110. On Lake Dongting, Presented to Prime Minister Zhang | Meng Haoran

这首诗是写给宰相张九龄的，目的是求引荐，属于「干谒诗」。这类诗的难点在于既要表明心意，又不能显得低三下四。孟浩然的做法是先把洞庭的壮阔写足，再用「欲济无舟楫」把求荐的意思嵌进景里——不是说「请您提拔我」，而是说「我想过湖却没有船」。这样既表达了诉求，也保留了读书人的体面。后两联的分寸感，是这首诗能被传诵的原因之一。

This poem was written for the chancellor Zhang Jiuling to seek recommendation, a poem of patronage. Such poems are hard because the wish must be stated without groveling. Meng Haoran's way is to write Dongting's grandeur fully first, then lodge the request inside the scene with I would cross but have no boat — not please promote me, but I would cross the lake and have no boat. The wish is conveyed and the scholar's dignity kept. The measure of the last two couplets is one reason the poem is still read.

这两句好在两个字：「蒸」和「撼」。水气蒸腾是缓慢的、上升的，波涛撼城是猛烈的、横向的，一上一下、一缓一急，把洞庭的两种力量都写出来了。而且「蒸」的是整片云梦泽，「撼」的是整座岳阳城，两个自然现象都作用在巨大的对象上，气势因此格外大。孟浩然写景的用力处，正是杜甫说的「清诗句句尽堪传」的那种锤炼。

The two lines turn on two words: steams and shakes. Vapor steaming is slow and rising, waves shaking the town violent and lateral — one up, one across, one gradual, one sudden, and both forces of Dongting are given. Further, what steams is the whole Cloud-Dream Marsh and what shakes is all of Yueyang town, both natural events working on enormous objects, and the effect is correspondingly vast. In landscape Meng Haoran's effort is the kind of forging Du Fu called lines fit to be handed down.

「临河而羡鱼，不如归家织网」原意是：光羡慕没有用，要动手去做。孟浩然用了这个典故的一半——只取「羡鱼」，不取「织网」。这样一来，意思就变成了：我知道光羡慕不行，可是我没有网（没有门路）。这是很巧妙的处理，既借了古语的雅致，又把求人的话软化成了自嘲。典故用得准，一句话就有多层意思。

To envy fish at the river is not so good as going home to weave a net means in origin that envying does no good and one must set to work. Meng Haoran takes only half of it — the envy, not the net. The sense becomes: I know envying is useless, but I have no net (no way in). It is a deft move, borrowing the elegance of the old saying and softening the request into self-mockery. An allusion used exactly gives one line several layers.