87. Crossing Jingmen and Seeing Off a Friend | Li Bai
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
渡远荆门外，来从楚国游。
English translation
Far across the river, beyond Jingmen, I have come to wander the land of Chu.
Jingmen is the boundary between Shu and Chu. Li Bai left Shu as a young man and passed here into a wider world, and the opening couplet sets out this journey out of Shu.
Original Chinese text
山随平野尽，江入大荒流。
English translation
The mountains end with the flat plain; the river flows into the vast wilderness.
The verbs end with and flow into set both mountains and river moving: the mountains recede, the river pours forward. The couplet gives the change from the gorges of Shu, where hills crowd the water, to the sudden wideness of the Chu plain.
Original Chinese text
月下飞天镜，云生结海楼。
English translation
Below the moon a mirror flies down from the sky; clouds rise and build sea-towers.
The flying mirror is the moon's reflection in the river; the sea-towers are the visions clouds build. Both lines give reflections and apparitions between water and sky, details of the wide Chu landscape.
Original Chinese text
仍怜故乡水，万里送行舟。
English translation
I still love the water of my old home; for ten thousand li it sees my boat along.
The Yangtze flows down from Shu, and Li Bai says it sees my boat along, making the water the embodiment of home. The last line does not say he misses home but that home's water cannot let him go — the feeling is turned around.
赏析 · Commentary
题目里的「送别」送的是谁 · Who Is Being Seen Off in the Title
这首诗题为「渡荆门送别」，但正文里没有出现被送的友人，四联写的都是自己出蜀的所见所感。这引出一种通行的读法：末联的「送行舟」就是标题所指的送别——送他的不是人，是故乡的水。另一种读法则认为题中「送别」是编集者所加，与正文未必相应。两说都不能从诗本身确证。可以确定的是，若按前一种读法，全诗便是「故乡送我到远方」的一个完整的表达，末联的分量也就落在标题上。
The poem is titled Crossing Jingmen and Seeing Off a Friend, yet no friend appears in the text; all four couplets give what the speaker saw and felt leaving Shu. This has led to a common reading: the boat seen along in the last line is the farewell the title names — it is not a person who sees him off but the water of his home. Another reading holds that the words seeing off were added by an editor and need not answer to the text. Neither can be confirmed from the poem alone. What is certain is that on the first reading the poem becomes a complete statement of home sending him into the distance, and the weight of the last couplet rests on the title.
「山随平野尽」的手法是移动的视点 · The Method of Mountains Ending with the Plain: A Moving Eye
这两句常被拿来和杜甫「星垂平野阔，月涌大江流」并读，因为写法相近：都是站在船上，让景物随行程变化。李白这两句的关键是「随」和「入」——不是静态地描写平原如何，而是写出「走过三峡、忽然开阔」这个过程。若没有在江上移动的经验，很难把这层变化写得这么准。二十来岁的李白第一次出蜀，眼前的变化是新鲜的，诗里的开阔感多半也来自这种新鲜。
These lines are often read alongside Du Fu's stars hang low over the wide plain, the moon surges with the great river, for the method is much the same: standing on a boat and letting the scene change with the journey. The key here is end with and flow into — not a static account of what a plain is like but the process of passing the gorges and suddenly opening out. Without the experience of moving on the river, such a change is hard to render so exactly. Li Bai, about twenty, was leaving Shu for the first time; the change before his eyes was fresh, and the sense of openness in the poem likely comes from that freshness.
末联为什么不直说想家 · Why the Last Couplet Does Not Say He Misses Home
直说「思乡」是唐诗里最省力的写法，也最容易写平庸。李白的处理是把主语换掉——想家的不是「我」，而是「故乡水」。这么一换，抽象的思乡变成了一个具体的动作：水一路跟着船，送出去万里。读者反而更能感到那份不舍，因为不舍被指派给了景物。这种「移情于物」的写法在唐诗里常见，用得好不好，看被指派的物是否承担得住；这里用长江水，它本来就是从蜀地流来的，承担得住。
Saying I miss home is the least effortful move in Tang poetry and the easiest to make dull. Li Bai changes the subject instead: it is not I who misses home but the water of home. With the swap, abstract homesickness becomes a concrete action — the water follows the boat, seeing it ten thousand li out. The reader feels the reluctance more, for it has been assigned to the scenery. This transferring of feeling onto things is common in Tang poetry, and whether it works depends on whether the thing can bear the assignment; here it is the Yangtze, which does flow down from Shu, and it bears it.