ChineseStudy

283. The Golden Valley Garden | Du Mu

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English translation

The splendors of old are scattered and gone with the fragrant dust; the water runs on without feeling, the grass grows green of itself.

The Golden Valley Garden was built by Shi Chong, a rich man of the Western Jin, and knew a brief, brilliant height. Its old splendor is scattered and gone; the fragrant dust recalls the tale that Shi Chong strewed scented powder on the ground for his concubines to walk on, a byword for his extravagance. The water runs on without feeling means the stream cares nothing for human fortunes, and the grass grows green of itself means the weeds come back each spring, heedless of rise and fall.

At dusk in the east wind a bird cries in complaint; the fallen blossoms still resemble the woman who leapt from the tower.

Dusk in the east wind sets the hour at evening, with the wind and the bird's cry both carrying grief. The woman who leapt from the tower is Green Pearl, Shi Chong's beloved concubine: when the powerful Sun Xiu demanded her and Shi Chong refused to give her up, she threw herself to her death in the Golden Valley Garden. From the falling flowers before him the poet recalls her, so that the blossoms' fall and the woman's death become one image. The sense of ruin and the grief of remembrance are never stated outright.

赏析 · Commentary

由落花想到坠楼人 · From Fallen Blossoms to the Woman Who Fell

前两句写繁华散尽、流水无情，是就园子的兴废说；后两句忽然把一个具体的女子搬出来。落花本是无情之物，诗人偏说它像绿珠，于是季节的凋零就成了人的死亡。金谷园的盛与衰、美人的生与死，都收在“落花”这一意象里。

The opening couplet speaks of the garden's rise and fall—splendor dissolved, water indifferent; the closing couplet suddenly brings in one particular woman. Fallen blossoms have no feeling, yet the poet says they resemble Green Pearl, and so the fading of the season becomes a person's death. The garden's glory and ruin, the beauty's life and death, are all gathered into the single image of the falling flower.

一园兴废，一个女子 · One Garden's Rise and Fall, One Woman

石崇斗富是历史上有名的奢华，金谷园正是这份奢华的地标；绿珠坠楼则是这奢华里最惨烈的一笔。杜牧不评判石崇的对错，只写园子荒了、草绿了、花落了，最后让花与绿珠重叠。读者自会明白：再盛的园子，也留不住一个女子，更留不住那一园繁华。

Shi Chong's contest of wealth is a famous extravagance in history, and the Golden Valley Garden was its landmark; Green Pearl's leap was the cruelest stroke within that extravagance. Du Mu passes no judgment on Shi Chong; he writes only that the garden is overgrown, the grass green, the blossoms fallen, and at the end lets the flower and Green Pearl overlap. The reader understands: however splendid the garden, it could not keep one woman, much less keep all its glory.

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