162. Seeing Off Li and Wang, Demoted to Xiazhong and Changsha | Gao Shi

同时送两位贬官的朋友，最容易写成泛泛的安慰，高适的办法是把四句景语平均分账：巫峡、白帝城给贬峡中的李少府，衡阳、青枫江给贬长沙的王少府，一人两处，互不侵占。这种写法有个好处：两位朋友读到的都是专属于自己的句子。纪昀批评此诗「平列四地名，究为碍格」，说的是地名太多碍了格律的流动；但换个角度看，正是四个地名把两次贬谪都落实了。中间两联的对仗因此不是装饰，而是分配——颔联写闻声（猿、雁），颈联写望景（帆、木），声与景各管一联，条理分明。

Seeing off two demoted friends at once most easily slides into generic comfort — Gao Shi's method is to split the four lines of scenery down the middle: Wu Gorge and the White Emperor's city go to Li, demoted to the gorge; Hengyang and the green-maple river go to Wang, demoted to Changsha — two places each, none encroaching. The virtue is that each friend reads lines that belong to him alone. Ji Yun faulted the poem for laying out four place names flat, impeding the flow of the meter; seen another way, those four names are what fix both exiles in place. The parallelism of the middle couplets is thus not ornament but allocation: the second couplet handles sound (gibbon, goose), the third handles sight (sail, trees), each couplet with its own office.

前三联把两处贬所写得凄凉：猿声催泪、书信难通、帆影远去、古木稀疏。如果诗在这里停住，这是一首标准的伤心送别诗。尾联忽然翻出圣代雨露、暂时分手，把前面的苍凉全部收进「暂时」二字里。这个次序不能颠倒——没有前面的实写，后面的安慰就是空话；没有后面的翻转，前面的实写就成了绝望。高适自己仕途起落多次，深知贬谪不是终点；他用朝廷会用人的逻辑安慰朋友，虽然未必真能安慰到，但姿态是把希望放在桌上。唐代送贬官的诗常在结尾劝勉，这首的分寸感在于：劝勉之前先陪对方把苦处看了一遍。

The first three couplets paint both places of exile bleak: gibbon cries wring tears, letters hardly pass, sails recede, old trees stand sparse. Had the poem stopped there it would be a standard sorrowful parting poem. The final couplet suddenly turns out a sagely age thick with favor, this parting only for a time, folding all the bleakness before into those two words. The order cannot be reversed — without the honest description the comfort is empty; without the turn the honesty becomes despair. Gao Shi's own career rose and fell many times; he knew exile was not the end. He comforts his friends with the logic that the court will use its men — whether it truly comforts is doubtful, but the gesture puts hope on the table. Poems for the demoted commonly end in exhortation; this one's tact lies in walking the friend through his hardships first.

衡阳归雁几封书用雁足传书的典故，又扣住衡阳回雁峰的传说——北雁南飞到衡阳而止。李少府或王少府贬地近衡阳，雁来雁去就是书信来往的机会。妙在几封书三字：不问会不会有信，问能有几封——把思念折成了可数的单位，比直说盼望来信更见得心细。同样的算术在巫峡啼猿数行泪里也有：眼泪也是数得出的，数行而已。两句一处问将来，一处测眼下，都是贬谪路上最具体的两样东西：眼泪和信。高适写送别不惯空泛，这一联的数目字就是证明。

How many letters from the homing geese of Hengyang works the allusion of letters tied to wild geese and the legend of Hengyang's Goose-Return Peak, where the geese from the north turn back. A friend demoted toward Changsha would lie on the geese's route, and the geese's comings and goings are the chance for letters. The beauty is in the three characters how many: not whether letters will come, but how many — longing counted out in units, more tender than a direct plea for letters. The same arithmetic runs in the gibbon cries will wring a few lines of tears: tears too are countable, a few lines only. One line asks about the future, the other measures the present, and both take up the two most concrete things on a road of exile: tears and letters. Gao Shi was never one for vagueness in parting poems, and the numerals here are the proof.