178. Meditations on Historic Sites, No. 3 | Du Fu

群山万壑赴荆门——历来被推为「奇崛」的开头。山是静物，杜甫用一个赴字让群山万壑有了奔跑的方向和目的：它们像仪仗一样奔赴荆门，而荆门所有的分量都压在下一句的「明妃」身上。清人吴瞻泰说此字写出穷岩幽壑奔赴会之意，以灵秀之气钟于一人。这个写法还有一层地理的真实感：从夔州顺江而下，山势确实收束于荆门一带，江面豁然开阔——杜甫是在写他亲眼看见的地貌，只是让地貌有了意志。为一位女子的诞生动用整个山河的动势，是这首诗对昭君的全部敬意。

Ridge upon ridge, a thousand valleys, all hasten toward Jingmen — long ranked as the most startling opening. Hills are still things; Du Fu's one verb gives them direction and purpose: they hasten like a guard of honor, and all their weight lands on the next line's Zhaojun. The Qing critic Wu Zhantai said the character makes the very crags and ravines hasten to the meeting, as if the finest breath of the land were gathered into one person. There is geographic truth beneath: sailing down from Kuizhou, the ranges do converge toward Jingmen and the river suddenly opens — Du Fu is writing terrain he has seen with his own eyes, only endowing it with will. To spend the momentum of all mountains and valleys on the birth of one woman is this poem's entire homage to her.

《西京杂记》载：元帝后宫既多，令画工图形，按图召幸；宫人皆贿画工，昭君自恃貌美不肯行贿，毛延寿便把她画丑，遂被遣嫁匈奴，临行召见，悔之晚矣。杜甫用省识（略识）二字把这段故事压缩成五个字：皇帝不是不能识，是不肯费神识——一个懒字造成了一个人一生、两国和平与千年咏叹。环佩空归月夜魂写的是后事：传说昭君死后魂魄仍每月归来。空字与独留呼应——从活着到死了，她始终是一个人。

The Western Capital Miscellany tells it: Emperor Yuan's harem was so large he had the women painted and summoned by picture; all bribed the painters, but Zhaojun, trusting her beauty, would not, and Mao Yanshou painted her plain — she was sent to the Xiongnu, and seeing her at parting, the emperor repented too late. Du Fu compresses the tale into five characters with barely-know: the emperor could not know because he would not take the trouble — one man's laziness shaping one woman's life, peace between two states, and a thousand years of lament. Her soul with the chiming pendants returning on moonlit nights is the afterward: the legend that her spirit came home each month. In vain answers the alone of the green mound — living or dead, she was always by herself.

昭君题材在唐诗里多为咏史，杜甫的写法不同：他不议论和亲政策的是非，全诗只做一件事——把「怨恨」两个字坐实。从一去、独留的行程，到空归的魂魄，到千载不歇的琵琶，怨恨被写成一种持续的、有声音的存在。为什么写这个？历代笺注家的共识是自寓：昭君因不肯贿赂画工而被埋没，杜甫因不肯逢迎权贵而被冷落；昭君一去不还，杜甫漂泊不归。组诗里前一首写宋玉，这一首写昭君，一男一女、一师一怨，都是「才貌俱高而不见用」的镜子。结句让怨恨在音乐里永久流传——这正是杜甫对自己文字的期望。

Zhaojun poems in the Tang mostly discourse on history; Du Fu's method is different: he argues nothing about the marriage-alliance policy, but spends the poem doing one thing — making the grievance real. From the journey of once-gone and alone-remains, to the soul that returns in vain, to the pipa unceasing a thousand years, resentment is written as something continuous, something with a sound. Why? The commentators agree it is self-projection: Zhaojun was buried by refusing to bribe a painter; Du Fu was sidelined for refusing to flatter the great; she went and never returned, he wanders and cannot return. In the set, the previous poem had Song Yu; this one, Zhaojun — a man and a woman, master and mourner, both mirrors of talent and beauty wasted. The close lets the grievance live on forever in music — precisely Du Fu's hope for his own writing.