93. On Spring Duty in the Left Palace Office | Du Fu

这首写杜甫在门下省值夜。前两联全是景：花隐、鸟过、星动、月明，看不出情绪。第三联转到动作——睡不着、听钥匙、想马铃声。第四联才点出原因：明天有封事要上，所以盼天亮。一层层下来，读者跟着他从安静的环境走到焦躁的内心。唐诗写值夜、写等待，常是这个套路：先铺环境，再写动作，最后揭出心事，节奏由缓到急。

This poem writes Du Fu on night duty at the Chancellery. The first two couplets are all scene — flowers fading, birds passing, stars stirring, the moon bright — with no feeling showing. The third turns to action: wakeful, listening to keys, fancying jade bells. Only the fourth names the cause: a memorial to submit in the morning, and so he longs for daybreak. Step by step the reader follows him from a quiet setting to a restless mind. Night-watch and waiting poems in the Tang often run this way: setting first, action next, the burden revealed last, the pace quickening as it goes.

杜甫在左省任左拾遗，是谏官，职责是向皇帝进言。写这首诗时他正为房琯罢相的事上疏，处境并不轻松。「封事」是要密封呈上的奏章，说明事情重大。他值夜睡不着，不是因为失眠，是因为心里装着明天要办的事。一个官员的责任感，被写成了「数问夜如何」这样一句朴实的话，不用一个「忠」字。

Du Fu held the post of Reminder of the Left in the Chancellery, a remonstrance official whose duty was to advise the emperor. At this time he was memorializing on the dismissal of Fang Guan, and his position was not easy. A sealed memorial meant a matter of weight, and his sleeplessness on watch is not insomnia but a mind full of what he must do tomorrow. An official's sense of duty is written as the plain line asking again and again how the night goes, with no word of loyalty anywhere.

星光是静止的，宫门也是静止的，怎么会「动」？这是杜甫炼字的地方。星光照在宫门的檐角、兽环上，明暗交错，看上去像在跳；而值夜的人心里有事，看什么都静不下来，也把这份不宁投射到了景物上。一个「动」字，既写光，也写心。五律字数少，炼字就格外重要——选对了字，一联全活。

Starlight is still and the palace gates are still; how can they stir? This is where Du Fu forges his words. Starlight on the eaves and door rings flickers light and dark and seems to dance, and a man on watch with something on his mind cannot see anything as still, projecting that unrest onto the scene. The one word stir writes both the light and the mind. With so few characters in five-character verse, forging words matters all the more: find the right one and the whole couplet lives.