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9. Dreaming of Li Bai, No. 1 | Du Fu

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English translation

In death, parting has already swallowed its sound; in life, parting keeps on aching.

The opening puts the two kinds of parting side by side. The pain of death comes once and is finished; the pain of separation while both are alive goes on. When Du Fu wrote this, Li Bai had been imprisoned over the Prince Yong affair and sent to Yelang, with no word of whether he was alive — so which kind of parting this was, he did not know.

Jiangnan is a land of miasma and fever; from the exiled man there is no news.

Only geography and fact: that country kills easily, and no letter comes. The two together are the whole of the worry, and not one word of it says worry.

The old friend came into my dream; he knows how long I have remembered him.

The word rendered 'knows' is the one that does the work. Du Fu does not say he missed Li Bai badly enough to dream of him. He says Li Bai knew, and came — the choice to appear belongs to Li Bai.

And then the fear: this may not be the soul he wore in life — the road is too long to measure.

The recognition lasts less than a couplet before he takes it back. Du Fu raises the doubt himself: perhaps what came is the soul of a man already dead somewhere on that road.

The soul came while the maples were still green; it went back with the passes dark.

The couplet gives nothing but colour — green on arrival, black on return. Distance and danger ride entirely on those two words. How the road goes is never described.

You are caught in the net now — how did you come by wings?

One question breaks the dream open: by the ordinary rules he could not have come. Du Fu wants to believe the dream and, on the evidence, cancels it. Nothing in the poem reconciles the two.

The setting moon floods the roof beam; even now I half think it lights his face.

He is awake, and the seeing has not stopped: moonlight on a beam is taken for Li Bai's face. The word carries hesitation — he half thinks it, he does not conclude it.

The water is deep and the swell is wide — do not let the dragons have you.

The close is an instruction addressed to a man who may no longer exist. Du Fu writes no prayer. He writes worry about that river route, because if Li Bai is alive, it is the road he has to take.

赏析 · Commentary

只给地理，不给情绪 · Geography Instead of Feeling

第二联「江南瘴疠地，逐客无消息」是这首诗的支点。两个数得出来的事实摆在一起：那边是瘴疠之地，这边没有音信。杜甫没有写他怎么等信、怎么睡不着，也没有用「担忧」「惊心」这类词。读者自己会把这两句加起来。这样写的好处是，后面梦里那些翻来覆去的怀疑——来了的是不是魂、在罗网里怎么会有翅膀——都有了个根：怀疑是从「无消息」三个字里长出来的，不是凭空的情绪。

The second couplet is the pivot of the poem. Two countable facts are set together: the place has miasma, and there is no news. Du Fu does not write about waiting for letters or lying awake, and he uses no word for dread. The reader adds the two lines up alone. It matters because everything that follows in the dream — is this a soul, how could a man in a net have wings — grows out of those three words 'no news'. The doubting is grounded, not decorative.

认出来，又自己推翻 · Recognised, Then Withdrawn

「故人入我梦」到「何以有羽翼」四联，是一次反复。第三联认下老友，第四联立刻说恐怕不是生魂；第五联写魂来魂返的颜色，第六联又问罗网里的人哪来的翅膀。杜甫没有让梦做成一个完整的安慰，他让梦每一联都被事实打断一次。这和他在别处的写法不一样——多数人写梦，梦是完整的；这里梦是边做边被自己检查的。

From 'the old friend came into my dream' to 'how did you come by wings', four couplets go round once. The man is recognised, then immediately doubted; the colours of his coming and going are given, then the question about the net is asked. Du Fu never lets the dream become a finished consolation — it is interrupted by fact at every couplet. Most poets who write dreams write whole ones. This one is examined while it is being had.

屋梁上的月光 · Moonlight on the Roof Beam

「落月满屋梁，犹疑照颜色」写的是醒后。月光落在屋梁上，他看着像李白的脸。这里的关键是「犹疑」：不是认定月光就是故人，是迟疑地那么看了一眼。前六联一直在梦和醒之间翻，到第七联人已经醒了，眼睛还没醒。全诗从这里开始往回收，最后一联的叮嘱就接在这个还没醒过来的视觉上。

The seventh couplet is after waking. Moonlight lies across the roof beam and he sees Li Bai's face in it. What matters is the hesitation in the line: he does not decide the light is his friend, he half sees it that way. Six couplets have moved between dreaming and waking; here the man is awake and the eyes are not. The poem begins to gather in at this point, and the instruction of the last couplet attaches to that still-sleeping sight.

叮嘱一句 · One Instruction

「水深波浪阔，无使蛟龙得」是全诗的落脚处。杜甫没有为李白祈求平安，也没有说等他回来。他给的是一句路上的提醒——水深海阔，小心蛟龙。这句话有个前提：李白还得走那条水路。也就是说，写了八联的生死未卜，到最后杜甫按「还活着」来叮嘱他。这个选择比任何感叹都具体：他没有在两种可能之间犹豫，他选了活着的那一种。

The last couplet is where the poem lands. Du Fu does not pray for Li Bai's safety and does not say he is waiting for him. What he gives is a warning about the road: deep water, wide swell, watch the dragons. That warning has a premise — Li Bai still has that journey to make. After eight couplets of not knowing whether the man is alive, Du Fu addresses him as though he is. The choice is more concrete than any lament would have been: he does not hover between the two possibilities, he picks the one where Li Bai is living.

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