ChineseStudy

Mi Shen Yin (Liu Yong)

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English translation

A single small boat, its light sail furled, has moored for a while on the south bank of the Chu river. From the lonely town comes the evening horn, drawing out the reed pipe’s grievance. The water stretches vast; geese settle on the flat sand, then start and scatter. Mist withdraws, the cold woods gather into a cluster and open like a painted screen; at the horizon the far hills are small, a pale stroke like a lightly traced brow.

What I once enjoyed I let go lightly; only on arriving here has it become the travel of an official far from home. I feel the weariness of the road, and the year’s light is late. The scenery of a strange country — how is one to bear its desolation, when it meets a sorrowful eye? The capital is distant, the Qin tower is blocked, and the traveler’s soul is in disorder. Fragrant grass runs out to the empty breadth; the last sunlight fills the view. Of the fair one there is no word, only a broken cloud drifting far away.

赏析 · Commentary

画屏展，黛眉浅 · A Screen Unfolds, a Brow Is Traced

上片开头六句，视线还在船边和江面上：帆卷、暂泊、暮角、胡笳、茫茫江水、惊散的雁。到“烟敛寒林簇，画屏展”，雾气退去，对岸的树林忽然有了一幅屏风的边框；这“画屏”不是实有的器物，是观看者替风景加上的框。“天际遥山小，黛眉浅”再把距离推远一层：山退到天边，只剩下小和浅，浅到像用黛轻描过的一笔。由船边到对岸，再到天际，尺度一路缩小，最后落在一条眉形的线上；这条线是山，不是佳人出场。

The first six lines keep the eye on the boat and the water: the sail is furled, the mooring is temporary, a horn sounds from the lonely town, a reed pipe answers, the water opens out, and geese rise startled from the sand. Only with “mist withdraws, the cold woods gather into a cluster, a painted screen unfolds” does the far bank acquire a frame. That screen is not an object in the landscape; it is the frame the watcher supplies. The next line pushes the distance further: at the horizon the hills are “small,” and their colour is “a pale brow,” as faint as a single stroke of dark pigment. From the side of the boat to the far bank to the edge of the sky, the scale contracts until everything rests on one brow-shaped line. The line is a mountain range, not a woman entering the poem.

旧赏轻抛，到此成游宦 · What Is Cast Away

上片只写景，下片第一句才出现“旧赏轻抛”。四个字里没有说明抛下的是什么：可能是旧日的游赏之地，也可能是旧日的生活与人。接着“到此成游宦”才给这趟行程定性——为官而漂泊在外；“觉客程劳，年光晚”把疲惫分成两层：路走得太久，一年也到了尽头。这里的“年光晚”是时节与光阴，不是年龄，词中没有可供推算岁数的线索。“异乡风物，忍萧索，当愁眼”把风景翻成负担：景物本身没有变，变的是看它的眼睛。

The first stanza is almost entirely scenery; “what I once enjoyed, lightly cast away” arrives only at the start of the second. The four characters do not say what was cast away — perhaps places once visited for pleasure, perhaps a former life and the people in it. “Only on arriving here has it become the travel of an official far from home” then names the journey: service that keeps a man away from home. “I feel the weariness of the road, and the year’s light is late” divides the fatigue in two — the road has gone on too long, and the year has reached its end. Nián guāng wǎn (年光晚) belongs to the season and to time, not to age; nothing in the line lets a reader calculate how old the speaker is. “The scenery of a strange country — how is one to bear its desolation, when it meets a sorrowful eye?” turns landscape into weight: the view has not changed, only the eye that receives it.

帝城赊，秦楼阻 · Distance Turned Inward

“帝城赊，秦楼阻，旅魂乱”三句连着读，位置一层层收进来：帝都只是远，“赊”是距离上的远，不是亏欠；秦楼是阻，隔断而不能到；到“旅魂乱”，外面已经没有可指的地方，只剩心绪。“秦楼”一语带典故，既可指弄玉萧史的凤楼，也可接乐府“秦氏楼”一路，词里没有说明是哪一处，不能据此认定某座楼、某个人。前面“芳草连空阔，残照满”把视野重新铺开，“佳人无消息”给出空阔的原因，“断云远”以一片飘远的云收住。上片的雁是惊散的，这里没有一字说雁传书，消息就是没有来。

Read the three clauses together and the position folds inward. The capital is only far: in dì chéng shē (帝城赊) the word shē (赊) measures distance, not a debt owed. The Qin tower is blocked, so it cannot be reached; by “the traveler’s soul is in disorder” there is no place outside to point to any more, only a state of mind. Qín lóu (秦楼) carries allusion — the phoenix tower of Nong Yu and Xiao Shi, or the “Qin family’s tower” of the old yuefu — and the poem does not say which, so it will not support a claim about one building or one woman. Before this, “fragrant grass runs out to the empty breadth, the last sunlight fills the view” reopens the horizon; “of the fair one there is no word” explains the emptiness, and “a broken cloud far away” closes on something small and drifting. The geese in the first stanza scattered in alarm; nothing here says they carried a letter, and no word has come.

Sources and editorial notes

  1. This note covers Qín lóu (秦楼) in the second stanza. The phrase cannot be fixed to one real place. The Ministry of Education’s Revised Dictionary of the National Language gives two paths for 秦楼: the phoenix tower where Nong Yu, daughter of Duke Mu of Qin, and Xiao Shi played the flute, and a general name for performance venues or courtesan quarters. The “Qin family’s tower” in the “Mo Shang Sang” of Yutai Xinyong, volume one, offers a further poetic instance. The poem says only that the tower is blocked and never identifies it, so this page reads it as separation from a woman and a former life, without settling on one allusion, one building or one person.

    Source: Ministry of Education, Revised Dictionary of the National Language, entry “秦楼”

  2. This note covers yóu huàn (游宦) in “only on arriving here has it become the travel of an official far from home,” and nián guāng wǎn (年光晚) in “I feel the weariness of the road, and the year’s light is late.” Yóu huàn means holding office while drifting far from home, not travel in general; nián guāng wǎn means the year is drawing to its end, and can also mean that time has grown late. The poem gives no age, no particular stage of an official career and no date of composition, so nothing here supports a calculation of how old Liu Yong was or a year in which he wrote the piece. Much about Liu Yong’s career and the dating of some of his works remains uncertain (Wenxue Pinglun, 2020, no. 4, discussion at p. 137); this page draws no dating inference and does not read nián guāng wǎn as the author saying he is old.

    Source: Wenxue Pinglun (文学评论), 2020, no. 4, article on Liu Yong’s ci and capital literary discourse, p. 137

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