156. Yellow Crane Tower | Cui Hao

这首诗的第一句有两个通行的版本：「昔人已乘黄鹤去」和「昔人已乘白云去」。作「白云」的一路见于《全唐诗》所据的早期文本，作「黄鹤」的一路经金圣叹等人改定后成为近代选本的主流。两读各有道理：作白云，则首句与「白云千载」重复呼应，黄鹤留给楼名和第三句；作黄鹤，则首句直点题面，读来更顺口。本站按《全唐诗》系文本作「白云」，把选择留给读者。值得注意的是，这个悬而未决的字并不影响诗的成立——传说只有一个去向：仙人走了，没再回来。

The first line of this poem comes in two received forms: the man of old has ridden off on a yellow crane, and the man of old has ridden off on a white cloud. The white-cloud reading is the one behind the early texts in the Complete Tang Poems; the yellow-crane reading, revised by Jin Shengtan and others, became the mainstream of modern anthologies. Each has its logic: with white cloud, the line echoes the white cloud of a thousand years and leaves the yellow crane to the tower's name and the third line; with yellow crane, the legend enters at once and the line reads more smoothly. This site follows the Complete Tang Poems line, white cloud, and leaves the choice to the reader. What matters is that the undecided word does not shake the poem: the legend has only one ending — the immortal left, and did not come back.

七律到唐代中期已经定型，平仄对仗都有成法，而这首前四句一连三个「黄鹤」「白云」的重复，平仄也不依常格，历代评家说它「不古不律，亦古亦律」。后半忽然收紧：晴川对春草，日暮对烟波，工整得像另一个人写的。传说严羽《沧浪诗话》说唐人七律以此为第一，李白登楼见到这首诗搁笔说「眼前有景道不得」。故事未必可靠，但方向对：这首诗的好处恰在它前半像民歌一样放得开，后半又收得住，规则给内容让了路。

By the mid-Tang the seven-character regulated verse had hardened into fixed rules of tone and parallelism, yet this poem's first four lines repeat yellow crane and white cloud three times over and ignore the expected tonal pattern — critics have long called it neither old-style nor regulated, and both at once. Then the second half suddenly tightens: the bright river answers the spring grass, dusk answers the misted waves, as neat as if written by another hand. Yan Yu's Canglang Talks ranked it first among Tang seven-character regulated poems, and the story goes that Li Bai, climbing the same tower, put down his brush: before my eyes a scene, but no words for it. The tale may not be true, but its direction is right: the poem's power lies in a first half loose as a folk song and a second half held firmly in hand, with the rules yielding to the matter.

诗到第五、六句才出现具体的草木，第七句才出现「愁」，这个安排是算过的。前四句的时间是千年，空间是整个天空；如果接着写虚，诗就飘走了。颈联把镜头拉回眼前：看得清的树，长得密的草，都是人间的东西。日暮两个字放在这一联之后才出现，时间到了傍晚，目光收回来，故乡的问题自然浮上来——乡关何处不是突然发的问，是看了半天才看出来的。结尾用烟波二字收拢：江上有雾，看得见的地方都看不清了，愁就有了着落。

Concrete trees and grass appear only at lines five and six, and the word sorrow only at line seven — an arrangement that is calculated. The first four lines' time is a thousand years and their space the whole sky; had the poem gone on in that register it would have drifted away. The third couplet pulls the lens back to what is near: trees clear enough to count, grass thick enough to touch, all of it the stuff of the human world. Dusk is named only after this couplet; the hour turns, the gaze comes home, and the question of one's own home surfaces of itself — where is home is not a sudden cry but something worked out by long looking. The close gathers everything into two words, misted waves: fog on the river, and every visible thing blurs, which is exactly where sorrow can settle.