Listen to this article孙其峰 隶书：陈陶《陇西行》
【释文】誓扫匈奴不顾身，五千貂锦丧胡尘。可怜无边定河（无定河边）骨，犹是春闺梦里人。
【款识】陈陶诗陇西行，癸酉立秋后，其峰。
【注释】陇西行：古代歌曲名。貂锦：这里指战士。无定河：在陕西北部。深闺：这里指战死者的妻子。
【简析】
《陇西行》是乐府《相和歌·瑟调曲》旧题，内容写边塞战争。陇西，即今甘肃宁夏陇山以西的地方。陈陶的《陇西行》共四首，此其二。诗反映了唐代长期的边塞战争给人民带来的痛苦和灾难。
首二句以精炼概括的语言，叙述了一个慷慨悲壮的激战场面。唐军誓死杀敌，奋不顾身，但结果五千将士全部丧身“胡尘”。“誓扫”、“不顾”，表现了唐军将士忠勇敢战的气概和献身精神。汉代羽林军穿锦衣貂裘，这里借指精锐部队。部队如此精良，战死者达五千之众，足见战斗之激烈和伤亡之惨重。
接着，笔锋一转，逼出正意：“可怜无定河边骨，犹是春闺梦里人。”这里没有直写战争带来的悲惨景象，也没有渲染家人的悲伤情绪，而是匠心独运，把“河边骨”和“春闺梦”联系起来，写闺中妻子不知征人战死，仍然在梦中想见已成白骨的丈夫，使全诗产生震撼心灵的悲剧力量。知道亲人死去，固然会引起悲伤，但确知亲人的下落，毕竟是一种告慰。而这里，长年音讯杳然，人早已变成无定河边的枯骨，妻子却还在梦境之中盼他早日归来团聚。灾难和不幸降临到身上，不但毫不觉察，反而满怀着热切美好的希望，这才是真正的悲剧。
明代杨慎《升庵诗话》认为，此诗化用了汉代贾捐之《议罢珠崖疏》“父战死于前，子斗伤于后，女子乘亭鄣，孤儿号于道，老母、寡妻饮泣巷哭，遥设虚祭，想魂乎万里之外”的文意，称它“一变而妙，真夺胎换骨矣”。贾文着力渲染孤儿寡母遥祭追魂，痛哭于道的悲哀气氛，写得沉痛而富有情致。文中写家人“设祭”、“想魂”，显然已知征人战死。而陈陶诗中的少妇则深信丈夫还活着，丝毫不疑其已经死去，几番梦中相逢。诗意更深挚，情景更凄惨，因而也更能使人一洒同情之泪。
这诗的跌宕处全在三、四两句。“可怜”句紧承前句，本题中之义；“犹是”句荡开一笔，另辟新境。“无定河边骨”和“春闺梦里人”，一边是现实，一边是梦境；一边是悲哀凄凉的枯骨，一边是年轻英俊的战士，虚实相对，荣枯迥异，造成强烈的艺术效果。一个“可怜”，一个“犹是”，包含着多么深沉的感慨，凝聚了诗人对战死者及其家人的无限同情。
明王世贞《艺苑卮言》赞赏此诗后二句“用意工妙”，但指责前二句“筋骨毕露”，后二句为其所累。其实，首句写唐军将士奋不顾身“誓扫匈奴”，给人留下了深刻的印象。而次句写五千精良之兵，一旦之间丧身于“胡尘”，确实令人痛惜。征人战死得悲壮，少妇的命运就更值得同情。所以这些描写正是为后二句表现少妇思念征人张本。可以说，若无前二句明白畅达的叙述描写作铺垫，想亦难见后二句“用意”之“工妙”。
【Simple Translation】
Longxi Xing” is the old title of “Xianghe Song – Ser Tunes” of the music house, which is about the war in the border area. Longxi, that is, the present Gansu Ningxia Long Mountain west of the place. Chen Tao’s “Longxi Xing” consists of four poems, of which this is two. The poem reflects the suffering and disasters brought to the people by the long border wars in the Tang Dynasty.
The first two lines describe a generous and tragic battle scene in a concise and general language. The Tang army vowed to kill the enemy, but in the end, all 5,000 soldiers died in the “Hu dust”. The words “vowed to sweep away” and “disregarded” show the loyalty and courage of the Tang soldiers and their dedication to battle. In the Han Dynasty, the feathered army wore brocade clothes and ermine fur, which is used here to refer to the elite troops. The fact that the troops were so elite, but 5,000 of them died in the battle, shows how fierce the battle was and how heavy the casualties were.
Then, the brush turns to force out the main idea: “I pity the bones by the Wuding River, and I am still a man in a dream in the spring boudoir.” Here, instead of writing about the tragic scenes brought by the war and the sadness of the family, the poem uniquely links “bones by the river” with “dreams in the spring boudoir”, writing that the wife in the boudoir does not know that the conqueror died in the war, but still wants to see her husband who has become white bones in her dreams, so that The poem has a tragic power that shocks the heart. Knowing that a loved one has died will certainly cause sorrow, but knowing the whereabouts of a loved one is a kind of consolation after all. In this case, the man has not been heard from for many years, and he has long been turned into a dry bone by the Wuding River, but his wife is still dreaming of his early return. It is a real tragedy that he is not only unaware of the disaster and misfortune that befell him, but also full of fervent and beautiful hope.
According to Yang Shen’s “Poetry of Sheng’an” of the Ming Dynasty, this poem uses the meaning of Jia Daozhi’s “The discussion of the dismissal of the pearl cliff” of the Han Dynasty: “The father died in the front, the son was wounded in the back, the woman took the place of the pavilion, the orphans were crying in the road, the old mother and the widowed wife wept in the alley, and set up a false sacrifice from afar, thinking of the soul from a distance of ten thousand miles”, saying that it is “a change and wonderful, really The text is “a change of mind, a real change of heart”. Jia Wen focuses on rendering the sad atmosphere of the orphans and widowed mothers weeping after their souls from afar, which is written in a sorrowful and emotional way. In the text, it is written that the family members “set up sacrifices” and “think of the soul”, so it is obvious that the conqueror was known to have died in battle. The young woman in Chen Tao’s poem, however, is convinced that her husband is still alive and does not doubt that he is dead. The poem is more sincere, the scene more tragic, and therefore more capable of making people shed tears of sympathy.
The ups and downs of this poem are all in the third and fourth lines. The line “pity” follows the previous line, which is the meaning of the title; the line “is still” opens up a new dimension. The two lines, “Bones by the River Wuding” and “Man in a Dream in Spring”, are the reality on one side and the dream on the other; the sad and desolate bones on one side and the young and handsome warrior on the other. One “pity” and the other “just as” contain such deep emotions, and the poet’s infinite sympathy for the war dead and their families.
Wang Shizhen’s “Goblet of Art” praised the last two lines of this poem for their “exquisite intention”, but accused the first two lines of being “sinewy” and the last two lines of being exhausted by them. In fact, the first stanza is about the Tang soldiers who “vowed to sweep away the Xiongnu”, leaving a deep impression on people. The second line is about the death of 5,000 good soldiers in the “dust of Hu”, which is really deplorable. The young woman’s fate deserves more sympathy than the conqueror’s tragic death in battle. Therefore, these descriptions are precisely for the second two lines to show that the young woman misses the conqueror, Zhang Ben. It can be said that if the first two lines had not been paved with clear and clear narrative descriptions, it would have been difficult to see the “subtlety” of the “intention” of the second two lines.
