100. Climbing Yueyang Tower | Du Fu

岳阳楼是唐诗宋词里出场很多的名胜，孟浩然有「气蒸云梦泽，波撼岳阳城」，范仲淹有《岳阳楼记》。杜甫这首与他们不同的是时间：孟浩然写的是望洞庭的壮阔与求荐的心思，范仲淹写的是政治理想；杜甫写在暮年漂泊、国事未定之际，登楼的第一感受是「昔闻今上」——没有夸张的兴奋，只有终于来到的平静，随后才是天地之大和自身之小。

Yueyang Tower appears often in Tang and Song verse: Meng Haoran has the vapor steams over Cloud-Dream Marsh, the waves shake Yueyang town, and Fan Zhongyan wrote his Record of Yueyang Tower. Du Fu's differs in its time. Meng Haoran writes the grandeur of Dongting and a wish for recommendation; Fan Zhongyan writes a political ideal. Du Fu writes in his drifting last years with the realm unsettled, and his first feeling on the tower is long-heard, now-climbed — no startled excitement, only the calm of finally arriving, and then the size of the world against his own smallness.

「坼」是裂开，用在这里，湖水像是把大地劈成了两半，吴楚因此各在一边。这个字有力量，写的是静态地貌，却有动作感。「浮」写湖面辽阔，大到能让天地浮动。两个字都把洞庭写成了可以改变世界格局的东西，比单纯说「大」有力得多。杜甫写景常用这种狠字，与他写情感的克制形成对比。

Split apart lets the lake seem to cleave the land in two, leaving Wu and Chu on either side. The word has force: it describes a static terrain with a sense of action. Float writes the immensity of the water, wide enough to make heaven and earth ride on it. Both words make Dongting something that can reshape the world's arrangement, far stronger than saying vast. Du Fu's landscape writing often uses such hard words, in contrast to the restraint of his feeling.

这首诗最动人的地方是末联：前面写个人的孤苦（无字、老病、孤舟），到最后忽然加上「戎马关山北」。这一句把视野从岳阳楼拉到北方的战场，个人的悲和时代的乱合流。杜甫的诗常这样收尾——他不止写自己，也写自己在时代里的位置。眼泪流给谁，诗里没有分清，也不必分清。

The most moving part is the last couplet: the personal hardship before it — no letters, age and illness, a lone boat — is joined at the end by war horses north of the passes. The line pulls the view from Yueyang Tower to the northern battlefield, and private grief merges with the disorder of the age. Du Fu's poems often close this way — writing not only himself but his place within his times. For whom the tears fall is not sorted out, and need not be.