ChineseStudy

23. Climbing the Pagoda of Ci'en Temple with Gao Shi and Xue Ju | Cen Shen

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English translation

The pagoda's force seems to well up out of the ground, rising alone and straight into the sky palace.

The verb for welling up is the spine of the couplet. A pagoda is brick and stone, a dead thing; with that verb it acquires the motion of something growing upward.

Climbing it is leaving the world; the stone steps coil in empty space.

One line is the departure from the ground, the other the absence of anything solid underfoot. Neither is about altitude; both are about what the body feels on the way up.

Rising sheer, it bears down on the realm; so jagged and tall it looks like no human work.

The verb for pressing turns it into something with weight, and "ghost work" is the old phrase for a craft beyond human reach.

Its four corners block the white sun; its seven storeys graze the sky.

Both verbs are about contact. Blocking the sun speaks of light, grazing the sky speaks of height, one to each line.

Looking down, he can point at birds on the wing; bending his head, he hears the startled wind.

The two verbs reverse high and low: birds belong up in the air, yet seen from the pagoda they are below.

The linked mountains are like waves, all running and crowding toward the east.

These two lines stop writing the pagoda. Mountains stand still; with that verb for crowding they start moving, all of them heading one way as the pagoda does.

Green locust trees line the broad avenue; the palaces and halls are so finely made.

One verb puts the trees on either side of the road, the other describes smallness. After all the great heights before, these two lines come down to small things close at hand.

Autumn colour comes from the west and fills the whole plain of Guanzhong with grey.

The verb for coming makes autumn something that walks in from outside, and one line carries the view out to the whole region.

On the northern plain lie the Five Tombs, green and dim through all ages.

The Five Tombs are the graves of Han emperors. The line does not write desolation, only a green dimness, leaving the weight of time on a colour.

The doctrine of purity can indeed be fully grasped; the good karma it springs from is what I have long honoured.

Here the character for "fully" carries its old sense of completeness. Eleven couplets of scenery close at this point and a person begins to speak.

I vow to hang up my official cap and go; the way of awakening is a resource without end.

Hanging up the cap is the old phrase for resigning. What he saw from the pagoda was the whole region, and the poem closes on something small and physical: taking off a hat.

赏析 · Commentary

一个「涌」字带着全诗往上走 · One Verb Starts the Climb

开头不写塔有多高，写它像正在往上涌。「涌」是从地里往外冒的意思，用它说一座砖塔，塔就有了活的动势。后面所有的句子都在兑现这个字：石阶盘在空里、塔身压着神州、四角挡住太阳，一路往上加。岑参没有给塔一个静态的形容，他给的是一段持续的过程，读者跟着这个字从地面走到第七层。

The poem does not start with how tall the pagoda is but with how it seems to be welling upward. The verb describes something forcing its way out of the ground, and applied to a brick tower it gives the structure living motion. Every line after pays the verb off: steps coiling in space, the body pressing the realm, corners blocking the sun, height added all the way. Cen Shen gives the pagoda no static description, only a process still going on, and the reader climbs with it from the ground to the seventh storey.

从上往下看的那两联 · Looking Down, Twice

第五联把上下关系翻过来写：鸟本来在人的头顶，从塔上看却在下面，只能用手去指。第六联看的更远，山连成一片，像水一样朝东奔。前面四联的力气都花在往上写，这两联换了方向，一句一句往下沉。岑参不写自己怕高，也不写心情，只写他看见什么、听见什么，高度就成了可以量的东西。

The fifth couplet turns above and below around: birds belong over a man's head, yet from the pagoda they are underneath, to be pointed at with a finger. The sixth looks further still, where the mountains run together like water moving east. Four couplets spent their force going up; these two change direction and sink line by line. Cen Shen writes neither fear of heights nor any mood, only what is seen and heard, and height becomes something measurable.

视线扩到关中，然后人转身 · The View Opens to the Region, Then Turns Inward

从「秋色从西来」起，景的尺度突然放大：一句满关中，一句万古。「万古青蒙蒙」把五陵写成一片颜色，时间在里面，人在外面。写完这个，诗立刻转回人身上，第十联说佛理可以全悟，末联说要挂冠而去。登高看到的越大，收尾的决定就越小——小到只是摘下帽子。这一大一小的落差，是这首诗收束的方式。

From the line about autumn coming from the west, the scale jumps: one line fills Guanzhong, the next covers all ages. The Five Tombs become a colour with time inside it and the man outside. As soon as that is written the poem turns back to the person: the tenth couplet says the doctrine can be fully grasped, the last vows to hang up the official cap. The larger the view from the top, the smaller the decision at the end — small enough to be taking off a hat. That drop in scale is how the poem closes.

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