45. 桂枝香（王安石）

开头「登临送目」先把人放在高处，视线向外推：先见「故国晚秋」的天色，再落到「千里澄江似练，翠峰如簇」，江像一条白练，山峰聚成一簇，远看只剩轮廓。接着视线下降、靠近：「归帆去棹残阳里」写江面的船，「背西风，酒旗斜矗」写岸上的酒旗，一动一静，一远一近。「彩舟云淡，星河鹭起」把时间推到黄昏之后，船影淡进云里，白鹭从江面飞起。收在「画图难足」，前面每两句换一次观察距离，画框装不下这种移动；这里的分片与标点是现代阅读整理[1]。「归帆」在其他转录中作「征帆」[2]。

The opening does not begin with a scene; it begins with a movement. 'Climbing high, I send my gaze far out' places a person above the landscape and pushes the eye outward. First comes the season and the old capital, then the two long lines that fix the distance: the river like white silk, the peaks gathered in clusters. After that the gaze drops and comes closer. Sails in the setting sun belong to the water; a wine-shop banner leaning against the west wind belongs to the shore. One is movement, one is stillness; one is far, one is near. 'Painted boats fade into pale cloud, herons rise from the starry river' carries the hour past dusk. The stanza ends with 'no picture could hold it all,' and the phrase is not modesty: every couplet has changed the distance from which the view is seen, and a frame cannot hold that shifting. The stanza break and punctuation followed here are modern reading aids [1]; the text reads 'homebound sails' where other transcriptions have 'journeying sails' [2].

下片用「念往昔、繁华竞逐」接住上片景物，笔锋转向人事。「叹门外楼头」五个字把两件事并在一处：门外是韩擒虎的兵，楼头是张丽华。杜牧《台城曲二首》写「门外韩擒虎，楼头张丽华」，王安石借这组对照，把一朝败亡压进一个瞬间[3]。「悲恨相续」把这一个瞬间拉成一串相连的悲恨。「千古凭高，对此漫嗟荣辱」是自我约束：登高的人容易只发荣辱之叹，「漫嗟」把这种感叹放轻。「六朝旧事随流水，但寒烟、芳草凝绿」，历史退成眼前草木，兴亡的话头到此收住，只剩寒烟与草色。

The second stanza takes up the landscape and turns it toward human affairs. 'Thinking of the past, when splendour raced after splendour' is the hinge. Then five characters do the work of a chronicle: 'I sigh for the gate outside, the tower above.' Du Mu's poem on Taicheng had already set the gate and the tower side by side — Han Qinhu's troops at the gate, Zhang Lihua in the tower — and Wang Anshi borrows that pairing to compress a dynasty's fall into a single moment [3]. 'Grief and bitterness followed one another' widens one instant into a linked sequence of grief. 'Through the ages, those who climb high' then checks the response: looking down on the ruins, a visitor can do nothing but sigh over glory and disgrace, and 'idly' lightens the sigh. In 'the affairs of the Six Dynasties have gone with the flowing water; only cold mist and fragrant grass remain, congealed in green,' history gives way to what is actually before the eyes, and the talk of rise and fall stops at mist and grass.

末句「至今商女，时时犹唱，《后庭》遗曲」把时间从六朝拉到眼前。「至今」「时时」两个时间词让旧曲一直有人唱，历史批评因此落在当下，而不只停在怀古。「商女」是唱曲的人，杜牧《泊秦淮》已有「商女不知亡国恨，隔江犹唱后庭花」，这里沿用的是同一文学话头[4]，不是把亡国责任推给歌者。《后庭》指陈后主的《玉树后庭花》，《南史》卷十二记有他与这支曲子的关联[5]。曲还在唱，听的人换了几代，「遗曲」的「遗」，落在这条没有断掉的传唱线上。

The last line pulls the date forward. 'And still today, singing girls now and then sing the leftover tune of the Rear Court' — the two time words, 'still' and 'now and then,' keep the old song in circulation, so the historical judgment lands in the present rather than resting in antiquarian regret. The singers are the ones who perform the song. Du Mu had already written, in 'Mooring on the Qinhuai,' of singing girls who know nothing of a fallen state's grief and still sing the Rear Court tune across the river; Wang Anshi is using the same literary commonplace [4], not assigning the blame for a dynasty's collapse to performers. The Rear Court refers to Chen Houzhu's 'Jade Tree and Rear Court Flower,' a song the Nan shi associates with him [5]. The tune is still sung; the listeners have changed several times over. That is where the word 'leftover' falls: on a line of transmission that has not broken.