86. To Meng Haoran | Li Bai

李白写赠人诗，常见的做法是把对方的整个人生压缩成几个对照的片段，迅速给出判断。这首就是：红颜与白首、弃轩冕与卧松云、醉月与迷花、不事君——四组对照下来，孟浩然的一生被概括成「不仕」这一件事。这个概括未必全面，但赠人诗要的不是全面，是准确抓住对方最想让天下知道的一面。李白自己也是不愿受拘束的人，写孟浩然其实也在写一种他想认同的生活方式。

Li Bai's poems to people often compress a whole life into a few contrasting fragments and deliver a verdict fast. Here it is youth and white head, casting off office and lying among pines, drunken moonlight and flower rapture, not serving the ruler — four contrasts, and Meng Haoran's life is summed up as one thing: he did not take office. The summary need not be complete; what a poem to someone wants is not completeness but an exact grip on the side of himself he most wants known. Li Bai was himself a man who would not be bound, and writing of Meng Haoran he was also writing a way of life he wanted to claim.

「风流天下闻」的「风流」不是今天说的轻浮，在唐代它指人的风采、气度、不受俗见约束的品格。用在孟浩然身上，是对他终身不仕、任真自得的一种肯定。这个词在盛唐的语境里带有褒义，是文人之间相互称许的常用语。实际上李白与孟浩然是两代人，李白比孟浩然小十二岁，两人交谊见于多首诗，这首是其中最有名的一首。

The phrase rendered style was not today's frivolity; in Tang usage it meant bearing, temper, and a character unbound by common opinion. Applied to Meng Haoran it affirms a man who never took office and was true to himself. In the high Tang the word carried praise and was common currency among literati. In fact Li Bai and Meng Haoran belonged to different generations — Li Bai was twelve years younger — and their friendship appears in several poems, of which this is the best known.

末联用「高山仰止」把孟浩然抬高到需要仰望的位置，随后「挹清芬」却说自己只能捧取一点香气。一高一低之间，李白采取的是仰视的姿态。这个结尾的好处是把推崇说到不夸张的程度：既然高山仰止，就不必再堆叠赞美词，一个「徒此」把距离感保留下来。赠人诗最难的是既表达敬意又不显得奉承，这里的办法是承认自己够不着，反而更真。

The last couplet lifts Meng Haoran with the Book of Songs image of the high mountain one looks up to, then says that here he can only draw off a little fragrance. Between the high and the low, Li Bai takes the posture of looking up. The ending's merit is bringing the admiration to a point short of excess: once the mountain is beyond looking up to, there is no need to pile on more praise, and the phrase rendered only here keeps the distance alive. The hardest thing in a poem to another is to show respect without flattery, and the way taken here is to admit one cannot reach — which rings truer.