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79. The Cicada, Written in Prison | Luo Binwang

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English translation

The cicada sings in the western mansion of autumn; the captive in his southern cap broods deep.

The western mansion is a name for autumn; the southern cap is a byword for a prisoner, from a story in the Zuo Commentary. One line for the creature, one for the man — sound and prisoner are set side by side from the start.

I cannot bear its dark-tressed shadow as it sings to a white head.

The cicada's dark tresses answer the prisoner's white head: black against white is a contrast of color and also of condition, the insect in its prime, the man worn down.

The dew is heavy and the flight cannot press on; the wind is loud and the sound easily drowns.

On the surface every word is the cicada; in fact every line is the poet. Heavy dew is oppressive circumstance, loud wind the clamor of slander, a flight that cannot press on a lack of any way out, a sound easily drowned an appeal no one hears.

No one believes in my purity — who will set out what is in my heart?

The cicada perches high and feeds on wind and dew, and the ancients took it for a creature of purity. The last line passes from insect to man and drives the isolation of no one believes to its end.

赏析 · Commentary

咏物诗的「双线」怎么搭 · How the Two Tracks of a Poem on Things Are Laid

全诗有一条明线写蝉，一条暗线写自己，两线从首联开始并行，到末联合拢。判断咏物诗写得好不好，一个标准是去掉任何一条线，诗是否还立得住。这里把「蝉」字全部换成别的物，前六句仍通——但「无人信高洁」这一句就露馅了，因为蝉的高洁、露重、风多与作者被诬下狱、申辩无门严丝合缝。两线贴合到这个程度，咏物才不是谜语。

The poem runs a visible track about the cicada and a hidden one about the poet, parallel from the first couplet and joined at the last. One test of such a poem is whether it stands when either track is removed. Replace every reference to the cicada with another creature and the first six lines still read — but no one believes in my purity gives the game away, for the cicada's purity, its heavy dew and loud wind fit the poet's imprisonment on a false charge and his inability to be heard with no slack at all. Only when the two tracks fit this closely is a poem on things something other than a riddle.

蝉在唐诗里的位置 · The Cicada's Place in Tang Poetry

蝉是唐诗里出场很多的物象，原因有三：它在夏秋之交鸣叫，正好牵动时序之感；它栖高饮露，容易引向清高的自我期许；它的声音单调而持续，适合写孤寂。骆宾王这首把三条都用上了，而且用得最重——三条都指向囚徒的处境。后来虞世南写蝉取其高，李商隐写蝉取其困，各取一面。同一个物象能被反复使用，靠的是它本身有几层可供分派的意思。

The cicada appears often in Tang poetry for three reasons: it sings at the turn from summer to autumn, which stirs a sense of time passing; it perches high and drinks dew, which invites a claim to purity; and its note is monotonous and unbroken, which suits solitude. Luo Binwang uses all three, and uses them at their heaviest — all three point to a prisoner's plight. Later Yu Shinan takes the cicada for its loftiness, Li Shangyin for its entrapment, each choosing one aspect. What lets one image be used again and again is that it carries several meanings available for assignment.

「南冠」两个字背后的身份 · The Identity Behind Two Words: Southern Cap

南冠出自《左传》成公九年，楚国乐官钟仪被囚于晋，仍戴南国的帽子，以示不忘故国。后来「南冠」就成了囚犯的雅称。骆宾王用这个词，不只是说自己在坐牢，还带出钟仪那份身处囚系而不改本色的意思。一个典故用对了，两个字能顶一句话——这是他选择用典而非直说的原因。

The southern cap comes from the Zuo Commentary, Duke Cheng year nine: Zhong Yi, a musician of Chu held captive in Jin, kept wearing the cap of his southern homeland to show he had not forgotten it. Southern cap then became an elegant term for a prisoner. In using it, Luo Binwang says more than that he is in jail; he carries over something of Zhong Yi — held fast yet unchanged in what he is. When an allusion is well chosen, two words can do the work of a sentence; this is why he alludes rather than states.

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