92. Spring View | Du Fu
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
国破山河在，城春草木深。
English translation
The state is broken, the hills and rivers remain; spring comes to the city, and the grass grows deep.
Broken against remain, spring against deep — four words in two contrasts. Spring in the city is a good thing in itself, but deep grass means no one tends it: desolation hides inside abundance.
Original Chinese text
感时花溅泪，恨别鸟惊心。
English translation
Moved by the times, the flowers scatter tears; grieving at parting, the birds startle the heart.
Who is the subject of these lines reads two ways: a person weeping at flowers and startled by birds, or the flowers scattering tears and the birds startling of themselves. Both readings stand, and this couplet has long been discussed for it.
Original Chinese text
烽火连三月，家书抵万金。
English translation
The beacon fires have burned three months on end; a letter from home is worth ten thousand in gold.
Three months on end reads either as three consecutive months or as from the first month to the third; either way the point is how long the war has run. Worth ten thousand in gold puts the value of a letter home at its utmost.
Original Chinese text
白头搔更短，浑欲不胜簪。
English translation
Scratching my white head, it grows thinner, till it can hardly hold a hairpin.
Scratching is the unconscious gesture of a worried man. White hair thinning until a pin will not stay is a literal picture of age and equally of grief.
赏析 · Commentary
为什么这首诗字字都重 · Why Every Word Here Carries Weight
这首写在安史之乱中，杜甫困居长安时。全诗八句，把一个时代和一个人的处境压缩在一起：首联是国与城的对照，颔联是景物与心情的交织，颈联是战事与家书，尾联是衰老的自身。每联都从一个更大的范围收一点，最后收到白头上。这种由大到小、由外到内的推进，是五律常见的结构，但能把每一联都写得这么满的，杜甫是少数。
This was written during the An Lushan Rebellion while Du Fu was trapped in Chang'an. Eight lines compress a whole era and one man's condition: the first couplet sets the state against the city, the second interweaves scene and feeling, the third war and a letter home, the last the aging self. Each couplet draws a little closer in, until it comes to rest on a white head. Such a movement from large to small, outside to inside, is a common structure in five-character regulated verse, but few can fill every couplet as fully as Du Fu.
「国破」两个字写在什么时候 · When the Words the State Is Broken Were Written
至德元载（756）六月，潼关失守，玄宗奔蜀，长安随后陷落。杜甫在次年春天困居长安，写下这首诗。「国破」不是修辞，是天宝十五载到至德二载之间真实发生的事。知道这个时间，才能明白「城春草木深」为什么沉重：长安本是天下的中心，如今春天照来，却没有人在打理这座城。诗的重量，一半来自史实。
In the sixth month of the first year of Zhide (756), Tong Pass fell, Xuanzong fled to Shu, and Chang'an fell soon after. Du Fu, trapped there the following spring, wrote this poem. The state is broken is not rhetoric; it happened between the fifteenth year of Tianbao and the second year of Zhide. Knowing the date is what makes spring and deep grass weigh: Chang'an had been the center of the realm, and now spring comes and no one tends the city. Half the poem's weight comes from fact.
「花溅泪，鸟惊心」的两种读法 · Two Readings of Flowers Scattering Tears
这一联的主语历来有争论。若以人为主语，是杜甫看着花而流泪、听着鸟而心惊，一切景语皆情语；若以花鸟为主语，则是花也在哭、鸟也在惊，连草木都染上了乱世的悲。前一说落实在人，后一说扩大到物。两说都合诗法，也都增强了诗的感染力。遇到这种情况，本站不裁断，只说两读并行——古典诗的多义性，有时正是它耐读的原因。
The subject of this couplet has long been debated. Take the person as subject and Du Fu weeps at the flowers and starts at the birds, all scenery becoming feeling; take flowers and birds as subject and the flowers weep too, the birds start too, even plants stained with the grief of a broken age. The first reading lands on the man, the second widens to things. Both fit the rules, and both deepen the poem's force. Where a reading is genuinely open this site does not decide, only notes that both hold — the plurality of classical poetry is sometimes why it lasts.