comes from the cadence of the lines and occasional assonances at the line-ends — grief/hearts, cell/remember, rise/bones, dream. These are incidental rather than systematic, which is appropriate given that the poem is a plainspoken testimony rather than a song.此诗为现代自由诗，不押严整韵脚，而以分行的节奏与句式的安排构成内在的韵律。全诗十六行，句式长短错落，句尾偶有「悲伤」「心上」「牢里」「记忆」「欢呼」「扬起」「飘风」「美梦」等字的自然协韵，形成一种疏淡的音韵感，正合戴望舒自由诗「以情绪的节奏代格律」的主张。整体音调由叮咛的温存，转入叙述的冷静，再升为想象的昂扬，复归于回味的沉郁，起伏有致而不失自然。

Tone pattern The tone passes through four registers: the tenderness of the opening request, the flatness of the report, the ceremonial rising of the middle, and the sudden collapse into the last two short sentences. The pitch of the final line drops below that of the whole poem.句式上，此诗以跨行的技巧营造绵延的语势：「我会永远地生存在/你们的心上」，把「生存在」与「你们的心上」分行断开，使「永远地生存在」悬在半空，再落到「你们的心上」，读来有一种绵延不绝的深情；「从泥土/掘起他伤损的肢体」，以跨行写掘起之姿，顿挫而有力；「把他的灵魂高高扬起，」句尾以逗号留下余韵，与「曝着太阳，沐着飘风」的并列短句相衔接，节奏由激昂转舒缓，如凯歌之后的静默。全诗以跨行与分句调节节奏，使冷静的叙述中暗涌着情感的热流，是自由诗中以形式驭情感的佳构。

Reading note This is a poem of the breath rather than of the stanza. Because it is written to be read aloud by people in a hurry — prisoners, friends — its lines are held open across the breaks, and the enjambement keeps the sentence flowing while the stanza stops. The reader should not look for pattern; the pattern is the argument, which moves from conditional, to report, to rite, to collapse. Only the last two sentences should be slow, and they should be spoken flatly: the poem's restrained voice is what makes them unbearable.作为现代自由诗，《狱中题壁》的声律之美，不在外在的格律，而在分行的呼吸与句式的顿挫。全诗十六行，可分为三个层次：前三行以「如果我死在这里」的假设与「不要悲伤」的叮咛开篇，声调温存；中五行转入「你们之中的一个死了」的叙述，声调冷静而沉重；后八行写胜利日的想象，由「掘起」「扬起」「曝着」「沐着」一路铺展，声调由顿挫转昂扬，最后以「这曾是他唯一的美梦」收回，声调复归沉郁。这种「温存—冷静—昂扬—沉郁」的声调变化，与情感的起伏严丝合缝，正是戴望舒自由诗「情绪的节奏」的体现。就全诗而言，此诗以最平实的语言写最沉重的牺牲，以最冷静的笔调写最炽热的感情，形式上的朴素与情感上的深沉相得益彰，是抗战诗歌中艺术与思想高度统一的杰作，也可见这位「雨巷诗人」在民族危难时刻脱胎换骨、由幽婉转向坚毅的诗风转变。

Line by line

你们之中的一个死了，

One of you has died,

你们之中的一个死了，死在日本占领地的牢里。

One of you has died—died in a prison of the Japanese occupation.

这一句是全诗由假设转入叙述的关键，也是诗人以第三人称写自己之死的奇笔。明明是写自己的死，却偏说「你们之中的一个」，把自己混入「你们」之中，仿佛一个旁观者在陈述一个别人的故事。这种「自我转述」的写法，产生了奇特的间离效果：它不是「我死了」的直接悲呼，而是「一个死了」的冷静陈述，把个人的死亡从切身之痛中抽离出来，纳入集体的、客观的视野之中。这样写，既消解了死亡的恐怖，也把个人的牺牲放入「你们」即民族群体的记忆框架里——我的死，是「你们之中」的一员之死，是民族整体的牺牲。一句之中，冷静与深情、个人与集体、死亡与记忆交织在一起，是此诗叙事艺术最精妙的一笔。

