Listen to this article陆维钊 行书：刘禹锡《酬乐天扬州初逢席上见赠》
【释文】巴山楚水凄凉地，二十三年弃置身。怀旧空吟闻笛赋，到乡翻似烂柯人。沉舟侧畔千帆过，病树前头万木春。今日听君歌一曲，暂凭杯酒长精神。
【款识】克明医师正之，陆维钊。
【简析】
唐敬宗宝历二年（826），刘禹锡罢和州刺史任返洛阳，同时白居易从苏州归洛，两位诗人在扬州相逢。白居易在筵席上写了一首诗相赠：“为我引杯添酒饮，与君把箸击盘歌。诗称国手徒为尔，命压人头不奈何。举眼风光长寂寞，满朝官职独蹉跎。亦知合被才名折，二十三年折太多。”刘禹锡便写了《酬乐天扬州初逢席上见赠》来酬答他。
刘禹锡这首酬答诗，接过白诗的话头，着重抒写这特定环境中自己的感情。白的赠诗中，白居易对刘禹锡的遭遇无限感慨，最后两句说：“亦知合被才名折，二十三年折太多。”一方面感叹刘禹锡的不幸命运，另一方面又称赞了刘禹锡的才气与名望。大意是说：你该当遭到不幸，谁叫你的才名那么高呢！可是二十三年的不幸，未免过分了。这两句诗，在同情之中又包含着赞美，显得十分委婉。因为白居易在诗的末尾说到二十三年，所以刘禹锡在诗的开头就接着说：“巴山楚水凄凉地，二十三年弃置身。”自己谪居在巴山楚水这荒凉的地区，算来已经二十三年了。一来一往，显出朋友之间推心置腹的亲切关系。
接着，诗人很自然地发出感慨道：“怀旧空吟闻笛赋，到乡翻似烂柯人。”说自己在外二十三年，如今回来，许多老朋友都已去世，只能徒然地吟诵“闻笛赋”表示悼念而已。此番回来恍如隔世，觉得人事全非，不再是旧日的光景了。后一句用王质烂柯的典故，既暗示了自己贬谪时间的长久，又表现了世态的变迁，以及回归之后生疏而怅惘的心情，涵义十分丰富。
白居易的赠诗中有“举眼风光长寂寞，满朝官职独蹉跎”这样两句，意思是说同辈的人都升迁了，只有你在荒凉的地方寂寞地虚度了年华，颇为刘禹锡抱不平。对此，刘禹锡在酬诗中写道：“沉舟侧畔千帆过，病树前头万木春。”刘禹锡以沉舟、病树比喻自己，固然感到惆怅，却又相当达观。沉舟侧畔，有千帆竞发；病树前头，正万木皆春。他从白诗中翻出这二句，反而劝慰白居易不必为自己的寂寞、蹉跎而忧伤，对世事的变迁和仕宦的升沉，表现出豁达的襟怀。这两句诗意又和白诗“命压人头不奈何”、“亦知合被才名折”相呼应，但其思想境界要比白诗高，意义也深刻得多了。二十三年的贬谪生活，并没有使他消沉颓唐。正象他在另外的诗里所写的：“莫道桑榆晚，为霞犹满天。”他这棵病树仍然要重添精神，迎上春光。因为这两句诗形象生动，至今仍常常被人引用，并赋予它以新的意义，说明新事物必将取代旧事物。
正因为“沉舟”这一联诗突然振起，一变前面伤感低沉的情调，尾联便顺势而下，写道：“今日听君歌一曲，暂凭杯酒长精神。”点明了酬答白居易的题意。意思是说，今天听了你的诗歌不胜感慨，暂且借酒来振奋精神吧！刘禹锡在朋友的热情关怀下，表示要振作起来，重新投入到生活中去。表现出坚韧不拔的意志。诗情起伏跌宕，沉郁中见豪放，是酬赠诗中优秀之作。
【Simple Translation】
In the second year of Emperor Jingzong’s reign (826), Liu Yuxi returned to Luoyang from his post as the governor of Hezhou, while Bai Juyi returned to Luoyang from Suzhou. At the banquet, Bai Juyi wrote a poem as a tribute to Liu Yuxi: “I will add wine to my cup and drink with you, and you will sing with me on the plate. The poem is called a national hand for the sake of the poet, and the fate of the people’s heads can not be helped. I am lonely with my eyes on the scenery, and I am wasting my time in the official position. I also know that I have been folded by the name of talent, and I have folded too much in twenty-three years.” Liu Yuxi then wrote the poem “Rewarding Le Tian for his gift at the first meeting in Yangzhou” in response to him.
