No. 8 · Tang poem · five-character regulated verse第 8 首 · 唐诗 · 五言律诗
dù杜fǔ甫Du Fu · Tang唐
Climbing Yueyang Tower
xī昔wén闻dòng洞tíng庭shuǐ水
jīn今shàng上yuè岳yáng阳lóu楼
wú吴chǔ楚dōng东nán南chè坼
qián乾kūn坤rì日yè夜fú浮
qīn亲péng朋wú无yí一zì字
lǎo老bìng病yǒu有gū孤zhōu舟
róng戎mǎ马guān关shān山běi北
píng凭xuān轩tì涕sì泗liú流
Underlined words have notes: tap one. The Pinyin button below shows or hides all pinyin. 一 and 不 are marked with the tone you actually say.字下有虚线的，点开有注释。下方的“拼音”按钮可以显示或隐藏全部拼音。“一”“不”标的是实际读出来的变调。
This poem is usually dated to the winter of 768. Du Fu was fifty-seven. He and his family had left Kuizhou by boat, passed through the Three Gorges, and drifted down the Yangtze to Yuezhou, today's Yueyang in Hunan. There he climbed Yueyang Tower. His health was very poor and he had no settled way to live. In the north the borders were still not at peace: Tibetan armies were raiding, and the court was sending troops to hold them back. Looking at Lake Dongting, he thought of himself and of his country, and wrote this poem.
这首诗一般认为写于768年（大历三年）冬天。那年杜甫五十七岁，带着家人坐船离开夔州，出三峡，沿长江漂泊到岳州（今湖南岳阳），登上了岳阳楼。他身体很差，生活也没有着落。那时北方边境还不太平，吐蕃军队进犯，朝廷又在调兵防守。他看着洞庭湖，想到自己，也想到国家，写下了这首诗。
Du Fu (712–770) was a great Tang poet, called the Sage of Poetry. He lived through the An Lushan Rebellion and spent most of his life poor and wandering, yet he never stopped caring about his country and its people. His poems record the suffering of his age, so they are called "history in poems." Two years after writing this one, he died on a boat in Hunan.
杜甫（712—770），唐代大诗人，被称为“诗圣”。他经历了安史之乱，一生多半在贫困和漂泊中度过，可他始终关心国家和百姓。他的诗写出了一个时代的苦难，所以被称为“诗史”。写这首诗两年后，他就在湖南的船上去世了。
The first two lines are calm: I heard of Lake Dongting long ago, and today at last I am here. Then lines three and four stretch the picture to a giant size. The lake splits the southeastern lands into Wu and Chu, and heaven and earth seem to float on it. These are among the grandest lines ever written about the lake. Then the camera suddenly pulls back to the poet himself: no letters from family or friends, old and sick, with only a lonely little boat. The bigger the lake, the smaller and lonelier the man seems. The last two lines turn from himself to his country: war is still going on in the north. The poet leans on the railing and weeps, not only for his own pain, but even more for his country's troubles.
开头两句很平静：早就听说洞庭湖，今天终于来了。可三、四句一下子把画面撑得极大：湖水把东南大地分成吴和楚，天地都像漂在湖上。这是写洞庭湖最壮阔的句子之一。接着镜头突然拉回诗人自己：没有亲友的信，又老又病，只剩一条孤零零的小船。湖越大，人就显得越小、越孤单。最后两句又从自己想到国家：北方还在打仗。诗人靠着栏杆流泪，哭的不只是自己的苦，更是国家的难。