This line is the turning point from hypothesis to narration, and the remarkable stroke by which the poet writes his own death in the third person. Though it is his own death, he says 'one of you,' merging himself into 'you,' as though a bystander told another's story. This 'self-reporting' produces a strange distancing effect: not the direct cry of 'I am dead' but the calm statement 'one has died,' lifting personal death out of its immediate pain into a collective, objective frame. It at once dissolves the terror of death and places the individual sacrifice within the memory of 'you,' the nation—my death is the death of one among 'you,' the sacrifice of the whole people. Within one line, calm and deep feeling, individual and collective, death and memory are interwoven, the subtlest stroke of the poem's narrative art.

用你们胜利的欢呼

with your shout of victory

用你们胜利的欢呼，把他的灵魂高高扬起。

With your shouts of victory, lift his soul on high.

「用你们胜利的欢呼，把他的灵魂高高扬起」这一行，是全诗情感的高潮，也是诗人对未来胜利的坚定信念。「胜利的欢呼」是生者的凯歌，「把他的灵魂高高扬起」则是死者的归宿——在胜利的欢呼声中，他的灵魂得以升扬，仿佛从土牢里挣脱出来，直上云霄。这里没有「报仇雪恨」的怨毒，也没有「慷慨赴死」的呼号，而是一种近乎神圣的安顿：个人的牺牲，只有在民族胜利的凯歌中才获得最终的意义。「高高扬起」四字，把灵魂的升腾写得具体可感，与后文「白骨放在山峰，曝着太阳，沐着飘风」相呼应，构成一个由土牢到山峰、由黑暗到光明的上升意象序列。以此写牺牲，既有悲壮的庄严，又有对胜利的笃定，是抗战诗歌中少见的高昂而不失深沉的笔触。

'With your shouts of victory, lift his soul on high' is the emotional crest of the poem and the poet's unshakable faith in coming victory. 'Shouts of victory' are the living paean; 'lift his soul on high' is the dead man's rest—in the cheers of victory his soul rises, as if freed from the earthen prison, straight up to the clouds. There is no venom of 'revenge' here, no call of 'dying gladly,' but a near-sacred settling: the individual sacrifice finds its final meaning only in the nation's triumphant song. The four words 'on high' make the soul's ascent concrete, echoing the later 'lay his white bones on the mountain peak, exposed to the sun, bathed in the drifting wind,' forming a rising image sequence from earthen prison to mountain peak, from darkness to light. Writing sacrifice thus, it holds at once tragic solemnity and certainty of victory, a high yet deep brush rare in anti-Japanese verse.

这曾是他唯一的美梦。

that was once his only dream.

在那暗黑潮湿的土牢里，这曾经是他唯一的美梦。

In that dark, damp earthen prison, this was once his only beautiful dream.

结句是全诗最沉痛也最深刻的一笔，把胜利日的辉煌与狱中的黑暗猛然并置。前面写「把他的白骨放在山峰，曝着太阳，沐着飘风」，何等庄严、何等光明；结句却忽然收回，「在那暗黑潮湿的土牢，这曾是他唯一的美梦」——原来那曝日沐风的从容归宿，那胜利后的庄严安放，都只是暗黑土牢里一个囚徒的「美梦」。一个「唯一」，写尽狱中生活之惨酷：在这暗无天日的牢里，他什么都不奢求，只求有一天自己的白骨能被曝于太阳之下；一个「美梦」，反衬出希望之渺茫、现实之残酷，也见出诗人对光明与尊严的渴念之深。以「美梦」收束全诗，把前面的庄严尽数染上悲凉，又于悲凉中透出希望的执著，余韵绵长，令人久久不能平静。

