11. Seeing Qi Wuqian Home After He Failed the Examination | Wang Wei

前四句讲的是一个道理：时代圣明，所以连隐士都出山了。这套说法本身是场面话，王维拿它做开头，是因为它把落第的责任从綦毋潜身上挪开了。如果人人都来归，那没考中就不是一个能力问题，是一次选拔的结果。这个开头看着是颂圣，作用在为后面的安慰铺路——到「孰云吾道非」时，他已经有理由说：不是你的道不对。

The first four lines argue one thing: the age is sage, so even hermits have come out of the hills. The claim itself is formulaic, and Wang Wei uses it as an opening because it moves the blame off Qi Wuqian. If everyone of talent has come in, then failing is not a matter of ability — it is the outcome of one selection. The opening reads as praise of the age; what it does is prepare the consolation, so that by the time he reaches 'who will say my way is wrong' he has grounds for saying the way was not wrong.

「江淮度寒食，京洛缝春衣」是全诗唯一交代时间的地方。来的时候过寒食，回去的时候缝春衣，两个节令之间隔着一整个春天。王维没有写綦毋潜在京城待了多久、怎么落第、心情如何。他只给了两个时间点，路程的长和等待的久都从这两个词之间出来。这样写也避开了最难写的部分——落第那几天的具体情形，他一句没碰。

This is the only place in the poem where time is given. Cold Food on the way in, spring clothes being sewn on the way back: a whole spring lies between the two markers. Wang Wei does not say how long Qi Wuqian stayed in the capital, how the failure happened, or what it felt like. Two points in time are all he supplies, and the length of the journey and the wait come out of the gap between them. It also avoids the hardest thing to write — the days around the failure itself are left untouched.

送别诗多半叮嘱路上小心，或者约下次见面。王维这里算的是日子：「行当浮桂棹，未几拂荆扉」——坐船走，很快就能推开家门。这个角度把注意力从「离开」挪到「到家」。跟着的「远树带行客，孤村当落晖」是站在路边看人走远的样子，两句写完，话题已经到了綦毋潜那边，不再留在送别的现场。

Farewell poems usually warn about the road or arrange the next meeting. What Wang Wei calculates is the date of arrival: the boat leaves, and before long the gate at home is pushed open. The angle shifts attention from leaving to arriving. The couplet that follows — trees drawing the traveller off, a lone village against the sunset — is the view from the roadside, and once it is written the poem has already moved to Qi Wuqian's side of the journey rather than staying at the place of parting.

结尾「吾谋适不用，勿谓知音稀」，力量全在「适」字上。不用是「恰好没被采用」，不是「不好」。王维把落第定性成一次偶然，然后把安慰停在这里：不录用你不代表没人懂你。他没有说下一次一定能中，也没有说朝廷有眼无珠。两句都很克制，因为说满了就假——綦毋潜刚落第，任何乐观的预言都接不住。

The force of the closing couplet sits in one word. The counsel was 'simply' not taken — not rejected because it was bad. Wang Wei defines the failure as contingency and stops the consolation there: not being hired does not mean no one understands you. He does not promise success next time and does not accuse the court of blindness. Both lines stay restrained, because anything stronger would ring false — Qi Wuqian has just failed, and no optimistic forecast would survive contact with that.