ChineseStudy

91. A Night of Moonlight | Du Fu

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English translation

Tonight the moon over Fuzhou — in her chamber she watches it alone.

Du Fu was then held in Chang'an by the rebels while his wife and children were at Fuzhou. The poem opens not on his own moon-gazing but on his wife gazing alone, the point of view on the other from the very start.

I pity from afar my little children, who do not yet understand longing for Chang'an.

Not yet understand longing carries two senses: the children do not know how to miss their father, and they do not understand what their mother's solitude before the moon means. The couplet deepens the loneliness of watching alone.

The fragrant mist wets her cloudlike hair; the clear light chills her jade arm.

Both lines are all the wife, a picture Du Fu imagines from far away: mist dampening her hair, moonlight on her arm, signs that she has been gazing long. Her beauty is written to show her suffering.

When shall we lean together at the thin curtain, the light on both of us, tears dried?

The light on both answers watching alone in the opening couplet: now one looks, and the hope is that two will look. The last line closes on a question, leaving reunion as a hope with no footing yet.

赏析 · Commentary

「对面着笔」的写法 · The Method of Writing from the Other Side

这首最值得说的是视角：明明是杜甫自己在长安思念妻儿，通篇却主要写妻子在鄜州如何望月。这种「从对面写来」的手法，比直说自己难过更有力量——因为它同时完成了两件事：写出了妻子的苦，也写出了杜甫对她的了解和牵挂。一个能把对方的心思写得这么细的人，自己的牵挂有多深，不用再说。唐诗写思念常用这一手，杜甫这首是典型。

What most deserves notice is the viewpoint: plainly it is Du Fu in Chang'an missing his family, yet the poem mainly writes how his wife gazes at the moon in Fuzhou. Writing from the far side carries more force than stating his own sorrow, because it does two things at once: it shows her suffering and shows his knowledge of her and his care. How deep his own care runs needs no telling from a man who can render another's mind so finely. Tang poems of longing often use this move, and Du Fu's is a model.

「未解忆长安」的一石二鸟 · How One Line Does Two Jobs

「遥怜小儿女，未解忆长安」表面写孩子，实际同时推进了两条线。一是孩子的天真：他们太小，还不知道想父亲。二是母亲的孤独：她望月的心事，连儿女都不懂，只能一个人扛。一句诗装着两层意思，而且两层都指向「独」字，这是杜甫的密度。读七律读惯的人初读这首五律，会觉得字少事多，原因就在这里。

I pity from afar my little children, who do not yet understand longing for Chang'an looks like a line about the children but drives two tracks at once. One is their innocence: too young to miss their father. The other is the mother's solitude: even her children do not understand what she keeps before the moon, and she bears it alone. One line carries two senses, and both point at alone — that is Du Fu's density. A reader used to seven-character verse will find this five-character poem carrying much in few words, and here is why.

写妻子容貌的分量 · The Weight of Writing His Wife's Beauty

「香雾云鬟湿，清辉玉臂寒」是杜甫少有的写妻子之美的地方。云鬟和玉臂都是对妻子的想象，而湿和寒是具体的感觉。他不写「她很难过」，只写她站得久了、衣裳湿了、手臂凉了，难过自己就出来了。这种写法把深情藏在细节里，不用一个「爱」字，却比说出来更重。后来的词曲写思念多用直抒，杜甫这一路是另一种传统。

The fragrant mist wets her hair, the clear light chills her arm — this is one of the few places where Du Fu writes his wife's beauty. Cloudlike hair and jade arm are imaginings of her, and wet and chill are exact sensations. He does not write she is sad; he writes only that she has stood long, that her clothes are damp, that her arm has gone cold, and the sadness emerges of itself. The method hides deep feeling in detail, uses not one word of love, and weighs more than saying it. Lyric of later ages often writes longing outright; Du Fu's road is another tradition.

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