126. Meeting an Old Friend from Liangchuan with Pleasure on the Huai River | Wei Yingwu
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
江汉曾为客，相逢每醉还。
English translation
In the Jiang and Han region we were once both strangers far from home; / whenever we met, we went back only after getting drunk.
'Once strangers' marks the two as old friends who had both drifted; 'drunk before going back' conveys the joy of those days, set against the ten years of separation that follows.
Original Chinese text
浮云一别后，流水十年间。
English translation
After we parted like floating clouds, / ten years passed like flowing water.
This couplet does not use a main predicate verb; it rests mainly on the juxtaposition of noun images and is a famous example of Tang parallelism. 'Floating clouds' suggest gathering and parting; 'flowing water' suggests time.
Original Chinese text
欢笑情如旧，萧疏鬓已斑。
English translation
We laugh together; our affection is as of old, / but our temple hair is thin and already gray.
The first line says nothing has changed, the second says something has. What changed is appearance; what has not changed is affection.
Original Chinese text
何因不归去，淮上对秋山。
English translation
Why do I not go back? / By the Huai I face the autumn hills.
The question is the first line, 'Why do I not go back?'; the closing line, 'By the Huai I face the autumn hills,' only presents a scene and gives no answer. The Huai is where they met and where he remains; the closing line ends with the autumn hills by the Huai, leaving a lingering sorrow of not returning.
赏析 · Commentary
久别重逢，诗只能写两件事 · After Ten Years: Two Things Only
这首诗的结构很干净：前四句写过去和离别，后四句写眼前的重逢。第二联是全诗的重心，「浮云」与「流水」两个比喻把十年压缩进十个字里，读者不需要知道中间的细节，也能感到时间的分量。第三联把镜头拉回二人身上：笑还在，白发也在。一联之内同时承认两件相反的事，这是唐诗的常见笔法。
The structure is clean: four lines on the past and the separation, four on the reunion at hand. The second couplet is the centre, its two figures of cloud and water pressing ten years into ten characters; a reader needs no intervening detail to feel the weight of the time. The third couplet returns the lens to the two men: the laughter still there, the white hair too. Admitting two opposite things inside one couplet is a standard Tang move.
「每醉还」是一个伏笔 · "Every Time Drunk" as a Planted Detail
第一联写当年的相逢总是喝醉，看似只是交代交情，其实是为末句铺垫。既然从前每次相聚都要醉，那么这次重逢之后的「不归去」就显得更沉——老习惯没变，处境变了。韦应物没有点明这层关系，但两处放在一起，读的人自己会接上。
The first couplet's drunken reunions look like mere background on the friendship; they are actually setting up the close. If every past meeting ended drunk, then the "not going home" after this one weighs more — the old habit held, the circumstances did not. Wei Yingwu does not point this out, but set side by side, the reader makes the connection.
末句为什么不回答 · Why the Last Line Refuses to Answer
"何因不归去" is a question with no answer given. The refusal is deliberate: whatever reason the poet has — no post, no estate, no way — would sound like an excuse written down. Leaving it as landscape (autumn hills on the Huai) gives the feeling without the complaint. Wei Yingwu's poems often end this way, with the emotion present but the explanation withheld.
「何因不归去」提出而不回答。这个不回答是刻意的：无论理由是没有差事、没有家业还是回不去，写出来都像在辩解。留在秋山之上，情绪就在了，抱怨却没有。韦应物的诗常这样收尾，情绪在场，解释扣下。