80. Harmonizing with Clerk Lu of Jinling on an Early Spring Outing | Du Shenyan
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
独有宦游人，偏惊物候新。
English translation
Only a man away from home in office feels the shock when the season turns.
The shock is the poem's eye. Spring scenery that a local has seen all his life jolts the man staying far from home, and in that jolt the speaker's condition shows itself.
Original Chinese text
云霞出海曙，梅柳渡江春。
English translation
Clouds and haze rise from the sea at dawn; plum and willow carry spring across the river.
One line for the light of the sky, one for plants. Spring crossing the river makes the season a thing that moves, from the south bank to the north. This is a rare live stroke of parallelism for the early Tang.
Original Chinese text
淑气催黄鸟，晴光转绿苹。
English translation
The mild air quickens the yellow oriole; in the clear light the duckweed turns green.
The two verbs quicken and turn set the scene moving on its own: it is not that a man watches spring, but that spring drives everything forward. That motion is where this couplet's weight lies.
Original Chinese text
忽闻歌古调，归思欲沾巾。
English translation
Suddenly I hear you sing an old tune, and homesickness rises till the kerchief is wet.
The first six lines are all scenery; only the last couplet names the longing for home. The turn on suddenly is sharp, and the brighter the scenery before it, the more abruptly the homesickness seems to come.
赏析 · Commentary
「和」诗要做什么 · What a Harmonizing Poem Has to Do
题目的「和」指依原诗的题意或韵脚另作一首。原唱是晋陵陆丞的《早春游望》，写的是早春出游所见；杜审言这首和诗把重心挪到了「望」之后的感受上。同一题材，和诗不能只是复述，必须找到一个原唱没写到的角度。杜审言找到的是「宦游人」这个身份——同样的春景，本地人和客居的人看到的不一样。这是和诗能站住的理由。
The word harmonizing in the title means composing another poem on the theme or rhymes of an original. The original, by Clerk Lu of Jinling, described what was seen on an early spring outing; Du Shenyan's response shifts the weight to what comes after the looking. On the same topic a harmonizing poem cannot simply retell; it must find an angle the original left out. Du Shenyan's angle is the condition of the man away from home in office — the same spring scenery looks different to a local and to a stranger. That is what lets the poem stand.
中间两联为什么写得最亮 · Why the Middle Couplets Shine Brightest
颔联和颈联是全诗的名句，历代选本几乎必录。它们的好处在于动词选得准：出海、渡江、催、转，四个动作让静止的春景流动起来。而且四个动作的施动者都不是人——是云霞自己在出海，春天自己在渡江。人退到一边，景物却更活了。这种写法在初唐还不多见，杜审言是杜甫的祖父，杜甫后来写景的动感，家学上是有来历的。
The second and third couplets are the famous ones, recorded in nearly every anthology. Their merit lies in the accuracy of the verbs: rise from the sea, cross the river, quicken, turn — four actions that set a still spring scene in motion. And in none of them is a person the agent — the haze rises of itself, spring crosses of itself. The human steps aside and the scenery comes more alive. The method was uncommon in the early Tang; Du Shenyan was Du Fu's grandfather, and the sense of motion in Du Fu's landscape writing has a lineage in the family.
末联的转折靠什么撑住 · What Holds Up the Turn in the Last Couplet
全诗六句写春景，最后两句忽然说想家，这个转折之所以不突兀，靠的是首联已经埋下的「宦游人」三个字。在这三个字出现之前，读者不知道看春的人是谁；出现之后，中间四句的明媚就都有了底色——越美越刺人。末联的「忽闻歌古调」又给了一个触发点：情绪不是自己来的，是被一支曲子勾起来的。有身份铺垫，有触发事件，转折就站得住。
Six lines of spring scenery, then two lines of sudden homesickness. The turn is not jarring because the opening couplet has already planted the phrase a man away from home in office. Before those words appear the reader does not know who is looking at spring; after them, the brightness of the middle four lines gains an undertone — the lovelier it is, the more it stings. The last couplet adds a trigger in suddenly I hear you sing an old tune: the feeling does not come of itself, it is drawn out by a melody. With the condition planted and the trigger given, the turn holds.