ChineseStudy

51. Song of the Old Cypress | Du Fu

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English translation

Before Zhuge Liang's shrine stands an old cypress: branches like bronze, roots like stone.

The opening couplet is all material. Bronze and stone are hard and lasting; writing the tree is writing the man.

Its frosty bark, rain-washed, measures forty arm-spans round; its dark blue reaches the sky two thousand feet.

Forty spans and two thousand feet are both exaggerated numbers. The exaggeration takes the tree past ordinary measure.

Ruler and minister met their moment in time, and the tree is still cherished by men.

From tree to people. Ruler and minister meeting is Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang, and it is what Du Fu cannot set down.

When cloud comes, its breath joins the long Wu Gorge; when the moon rises, the cold runs through to the white of the snow mountains.

Cloud and moon, gorge and mountain, tying one tree to the whole southwest.

I recall the road bending east of the Brocade Pavilion, where the First Ruler and the Marquis of Wu share one shrine.

Turning to the shrine in Chengdu. Sharing one shrine is ruler and minister in one house, exactly the relation Du Fu cares most about.

The towering branches, the old look of the plain; the painted work is fine and the doors and windows stand empty.

One line the tree, one the shrine. Old and empty set the whole place's mood.

Spreading and coiled, it holds its ground well; high and dark and alone, it takes many a fierce wind.

Holds its ground well and takes many a fierce wind are a pair: the price of standing high is the wind.

That it is upheld is the strength of spirits; that it stands straight is the work of the maker.

The two words for is carry the same syntax: what holds it up is not human strength. It is also about character.

When a great house is falling it needs beams; ten thousand oxen look back, and it weighs like a hill.

Ten thousand oxen looking back gives the weight of the timber and the difficulty of using great material. This is the poem's hinge.

Without showing its grain it already startles the world; it does not refuse the axe — but who can carry it?

Without showing its grain means the outside is plain. Who can carry it asks whether anyone can afford to use such material.

Can a bitter heart avoid harbouring ants, and its fragrant leaves have hosted phoenixes in the end?

Ants and phoenixes set against each other: small men and noble ones have both been on this tree. Bitter heart and fragrant leaves are still about people.

Let the aspiring and the withdrawn not lament; from of old great timber is hard to put to use.

The last line says it out, pushing from a cypress to all great material. The sense of injustice settles in those words.

赏析 · Commentary

写树就是写人 · Writing the Tree Is Writing the Man

起手不写庙、不写人，先给树的材质：枝像青铜，根像石头，皮是霜的，色是青黑的。全是硬的、久的、经得起时间的东西。等到「君臣已与时际会」一句出来，读者才知道这棵树背后站着谁。杜甫写古柏，从头到尾没离开树，可每一句都在说诸葛亮那样的人和那样的人的下场。

The poem opens without the shrine and without the man, giving the tree's material first: branches like bronze, roots like stone, bark frost-white, colour dark blue. Everything hard, lasting, able to take time. Only when the line about ruler and minister meeting their moment arrives does the reader learn who stands behind the tree. Du Fu never leaves the tree, and every line is about a man like Zhuge Liang and what becomes of such men.

「万牛回首丘山重」 · Ten Thousand Oxen Look Back

这句是全诗的关节。前面一直在夸这棵树大、硬、高、正，到这里忽然问了一句：这样的材料，真要用起来，谁拉得动。万牛回首，重如丘山，说的不是树，是大材的分量。夸得越高，这一问越沉。后面三句就顺着这个意思往下走：不露文章、未辞剪伐、苦心香叶。

This line is the poem's hinge. The tree has been praised as big, hard, tall, upright, and here one question arrives: if such material were actually used, who could move it. Ten thousand oxen looking back, heavy as a hill — that is not the tree, that is the weight of great material. The higher the praise went, the heavier this question. The next three lines follow it out: grain unshown, the axe not refused, bitter heart, fragrant leaves.

最后七个字 · The Closing Words of the Poem

「古来材大难为用」，把前面的柏树、诸葛亮、庙堂上的梁柱全收进一句话里。杜甫劝志士幽人别怨，可这句劝本身就带着怨。他不说自己的处境，只把这条自古就有的道理摆出来，让所有大材难用的人都站到这句话底下。全诗到此收住，没有再多一个字。

From of old great timber is hard to put to use gathers the cypress, Zhuge Liang, and the beams of the halls into one line. Du Fu tells the aspiring and the withdrawn not to complain, and the telling carries the complaint inside it. He does not describe his own situation, only lays out this rule as old as anything, so that everyone great and unused stands under it. The poem stops here, with no word added.

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