101. Living at Leisure by the Wangchuan, Presented to the Cultivated Talent Pei Di | Wang Wei
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
寒山转苍翠，秋水日潺湲。
English translation
The cold hills turn to deep green; the autumn water murmurs day by day.
Turn writes the hills changing color from summer into autumn, day by day the water sounding on. Both lines write time: the hills shift hue, the water never stops.
Original Chinese text
倚杖柴门外，临风听暮蝉。
English translation
Leaning on a staff outside the brushwood gate, I face the wind and hear the evening cicada.
Now the person appears: an old man on a staff, standing at the gate listening to cicadas. The picture is very still, and its only action is hearing.
Original Chinese text
渡头余落日，墟里上孤烟。
English translation
At the ferry a last of the setting sun; over the village a single smoke rises.
The couplet comes directly out of Tao Yuanming's lingering village smoke. A last of the sun and a single smoke, one going down and one rising, enliven the stillness of dusk.
Original Chinese text
复值接舆醉，狂歌五柳前。
English translation
Again I meet you, drunk like Jieyu, singing wildly before my five willows.
Jieyu was a madman of Chu, and the five willows is Tao Yuanming's sobriquet, which Wang Wei uses for himself. The closing couplet likens Pei Di to a wild scholar and Wang Wei to Tao Qian — both men indifferent to rank and gain.
赏析 · Commentary
辋川：王维的山水与生活 · Wangchuan: Wang Wei's Landscape and Life
王维晚年隐居辋川别业，与好友裴迪唱和，写有《辋川集》二十首。辋川在蓝田，有山有水，王维在此过着半官半隐的生活。这首诗写的是日常：看山、听水、倚杖、听蝉、望落日孤烟。没有一件大事，全是闲居的片段。理解辋川的背景，才能读出这些平常事里的一致性——它们是同一种生活的构成部分。
Wang Wei in his later years lived in retirement at the Wangchuan estate and exchanged poems with his friend Pei Di, producing the twenty poems of the Wangchuan Collection. Wangchuan lies at Lantian, with hills and water, and Wang Wei there lived half in office and half out. This poem gives the everyday: watching hills, hearing water, leaning on a staff, hearing cicadas, noting a setting sun and a single smoke. Nothing large happens; it is all fragments of a quiet life. Knowing the Wangchuan setting is what shows the consistency of these ordinary things — they are parts of one way of living.
王维与陶渊明的关系 · Wang Wei and Tao Yuanming
末联用接舆和五柳两个典故，把裴迪和自己比作不慕荣利的隐者，明显是在向陶渊明致意。事实上王维的田园诗受陶渊明影响很深，但他写得更静、更空。陶渊明的田园里有劳作、有邻里、有酒，是热的；王维的辋川更多是看和听，人与景物保持着一点距离。这种差别不是高下，是两种生活态度。
The last couplet uses Jieyu and the five willows to figure Pei Di and himself as recluses indifferent to gain, plainly saluting Tao Yuanming. Wang Wei's pastoral poetry does owe much to Tao, though it is quieter and emptier. Tao's countryside holds labor, neighbors, wine — it is warm; Wang Wei's Wangchuan is more watching and listening, the person keeping a little distance from the scene. The difference is not rank but two attitudes to living.
四联的动静安排 · The Arrangement of Stillness and Motion
首联写山色和水声，一静一动；颔联写人，动作是听，几乎是静止；颈联写落日与孤烟，又一落一升；末联写醉歌，是全诗最动的地方。四联动静交替，最后以「狂歌」收尾，把前面所有的安静都衬得有了活气。这种安排让一首写闲居的诗不至于沉闷——闲居不等于死寂，辋川里有风、有水、有蝉、有歌。
The opening couplet gives hill color and water sound, one still and one moving; the second gives the person, whose only act is hearing, nearly motionless; the third gives the setting sun and a single smoke, one down and one up; the last gives a drunken song, the liveliest point. Stillness and motion alternate, and the close on singing wildly gives life to all the quiet before it. The arrangement keeps a poem of retirement from going dull — retirement is not dead silence; Wangchuan has wind, water, cicadas, and song.