15. On Xi Shi | Wang Wei

前三联只说一件事。第一联把现成的道理摆出来：天下人重色，像西施这样的人不会久居贫贱。第二联立刻给例证，早上浣纱晚上做妃，中间没有一句过渡。第三联是这条道理的两面——贫贱时看不出她哪里不同，显贵后都说她稀有。三句连起来，人的样子从头到尾没变，变的是别人给她的估价。王维始终没对西施本人下过一句判语。

The first three couplets say one thing. The opening sets out a rule already in circulation — the world prizes beauty, so someone like Xi Shi will not stay low for long. The second couplet supplies the proof at once: washing silk at dawn, a consort by evening, with not a line of transition between. The third works both sides of the rule, where the low days show nothing special and the high days show something rare. Across the three, she is the same person throughout; what changes is the value others put on her. Wang Wei never once passes judgement on Xi Shi herself.

第四、五联转到她身边。第四联两个动作都是让别人来做，叫宫女搽粉，罗衣也不自己穿。第五联写君王：宠得越深，她的姿态越娇；怜得越深，对错就越没人提。「无是非」不是她分不清，是这一屋子的宠爱把对错这个尺度挤了出去。前面写别人怎么看她，到这里写她怎么被对待。宠爱在这里不是一种感情，是一件把整个人裹起来的东西。

The fourth and fifth couplets move to her surroundings. Both actions in the fourth are done by someone else: a maid applies the powder, and the silk robe is not put on by her own hand. The fifth couplet turns to the king — the deeper the doting, the more coquettish she becomes, and the deeper the indulgence, the less anyone mentions right or wrong. She is not the one who has lost the distinction; the favour filling the room has pushed it out. The earlier lines were about how she is seen, these about how she is treated. Favour here is not a feeling but something that wraps a person up.

第六联忽然调转视线，回到溪边：当年一起浣纱的同伴，没有一个能和她同车回去。这一笔把两种处境摆到同一条路上——过去同路，现在不同车。末联借这个落差把话转向邻家女子：学她皱眉，能指望什么。「效颦」用的是东施的旧事。收在这里，等于说这样的际遇不是学来的，学也学不成。全诗讲的是「重色」，最后一句却落在旁人身上，被议论的那一个从头到尾没有出来说话。

The sixth couplet turns the gaze back to the creek: none of the girls she washed silk with can ride home in the same carriage now. The line sets two conditions on one road — once they went the same way, now not the same carriage. The closing couplet uses that gap to address the girl next door: to copy her frown, what could that win? The frown is the old story of Dongshi. Ending there amounts to saying an outcome like this is neither learned nor learnable. The poem is about the world's love of beauty, and its last line falls on a bystander; the woman it has been discussing never speaks.