The closing line is the poem's most sorrowful and profound stroke, setting the splendor of victory's day against the darkness of the prison with a sudden jolt. The foregoing wrote 'lay his white bones on the peak, exposed to the sun, bathed in the wind'—how solemn, how luminous; the close pulls back, 'in that dark damp earthen prison, this was his only beautiful dream'—so that the sunny resting place, the solemn burial after victory, were all but a 'beautiful dream' of a prisoner in the dark cell. The single word 'only' exhausts the cruelty of prison life: in this lightless cell he asked nothing, only that one day his bones might lie exposed to the sun; the word 'beautiful dream' sets off the remoteness of hope and the cruelty of reality, and shows how deep the poet's longing for light and dignity. Closing on 'beautiful dream' dyes all the foregoing solemnity with pathos, yet through the pathos lets the persistence of hope shine, the echo long, leaving the reader long unsettled.

Study

Word focus

记忆 Ji yi, to remember or to keep in memory, is what the poem asks of the living. It is not simple mourning but a demand with a content: the dead man had to be remembered not for who he was but for what he held — the hatred. The verb makes memory an obligation rather than a feeling, and it is the only thing the poem asks as its price. 「他怀着的深深仇恨，你们应该永远地记忆」之「记忆」，在此诗中由名词转为动词，用作「记住」之意，是本诗的一个关键词。诗人不求生者记住他的死，而求他们记住他「怀着的深深仇恨」——仇恨不是狭隘的报复，而是民族受辱的记忆，是清醒的警醒。以「永远地记忆」代替「永远地记住」，语感更为庄重，仿佛把记住这件事上升为一种郑重的承诺与责任。「深深仇恨」与「永远记忆」相配，正见诗人的深意：个人的死可以过去，但民族的仇恨与记忆必须留存，唯其如此，牺牲才不白费，历史才不被遗忘。此词的运用，使全诗的牺牲主题由个人的悲壮升华为民族的自觉，是理解此诗思想核心的钥匙。

伤损 Shang sun, wounded and broken, describes the body that is to be dug out of the earth. The word keeps the cruelty of the war in the poem even while the ceremony around it is ceremonial; the limbs are not emblematic but literally injured, and that ordinary fact is what ties the mountain-top rites back to the cell. 「从泥土掘起他伤损的肢体」之「伤损」，写牺牲者肢体之残缺，措辞冷静而见分量。不用「残缺」「伤残」等更具刺激性的字眼，而用「伤损」，一者符合泥土中掘出的实况，二者见出诗人叙述时的克制——他不渲染刑讯之惨、牺牲之烈，只以「伤损」二字轻轻带过，仿佛不忍多言。然而正是这种克制，比任何渲染都更令人震动：读者自会想到，那「伤损的肢体」背后，是怎样残酷的拷问与不屈的坚守。「伤损」二字，既是对肉体的如实描述，也是对精神坚贞的无声反衬——肢体虽伤损，灵魂却要在胜利的欢呼中高高扬起，一伤一扬，恰成对照，是此诗炼字精微而含蕴深广的佳例。

美梦 Mei meng, a beautiful dream, is the word of the closing line and the poem's whole irony in two syllables. It was the best thing a prisoner could imagine — sun, wind, a high place — and by applying it to the dark cell the poem shows how little else the prison permitted. It is also the only word of grief in a poem that has otherwise forbidden grief. 「这曾是他唯一的美梦」之「美梦」，是全诗情感落点的关键词，用得极妙。狱中囚徒，本不该有「梦」，更不该有「美梦」，诗人却偏说那曝日沐风、白骨升峰的归宿，是他「唯一的美梦」——以「美梦」二字，把胜利日的庄严想象说成一个囚徒心底最温柔的愿望，愈见其处境之惨、希望之微。一个「唯一」，写尽希望的贫乏：在这暗黑潮湿的土牢里，他什么也不求，只求这一点身后之事；而恰恰是这「唯一」的、渺茫的美梦，支撑着他熬过漫漫囚夜。以「美梦」写死亡与牺牲，把悲壮与温情、残酷与希望熔于一炉，是此诗炼意最深刻的一笔，令人读之而久久低回。