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132. Meeting My Younger Cousin with Joy and Taking Leave Again | Li Yi

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English translation

After ten years of turmoil, grown to adulthood, we meet for the first time.

"Turmoil" refers to the upheaval after the An Lushan Rebellion. "Grown up" is set against "ten years": the children of both families became adults during this span.

We ask the surname and are startled that this is a first meeting; when the name is given, an old face comes back to mind.

This couplet is the poem's famous one, describing a process of recognition: ask the surname → be startled → give the name → recall. The action unfolds in two steps and is finely observed.

Since we parted, the affairs of the world have been like the blue sea turning to mulberry fields; when we finish speaking, it is already the bell in the twilight sky.

"The affairs of the blue sea" alludes to the old saying of the blue sea turning to mulberry fields, meaning great changes in the world. "When we finish speaking" passes over years of talk in one phrase and stops it with a bell.

Tomorrow you will take the road to Baling; how many more layers of autumn mountains will lie between us.

Baling is around present-day Yueyang in Hunan. No sooner have we met than we must part; the "again" in "again how many layers" means repetition.

赏析 · Commentary

第二联为什么难写 · Why the Second Couplet Is Hard to Write

两个陌生人相认，最难的是把过程写清楚又不啰嗦。李益的办法是拆成两个动作、四个字眼：问姓、惊、称名、忆。这里面有一个心理的真实——先问姓时只觉得陌生，报名之后记忆才突然翻上来。很多唐诗写相逢都停在情绪上，这一联却把认知的次序写了出来，所以显得格外准。

Two strangers recognising each other is hard to write clearly without padding. Li Yi splits it into two movements and four beats: ask the surname, be startled, give the name, recall. There is real psychology in it — at the surname the face means nothing; only at the name does memory surface. Many Tang poems stop at the feeling of meeting; this couplet writes the order of recognition, which is what makes it so exact.

「语罢暮天钟」把多少年压进五个字 · "Having Finished, the Evening Bell": Years Pressed into Five Words

第三联上句说世事变迁，下句用一个钟声交代时间的流逝。他们没有写谈了多久、谈了什么、哭了没有，只写话说完的时候天色已晚，钟响了。唐诗常用这种「用外部事件切断谈话」的手法，好处是既不遗漏也不罗嗦，读者自己会补上中间的内容。

The first half of the third couplet gives the upheaval; the second uses a bell to mark the passage of time. They do not say how long they talked, what about, whether anyone wept — only that when the talking ended it was evening and a bell had sounded. Tang verse often cuts off a conversation with an external event; the device neither omits nor pads, and the reader fills the middle.

相逢与送别挤在一起 · Meeting and Parting Crowded Together

诗题里「喜见」与「又言别」是两件事，诗的结构也就跟着分成两半：前四句写相见，后四句写再别。李益没有偏重任何一半，用时几乎相等。这种均衡是有意为之——它说明这一次相逢从一开始就带着分别，喜与悲无法拆开。末句的秋山「又几重」把距离写回原样，仿佛十年的分别只是一次短暂的插曲。

The title's "meeting with joy" and "taking leave again" are two events, and the poem splits accordingly: four lines for the meeting, four for the parting. Li Yi favours neither, giving them nearly equal time. The balance is deliberate — it says the reunion carried the parting from the start, joy and grief inseparable. The "how many layers again" of autumn hills at the close restores the distance, as if ten years apart were a brief interlude.

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