ChineseStudy

298. Weicheng Song | Wang Wei

Contents

Text

English translation

The morning rain of Weicheng wets the light dust; the willows by the guesthouse are green, their color fresh.

This poem is also titled Seeing Off Yuan the Second on His Mission to Anxi, a farewell to a friend bound for Anxi. Weicheng lies near present-day Xianyang in Shaanxi, and in Tang times it was the place of farewell on the road west from Chang'an. To wet is to dampen, moisten. Light dust means dust so fine a little rain lays it and keeps it down. The guesthouse is a traveler's inn. The willow color new means after the rain the willows are green and washed fresh. The ancients broke willow branches at partings, and willow sounds like stay; this line lays the scene for the urging of wine and the sorrow of parting that follows. (The Gutenberg base text reads willow color new; Wikisource notes the variant willows in spring; the chinese-poetry dataset has willow-spring or willow-color spring; I follow the common reading.)

I urge you to drain one more cup of wine; west of the Yang Pass there will be no old friends.

To drain one more means to finish it, to empty another cup. The Yang Pass was a frontier gate built in the Han, its site southwest of present-day Dunhuang in Gansu; it was the necessary road to the Western Regions, and with the Jade Gate it was the key route west. No old friends tells of ten thousand li beyond and no one he knows in sight. The poet does not say how he himself cannot bear to part; he only lays bare how far and desolate it is west of the Yang Pass, and all the feeling of parting lies beneath that one urging.

赏析 · Commentary

用清晨好景写别离 · A Fine Morning Scene for a Parting

这首诗写送友人赴安西。开头不写离愁，先写朝雨、轻尘、青青柳色，像是平常的好晨光；可“客舍”“柳”字一出来，离别之意就藏不住了。以美景衬别情，比直接说愁更耐读。

This poem sees off a friend bound for Anxi. It opens not with parting grief but with morning rain, light dust, and green willows, like any fine dawn; yet once guesthouse and willow appear, the sense of parting can no longer hide. Setting a fair scene against farewell feeling reads better than naming the sorrow outright.

一句话劝酒，一句写远 · One Line of Wine, One of Distance

后两句是劝酒：再喝一杯吧——因为出了阳关就没有故人了。诗人不说“我舍不得你”，只把最实在的理由摆出来。阳关一别，便是大漠、孤旅、无亲无友。这句劝酒，抵得上一大段离愁。

The closing couplet urges the wine: take one more cup—because past the Yang Pass there will be no old friends. The poet does not say I cannot bear to lose you; he puts the plainest reason before him. Past the Yang Pass lie desert, a lone journey, no kin, no friends. That one urging of wine weighs as much as a long speech of grief.

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