王震 行书:刘长卿《登余干古县城》
【释文】孤城上与白云齐,万古荒凉楚水西。官舍已空秋草绿,女墙犹在夜乌啼。平江渺渺来人远,落日亭亭向客低。沙鸟不知陵谷变,朝飞暮去弋阳溪。
【款识】戊辰九秋,白龙山人。
【简析】
唐代饶州余干县,即今江西余干。“古县城”是指唐以前建置的余干县城。先秦时,其地名作余汗,因境内余水、汗水得名,为越国西界城邑,在安仁江(即今江西境内信江)西北,安仁江上游属楚国,故诗中云“楚水西”。汉代置余汗县,隋代正名为余干县。唐代迁移县治,这个旧县城逐渐荒落。刘长卿这诗是登临旧县城吊古伤今之作,在唐代即传为名篇。这荒落的古城也随之出了名,后有称之“白云城”的,也有修建“白云亭”的,都是附会刘诗而起。
刘长卿在唐肃宗上元二年(761)从岭南潘州南巴贬所北归时途经余干所作。诗人被贬谪,是由于为官正直不阿而遭诬陷,因此他深感当时的政治腐败和官场污浊。现在他经历的这一地区,又刚刚经过军阀战乱,触处都见战争创伤,显出国家衰弱、人民困苦的情状,使诗人更加为唐朝国运深忧。这首即景抒情的诗篇,就包蕴着这种感慨深沉的叹喟,寂寥悲凉,深沉迷茫,情在景中,兴在象外,意绪不尽,令人沉思。
这是一座小小的山城,踞高临水,就象塞上的孤城,恍惚还象先秦时那样,矗立于越国的西边。它太高了,仿佛跟空中白云一样高;也太荒凉了,似乎亿万斯年就没人来过。城里空空的,以前的官署早已掩没在秋天茂密的荒草里,唯有城上的女墙还在,但已看不见将士们巡逻的身影,只在夜间听见乌鸦在城头啼叫。站在城头眺望,平旷的沙地无边无际,令人迷茫;孤零零的夕阳,对着诗人这个远方来客冉冉低落下去,天地显得格外沉寂。在这荒寂的世界中,诗人想起了《诗经·小雅·十月之交》的诗句:“高岸为谷,深谷为陵。哀今之人,胡憯莫惩。”古城沧桑,不就是“陵谷变”吗?诗人深深感慨于历史的变迁。然而无知的鸟儿不懂得这一切,依然飞到这里觅食,朝来暮去。
这首诗,即景抒情而又不拘泥历史事实,为了突出主旨,诗人作了大胆的虚构和想象。这城废弃在唐初,诗人把它前移至先秦;废弃的原因是县治迁移,诗人含蓄地形容为政治腐败导致古城衰亡。出于这样的构思,次联写城内荒芜,醒目点出官舍、女墙犹在,暗示古城并非毁于战争。三联写四野荒凉,农田化为平沙。末联归结到人迹湮灭,借《十月之交》的典故,点出古城荒弃是因为政治腐败,导致人民离乡背井,四出逃亡。旧说《十月之交》是“大夫刺幽王”之作,诗中激烈指责周幽王荒淫昏庸,误国害民,“下民之孽,匪降自天,噂沓背憎,职竞由人”,造成陵谷灾变,以至“民莫不逸”。结合前三联的描述,可见这里用的正是这层意思。
这是一首山水诗,更是一首政治抒情诗。它所描绘的山水是历史的,而不是自然的。荒凉古城,无可赏心悦目,并非欣赏对象,而只是诗人思想的例证,感情的寄托,引人沉思感伤,缅怀历史,鉴照现实。所以这诗不但在处理题材中有虚构和想象,而且在诗的结构上也突出于表现诗人情怀和自我形象。诗人满怀忧国忧民的心情,引导人们登临这高险荒凉的古城、空城、荒城、指点人们注意那些足以引为鉴戒的历史遗迹,激发人们感情上共鸣,促使人们思想上深省。方东树评此诗曰:“言外句句有登城人在,有诗人在,所以称为作者。”(《昭昧詹言》)中肯地指出了这诗的艺术特点。
【Simple Translation】
Raozhou Yu Gan County in the Tang Dynasty, that is, Yu Gan in Jiangxi Province today. The “ancient county” refers to the Yugan County built before the Tang Dynasty. In the pre-Qin Dynasty, the name of the place was Yuhan, named after the Yu and Khan water in the territory, which was the western boundary of the State of Yue, in the northwest of the Anren River (i.e. Xinjiang River in Jiangxi Province), and the upper reaches of the Anren River belonged to the State of Chu, so the poem “West of Chu Water”. During the Han Dynasty, Yuhan County was established, and during the Sui Dynasty, it was named Yugan County. In the Tang Dynasty, the county government was moved and the old county was gradually deserted. Liu Changqing’s poem is a poem about the old county town, which is a famous poem in the Tang Dynasty. The old city, which was deserted, also became famous, and later it was called “Baiyun City” and “Baiyun Pavilion” was built, both of which were attached to Liu’s poem.
