ChineseStudy

31. Seeing Off the Daughter Who Is to Marry into the Yang Family | Wei Yingwu

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English translation

All day I have been grieving; once she leaves the gate the road runs on and on.

The first doubled word is in the heart, the second on the road. One inside, one outside, and the two lines have the whole day.

The girl is to go today; a light boat heads upriver against the great river.

"To go" is the old ceremonial phrase for a daughter marrying out. Going against the current says the journey is upstream and far.

You children have no mother to rely on, and so my care for you has been gentler.

Having no one to rely on is the old phrase for a mother's death. One line gives the household's situation and the reason he finds this harder to let go.

The little one was raised by the elder; the two now part and cry without stopping.

The two who part are sisters, not father and daughter. The poet hands the scene to the two girls and steps back himself.

At this my heart knots up; but by what is right she must go, and cannot be kept.

One word is a knot tied in the middle; the other says that by obligation she has to go. Feeling and duty are held apart here.

She has lacked a mother's teaching since small, and serving her mother-in-law may leave me anxious.

The missing instruction is put as a gap in upbringing. What the father worries about is exactly what he could not supply.

Fortunately she goes to a good house; if they are kind, perhaps nothing will go wrong.

One word means luckily, the other is a hope. Both keep the sentence conditional; nothing is taken for granted.

Poverty and thrift are what I truly value; but a dowry cannot wait to be complete.

The first half states the household's principles, the second admits what it cannot afford. One line argues, the other concedes.

Be filial and respectful and keep a wife's way; let your bearing follow the household's plans.

Both lines are injunctions, all of them conventional, with no personal wish in them. This is as far as a father's teaching reaches.

The parting is this morning; when I see you again, which autumn will it be?

He does not say which year but which autumn, pushing the reunion onto a season, vaguer even than a date.

In idle hours I could always settle myself; at the moment itself it suddenly runs away from me.

One adverb is the usual remedy, the other its sudden failure. The technique that worked in quiet hours is no use at all when the thing is happening.

Coming back I look at the little daughter, and tears run down along my cap strings.

Only the last line writes his own tears. He is looking at the younger girl and crying for the one who just left, and the pen lands on one particular child.

赏析 · Commentary

「无恃」这两个字垫在底下 · Two Characters Holding Up the Poem

第三联才交代家里没有母亲。韦应物把它放在出嫁的叙述中间，不哭诉，只陈述。可有了这一句，前后就都变了：父亲要操办的是母亲该操办的事，父亲的叮嘱顶的是母亲的叮嘱，连「自小阙内训」那点担忧也是从这个缺位上来的。全诗的情不是因为女儿出嫁才有的，是因为家里少了一个人。

Only the third couplet reveals that there is no mother in the house. Wei Yingwu puts it in the middle of the wedding account without lament, as a statement. But with that line in place everything around it changes: the father is handling what a mother would handle, his injunctions stand in for hers, and even the worry about a mother's teaching comes from that absence. The feeling in the poem does not come from a daughter marrying; it comes from a house missing one person.

那些像套话的叮嘱 · The Injunctions That Sound Like Formulas

「孝恭遵妇道，容止顺其猷」两句几乎是一篇规条。韦应物没有让它更动情一点，就照套话的样子写下来。可放在这首诗里，它是最实在的两句：母亲不在了，父亲能给的只有这些话。写的时候越是不加修饰，越是显出他能做的有限。前一句说「贫俭」，后一句说规矩，都是家里拿得出手的全部。

The couplet about being filial, keeping a wife's way and following the household's plans reads almost like a set of rules. Wei Yingwu does not try to make it more moving; he writes it as it would be written. In this poem, though, it is the most substantial couplet: with the mother gone, these words are all a father has to give. The plainer they are, the more they show how little he can do. One line offers thrift, the next offers conduct, and between them they are the whole of what the house can send.

收尾落在小女儿身上 · The Ending Rests on the Younger Child

送嫁的场面写完，人回来了，末句写「归来视幼女，零泪缘缨流」。前面十一联都很克制，连「结中肠」也只说到郁结，眼泪一直没落下来。到了这里，看的是留下来的那个孩子，哭的却是刚走的那个，两样叠在一起，才收不住。韦应物不写他想了什么，只写泪沿着缨往下流，落到一个具体的动作上。

The wedding scene is finished, he comes home, and the last line has him look at the little daughter while tears run down his cap strings. Eleven couplets before this were restrained; even the knotted heart went no further than tightness, and no tears fell. Here he looks at the child who stayed and weeps for the one who just left, and the two together are what he cannot hold. Wei Yingwu does not say what is on his mind, only that the tears run down the strings, landing on one concrete motion.

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