111. Climbing Xian Mountain with Several Gentlemen | Meng Haoran
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
人事有代谢，往来成古今。
English translation
Human affairs have their renewals; comings and goings make past and present.
The opening states a thesis and is the poem's reflective core: affairs ceaselessly replace one another, and within that process time divides into past and present. The two lines open on a large scale.
Original Chinese text
江山留胜迹，我辈复登临。
English translation
Rivers and hills keep the famous traces; we of this generation climb them again.
Keep and again answer each other: those before left traces, those after keep climbing. The couplet makes past and present concrete as an act handed down generation to generation.
Original Chinese text
水落鱼梁浅，天寒梦泽深。
English translation
The water falls and Fish Weir lies shallow; the air is cold and Cloud-Dream Marsh looks deep.
Both lines give what is seen from the height, one shallow and one deep. Fish Weir and Cloud-Dream Marsh both carry historical associations, so the description is also allusion.
Original Chinese text
羊公碑字在，读罢泪沾襟。
English translation
The words on Lord Yang's stele still remain; having read them, tears wet my lapel.
Yang Hu governed Xiangyang with benevolent policies; after his death the people set up a stele for him on Xian Mountain; those who saw it wept, and so it was called the 'Stele of Falling Tears.' The last line shows the poet weeping after reading the stele, grounding the emotions of the ascent in something concrete.
赏析 · Commentary
「人事有代谢，往来成古今」为什么像格言 · Why Human Affairs Have Their Renewals Sounds Like a Maxim
这两句写得很概括，几乎可以独立成一句格言。好处在于它把「古今」这个抽象概念解释成了一个过程——不是时间突然分出了古和今，而是人的来来往往累积成了古今。这样一来，登临怀古就有了根据：我们今天的登临，将来也会成为后人的「古」。诗的后半因此顺理成章：看景、读碑、落泪，都是这个「代谢」中的一环。
These lines are so general they could stand alone as a maxim. Their merit is explaining past and present, an abstraction, as a process — time did not simply divide into old and new; people's comings and goings accumulated into them. With that, climbing and recalling the past gains its ground: our climbing today will become the past of those after. The poem's second half follows naturally — seeing the view, reading the stone, weeping — each a link in that renewal.
堕泪碑的来历 · The Origin of the Stone of Falling Tears
羊祜是西晋名将，镇守襄阳十年，深得民心，死后百姓在岘山他常游之处立碑纪念，见碑者无不流泪，因此得名「堕泪碑」。孟浩然写这首诗时正在襄阳，登岘山见碑。这个典故的重量在于：羊祜本人也曾登岘山，感叹过「自有宇宙，便有此山」。所以孟浩然流泪，不只是为羊祜，也是为所有登临过这座山、又都已不在的人——包括他自己。
Yang Hu was a general of the Western Jin who governed Xiangyang for ten years and was deeply loved; after his death the people raised a stone at the place on Xian Mountain he often visited, and all who saw it wept, hence the name. Meng Haoran wrote this at Xiangyang, climbing Xian Mountain to see the stone. The allusion's weight is that Yang Hu too had climbed the mountain and remarked that since the world began, this mountain had been. Meng Haoran's tears then are not only for Yang Hu but for all who climbed and are gone — himself included.
这是「登临诗」的典型结构 · This Is the Typical Shape of a Climbing Poem
登临诗的常见结构是：先发议论或感慨，再写所见之景，最后落到古人身上以自伤。这首正好符合：首联议论（人事代谢），颔联承（登临），颈联写景（水落天寒），尾联怀古自伤（读碑落泪）。四联的推进是从抽象到具体、从眼前到历史。掌握这个结构，再看其他登临诗，如陈子昂的《登幽州台歌》，会发现它们走的都是同一条路。
A climbing poem commonly runs: reflection or lament first, then the scene in view, and last a turn to figures of the past to wound oneself. This poem fits exactly: the opening reflects (human affairs renew), the second carries it forward (we climb again), the third gives the scene (falling water, cold air), the last recalls the past and grieves (reading the stone, weeping). The four couplets move from abstract to concrete, from before the eyes to history. Grasp the shape and other climbing poems — Chen Zi'ang's Song on the Youzhou Terrace — will be found to take the same road.