19. With My Cousin at the South Study, Enjoying the Moon and Remembering Magistrate Cui of Shanyin | Wang Changling
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
高卧南斋时，开帷月初吐。
English translation
Lying at ease in the south study, he draws back the curtain as the moon first comes out.
The moon is only showing itself, not yet high. The verb for spitting or giving forth turns it into something slowly letting its light out.
Original Chinese text
清辉澹水木，演漾在窗户。
English translation
Its clear light moves slowly over water and trees, and ripples into the window.
Neither line describes the moon's shape, only what it falls on and how it moves. One word is the slow drift of water, the other a swaying; both are motion.
Original Chinese text
苒苒几盈虚，澄澄变今古。
English translation
Slowly the moons have come and gone, waxing and waning; clear and steady, its light has seen the ancient and the present change.
The two lines before were still on this one night; these two pull the scale out to "ancient and present". He does not say what happened to the people, only that the moon has watched it.
Original Chinese text
美人清江畔，是夜越吟苦。
English translation
The one I long for is by the clear river; on this same night he must be singing the songs of Yue with great effort.
"On this same night" lays the two places on one night: here I watch the moon, there he sings in distress, two moods under one moon.
Original Chinese text
千里共如何，微风吹兰杜。
English translation
A thousand li apart — what does sharing it come to? The breeze blows over the orchids and the pollia.
The question gets no answer, only wind moving through fragrant plants. The plants stand for Cui's character, and scent travelling on the wind says his name travels on its own.
赏析 · Commentary
从一夜拉到古今 · From One Night to All of Time
前两联都在这一夜。第三联忽然用「几盈虚」把月亮的圆缺累积起来，用「变今古」把时间撑到最大。王昌龄没有写任何一件具体的事，只说这轮月亮看过来了。这样一来，第四联的思念就不再是今晚才有的情绪，而是被放进了一条很长的线里。写朋友在千里之外的同一个夜里苦吟，落的仍是这一轮照过古今的月。
The first two couplets stay inside one night. The third suddenly accumulates waxing and waning moons, then stretches time to its widest with "ancient and present". Wang Changling names no particular event; he says only that this moon has watched it all. The longing of the fourth couplet is thereby not a mood that began tonight but something placed on a very long line. The friend is imagined singing in hardship a thousand li away on that same night, still under this one moon that has seen all ages.
「澹」和「演漾」 · "Drift" and "Ripple"
第二联写月光，只有两个动作词。「澹」是水缓缓地流，「演漾」是水波摇荡，都不描述月亮本身，而描述月亮经过水面和树梢时留下的痕迹。月光落在树上，树不动；落在水上，水在动。两句合起来，静的和动的都在发亮。王昌龄把月亮写成一个走过所有东西的东西，而不是一个挂在天上的圆。
The second couplet writes moonlight through two verbs. One is water moving slowly, the other ripples swaying; neither describes the moon, both describe the trace it leaves as it passes over water and treetops. Fallen on trees it meets stillness, fallen on water it meets movement. Together the two lines leave both the still and the moving shining. Wang Changling makes the moon something that walks over everything rather than a disc hung in the sky.
问句后面只给一阵风 · A Question Answered by Wind
末联先问「千里共如何」，紧接着并不回答，只写微风吹过兰草和杜若。兰、杜是香草，从屈原起就用来比人的德行，这里比崔少府。香气不用人送，风一起就散得到处都是，等于说他的名声也这样传。这一句既接住了前面两地的距离，也把思念从「我难受」转到「你好不好」，全诗收在一个往对方身上去的念头上。
The last couplet asks first what sharing the moon across a thousand li comes to, and then does not answer — it only shows a breeze moving through orchids and pollia. Fragrant plants have stood for moral quality since Qu Yuan, and here they stand for Cui. Scent needs no one to carry it; once the wind rises it is everywhere, which says his name spreads the same way. The line takes in both the distance set up before and turns the longing from "I suffer" toward "how are you", ending the poem on a thought aimed at the other man.