165. Matching the Emperor's Poem on Viewing Spring in the Rain from the Covered Road Between the Pools, Written by Command | Wang Wei

这个长题是应制诗的惯例：奉和圣制（奉命和皇帝的诗）+ 路线（从蓬莱向兴庆阁道中）+ 情境（留春雨中春望）+ 应制（应诏而作）。玄宗从蓬莱宫经架空的阁道到兴庆宫，途中留驻，恰逢春雨，作春望诗，命臣下同和。王维要在几十个字里完成的任务是：路线写实、雨景写活、最后必须把天子的游赏解释成德政。这首的结构因此是固定的：前四句写路线与车驾，颈联写雨中所望，尾联收在礼制上。题材受制到这个程度，剩下的比拼全在字句——所以应制诗里出好句，比自由创作更见功力。

The long title is convention for by-command verse: matching the emperor's poem, by imperial favor; the route — from the Penglai Palace toward the Xingqing Palace by the covered road; the occasion — halting in spring rain, viewing spring; written by command. Xuanzong traveled from Penglai to Xingqing along the elevated passage, halted as spring rain fell, wrote a poem of spring gazing, and ordered his ministers to match it. Wang Wei's task in a few dozen characters: keep the route literal, keep the rain alive, and end by explaining the emperor's outing as good governance. The structure is therefore fixed: four lines on route and carriage, the third couplet on the view in rain, the close on ritual propriety. With subject matter this constrained, the contest is all in the wording — which is why a fine line inside by-command verse proves more than free composition does.

这是王维七律里被引得最多的对句之一。它的好处不在工整（工整是标配），在两句话的落差：上句是云里的、几乎没有人间烟火的帝城标志；下句是雨里被春树遮掩的千家万户，有炊烟有人声。一仰一俯，一虚一实，一权力一生活，中间没有任何过渡词，只靠对仗并置。应制诗本该只写帝城气象，王维把「万人家」放进画面，等于在颂圣的框架里给百姓留了半句——这句诗因此有了超出应制的生命：后来写长安的诗人，很难绕开这两句的构图。

This is one of the most quoted couplets in Wang Wei's regulated verse. Its virtue is not the neatness — that is standard issue — but the drop between the two lines: above, the imperial city's emblem in the clouds, almost beyond human smoke and fire; below, ten thousand households half-hidden in spring trees in the rain, with cooking smoke and voices. One looking up, one looking down; one unreal, one real; one power, one life — with no transition between them, held only by the parallel. By-command verse should have kept to the imperial city's splendor; Wang Wei let the ten thousand homes into the frame, leaving the common people half a line inside a panegyric — and the line outlived its occasion: later poets writing of Chang'an could hardly get around this composition.

为乘阳气行时令，不是宸游玩物华——翻译过来是：陛下出来是顺应春气颁布农时政令，不是自己赏花。这层意思在礼制上完全成立：天子春季巡行确有劝农的传统。但读过颈联的人都明白，那天的春望是享受的，诗本身写得很美，说明皇帝在高兴。王维的处理是不否认美、只解释名分：景色照写，笔意收在「不是玩物华」。这是应制诗的常规工序，却最能见分寸——多写一句就成讽刺，少写一句就失臣体。对照岑参王维在贾至唱和里的收法，可以看清应制（对天子）与唱和（对同僚）两种场合的尺度差异。

He comes out to ride the spring's vital force and issue the seasonal commands — not the Son of Heaven out to play among the flowers: in ritual terms this is fully sound, for the emperor's spring progress traditionally encouraged farming. But anyone who has read the third couplet knows the day's spring-gazing was enjoyed, and the poem itself is beautiful — the emperor was pleased. Wang Wei neither denies the beauty nor skips the propriety: the scenery stays, the pen settles on not playing among the flowers. This is the standard final process of by-command verse, and the most revealing of tact — one line more becomes satire, one line less fails a subject's duty. Set beside the closings of the Jia Zhi round (colleague to colleague), it shows how the scale differs when addressing the emperor.