ChineseStudy

50. To Han the Censor | Du Fu

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English translation

Today I am out of sorts and think of Yueyang; my body wants to fly up, but I lie sick in bed.

Thinking and sick press against each other: the heart has already gone and the body cannot move. The poem opens pressed down.

The fair one, lovely, is across the autumn water, washing his feet in Dongting and gazing to the eight directions.

The fair one means Han the censor, the old way of naming a man. Across the water is a way of saying out of reach.

The goose flies into the dark height, sun and moon go white; the green maple leaves turn red and frost falls from the sky.

The goose flying is distance, red maples and frost are autumn. Four things carry distance and season together.

The assembled lords of the jade capital gather by the Dipper, some riding qilin, some screened by phoenixes.

The jade capital is the Taoist heaven. The human world before, the sky all at once here — the extension of that thinking.

Lotus banners, music in the mist; shadows move, and the inverted image sways over the Xiao and Xiang.

The inverted image is the reflection in the water. The sky's pageant falls into the water, and the solid and the insubstantial mix.

The lord of the star palace is drunk on nectar, and the feathered men are few, not at his side.

Feathered men are immortals. In the middle of the bustle the company thins; this line is where it cools.

I seem to hear of Master Red Pine of old; it must be Han Zhangliang of the Han.

Zhangliang withdrew when his work was done and followed Master Red Pine. The line likens Han the censor to Zhangliang — same surname, same choice.

Once he followed the Lius and settled Chang'an; the plans in the tent have not changed, but his face is worn and grieved.

The tent is where strategy is made. The work is done and the man is spent; a meritorious minister's state told in one line.

How would I dare weigh a nation's rise and fall? The smell of rot is hard to face; I would rather eat the fragrance of the wind.

Eating the wind's fragrance is the figure of seeking immortality. The rot of the world he cannot stomach; he would stand somewhere clean.

To be stalled in Zhou-nan is what the ancients grieved over; the Old Man of the South Pole should be long-lived and well.

Stalled in Zhou-nan is Sima Qian's old case, meaning talent left unused. This is Du Fu speaking up for Han.

Why is the fair one across the autumn water, and how might he be set in the jade hall?

The close returns to the fair one and the autumn water, and says the wish plainly: that he be called back to office.

赏析 · Commentary

为什么用「美人」 · Why He Is Called the Fair One

「美人」在这首诗里指的是韩谏议，不是女子。这是楚辞留下的老办法：用美人比喻心里敬重的人，也顺带把距离写出来——隔着秋水，看得见够不着。杜甫写这首寄人的诗，一上来不说事，先说这个够不着的人，全诗的感情就定在「想见而不得见」这一层上。

The fair one here is Han the censor, not a woman. It is an old device left by the Chu songs: the fair one stands for someone you respect, and the distance comes along with it — across the autumn water, visible and out of reach. Du Fu opens a poem sent to a man not with business but with this unreachable figure, and the whole feeling settles on wanting to see someone and not being able to.

从人间升到天上，又落回来 · Up From Earth to Sky, and Back Down

中间一段忽然写玉京、北斗、骐驎、凤凰、琼浆，全是天上的排场。这是从「思」往下走的：想得远了，人就飘上去了。可「羽人稀少不在旁」一句，热闹里透出冷清。写得再高，落脚还是地上那个病在床上、见不到朋友的人。

The middle stretch suddenly gives the jade capital, the Dipper, qilin, phoenixes, nectar — all the apparatus of heaven. It is where thinking takes him: the further he thinks the higher he drifts. Yet the line about feathered men being few and not at his side lets a chill through the bustle. However high the writing goes, it lands back on the man sick in bed who cannot see his friend.

「焉得置之贡玉堂」 · How Might He Be Set in the Jade Hall

末句用一句问话收：怎么才能把他安置到玉堂上去。前面绕了那么多天上的场面，最后问的是一件很实在的事——希望这个人重新被朝廷用起来。杜甫为朋友抱不平，从不喊口号，只把这份盼望写成一句够不着的自问。

The close is a question: how might he be set in the jade hall. After all that heavenly scenery, what it finally asks is something very concrete — that this man be given office again. Du Fu never shouts when he is aggrieved for a friend; he turns the wish into a question he cannot answer.

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