The poem was written by Liu Changqing in the second year of Shang Yuan of Emperor Su Zong of Tang Dynasty (761), when he was returning from his relegation to the north in Nanba, Panzhou, Lingnan, via Yu Gan. The poet was relegated because he was falsely accused of being an upright official, so he deeply felt the political corruption and official filth of the time. The area he experienced now had just passed through the warlord war, and he could see war wounds everywhere, showing the weakness of the country and the hardship of the people, which made the poet even more worried about the fate of the Tang Dynasty. The poem is a poem of immediate emotion, which contains such deep sighs of emotion, silent and sad, deep and confused, with the emotion in the scene, and the rise outside the image, with endless thoughts, making people ponder.
It is a small mountain city, high above the water, like a lonely city on the border of the border, standing in a trance, as it did in the early Qin Dynasty, on the western side of the country of Yue. It was too high, as if it was as high as the white clouds in the sky; it was also too desolate, as if no one had ever been here for hundreds of millions of years. The city was empty, and the former official offices had long been hidden in the dense autumn grass, except for the women’s wall on top of the city, but the soldiers were no longer visible on patrol, and only crows were heard cawing at night. Standing at the head of the city, the flat sandy land is boundless and bewildering; the lonely sunset, which is lowered to the poet, a distant visitor, makes heaven and earth seem extraordinarily silent. In this deserted and silent world, the poet recalled the lines of the poem “Shi Jing – Xiao Ya – The Crossing of October”: “The high bank is a valley, the deep valley is a tomb. I mourn the people of today, Hu and Switzerland are not punished.” Isn’t the vicissitudes of the ancient city “the valley of the tomb”? The poet deeply laments the changes of history. However, the ignorant birds do not understand all this and still fly here to feed, coming and going.
In this poem, the poet expresses his emotions without sticking to historical facts, and in order to highlight the main theme, the poet makes bold fiction and imagination. The city was abandoned in the early Tang Dynasty, but the poet moves it forward to the pre-Qin Dynasty; the reason for the abandonment is the relocation of the county government, which the poet implicitly describes as political corruption leading to the decline of the ancient city. The second couplet is about the desolation of the city, but the official house and the women’s wall are still there, implying that the city was not destroyed in the war. The third couplet is about the desolation of the fields and the transformation of the farmland into flat sand. The last couplet concludes with the annihilation of human traces, using the allusion to “The Turn of October” to point out that the ancient city was deserted because of political corruption, causing people to leave their hometowns and flee in all directions. It is said that “The Crossing of October” is a poem written by “a great scholar who stabbed King You”, in which the poet fiercely blames King You of Zhou for his desolation and incompetence, misleading the country and harming the people, and “the sins of the people descend from the sky, and the grouping of the people together is caused by the people”, resulting in the disaster of the valley, so that The people are not free”. Combined with the descriptions of the first three lines, we can see that this is exactly the meaning used here.
This is a landscape poem, but also a political lyric poem. The landscape it depicts is historical, not natural. The desolate ancient city is not an object of appreciation, but only an example of the poet’s thoughts and feelings, inviting contemplation and sentiment, remembrance of history, and appreciation of reality. Therefore, the poem is not only fictional and imaginative in its treatment of the subject matter, but also prominent in the structure of the poem, which expresses the poet’s feelings and self-image. The poet is full of worries about the country and the people, guiding people to this high and desolate ancient city, the empty city and the deserted city, and pointing out the historical relics that can be used as a warning, inspiring people to resonate with their feelings and prompting them to deepen their thoughts. Fang Dongshu commented on this poem, “There are people who boarded the city and poets outside the words, so it is called the author.” (“Zhaomei Zhangyin”) pertinently points out the artistic characteristics of this poem.