ChineseStudy

296. Sent to Someone | Zhang Bi

Contents

Text

English translation

The dream of parting lingers as I reach the Xie house; the small cloister winds around, the crooked railing slants.

The dream of parting is the dream after a separation; lingering suggests the way it clings and will not leave. The Xie house properly means the great clans of the Eastern Jin such as the Xie, but in verse it stands for the dwelling of the woman he longs for, and there is no need to make it a literal family named Xie. The small cloister winds around tells how the covered walk links back on itself, and the crooked railing slants how the railings run aslant along it. The couplet records what he sees in the dream: before the person arrives, the look of that courtyard is already set down.

Only the moon over the spring courtyard is full of feeling; it still lights the fallen blossoms for the one apart.

Full of feeling makes the moon seem to care; only carries a complaint—people are less faithful than the moon. They have parted, the courtyard remains, the spring moon still shines on the falling petals, and the falling petals suggest that spring and their meetings are passing together. The one apart may mean either the person who has left or the one who remains. (The author is given in one source as Zhang Bi with a variant character; I follow the standard text and Wikisource.)

赏析 · Commentary

梦里的谢家院落 · The Xie Courtyard in a Dream

前两句写梦：人已分别，思念却循着旧路回到她家，回廊与曲阑一一浮现。院落的细节比人物面容更清楚，说明这里早已刻进记忆。梦醒前后都绕着这方院落，可见他对这处地方有多熟、多念。

The opening couplet is a dream: they have parted, but longing retraces the old way back to her house, and the cloister and crooked railing appear detail by detail. The courtyard is clearer than any face because it has long been engraved in memory. Before and after waking his thoughts circle this one courtyard—proof of how well he knows it and how much he misses it.

怪月不如怪人 · Blame the Moon, Which Is Really Blaming People

后两句把月说成“多情”，又说“只有”月多情——言下之意，人却无情。月照着落花，本就是寻常夜景，诗人偏偏觉得这是月对他的照顾。愈说月有情，愈见人之无情，也愈见他自己不能忘情。

The closing couplet calls the moon full of feeling, then says it alone is—implying that people are not. The moon lighting fallen blossoms is an ordinary night scene, yet the poet takes it as the moon's care for him. The more he calls the moon feeling, the more he shows people's lack of it—and his own inability to forget.

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