In this poem, Liu Yuxi takes up the words of Bai’s poem and focuses on his own feelings in this particular context. In Bai’s gift poem, Bai Juyi laments Liu Yuxi’s suffering, saying in the last two lines, “I also know that I have been folded by my talent and reputation, and I have been folded too much in twenty-three years.” On the one hand, he laments Liu Yuxi’s unfortunate fate, but on the other hand, he praises Liu Yuxi’s talent and fame. The meaning is: “You deserve to be unfortunate, for your talent and fame are so high! But twenty-three years of misfortune is too much. These two lines of the poem are euphemistic in that they contain praise in the midst of sympathy. Because Bai Juyi mentions twenty-three years at the end of the poem, Liu Yuxi begins his poem by saying, “Twenty-three years of abandonment in the miserable land of Ba Mountain and Chu Water.” It has been twenty-three years since he was relegated to the desolate area of Ba Mountain and Chu Water. The poet’s heartfelt and cordial relationship with his friends is evident.
Then, the poet naturally expresses his emotion: “Nostalgia for the old days is empty, but I am like a man from Ruo Ke in my hometown.” He says that he has been away for twenty-three years, but now that he has returned, many of his old friends have passed away, so he can only recite “Wendi Fu” in vain to express his condolences. It was like a lifetime ago when I came back, and I felt that things had changed completely, and it was no longer the old days. The latter line uses the allusion to Wang Qiu’s rotten ke, which not only implies the long period of his relegation, but also expresses the change of the world and the feeling of being distant and disappointed after his return, which is very rich in meaning.
In his poem, Bai Juyi said, “I am lonely with my eyes raised to the scenery, and I am wasted in the official position of the court”, which means that all the people of the same generation have been promoted, but you are the only one who has wasted your years in a lonely place, which is quite unfair for Liu Yuxi. In response, Liu Yuxi wrote in his reward poem, “A thousand sails pass by on the side of a sinking boat, and ten thousand trees spring up in front of a sick tree.” Liu Yuxi uses the metaphor of a sinking boat and a sick tree to describe himself, and while he certainly feels melancholy, he is quite optimistic. On the side of the sinking boat, there are a thousand sails; in front of the sick tree, there are ten thousand trees in spring. He extracted these two lines from Bai’s poem, instead, he advised Bai Juyi not to worry about his loneliness and wasting time, and showed his open-mindedness to the changes in world affairs and the rise and fall of his career. The meaning of these two lines echoes Bai’s poems, “I can’t help it if my life is pressed on my head” and “I also know that I have been bent by my talent”, but their ideology is higher and their meaning is much deeper than Bai’s poem. The twenty-three years of relegation did not make him depressed and decadent. Just as he wrote in another poem, “It is not too late to say that the sun is still full of sunshine.” He, the sick tree, still wants to regain his spirit and welcome the spring light. Because of the vividness of these two lines, they are still often quoted and given a new meaning, showing that the new will replace the old.
Because of the sudden uplifting of the poem “Sinking Boat”, which changes the sentimental and low mood of the previous poem, the last line follows the trend and reads, “Today, I listen to your song and grow in spirit with a cup of wine.” The title of the poem is a clear answer to Bai Juyi. It means, “I am overwhelmed with emotion after listening to your poetry today, so I will use wine to lift my spirit for the time being! Liu Yuxi, under the warm care of his friend, says that he wants to pull himself together and devote himself to life again. It shows a resilient will. The poem has ups and downs, and it is an excellent piece of reward poetry.
