Aged Sima grows weary—
To Wenjun he sighs: "How now to pass time?"
His sleeves still fragrant from capital dust,
Though rouge stays soft, all passion's gone.
Their hearts—twin candles guttering low.
In cold inn bed he lies awake,
Hearing sparse rain tremble through plane trees.
The lamp's dim halo—
Suddenly recalls their first glance.
Her tower keeps pearl blinds drawn.
Evening makeup smeared,
Jade moth-eyes in disarray,
Tear-tracks congealed.
They say wine drowns sorrow—
But sorrow's ocean, wine a shallow cup.
He speaks through zither and silk fan.
"Don't pluck the riverside pipa—
Lest reeds and maples weep with us."
Cloud-piles loom—
His heart's a world away.
Original Poem
「贺新郎 · 老去相如倦」
老去相如倦。向文君、说似而今，怎生消遣？
衣袂京尘曾染处，空有香红尚软。料彼此、魂消肠断。
一枕新凉眠客舍，听梧桐疏雨秋风颤。
灯晕冷，记初见。楼低不放珠帘卷。晚妆残，翠蛾狼藉，泪痕凝脸。
刘过
人道愁来须殢酒，无奈愁深酒浅。但托意焦琴纨扇。
莫鼓琵琶江上曲，怕荻花枫叶俱凄怨。
云万叠，寸心远。
Interpretation
Composed in Liu Guo's later years, this ci poem reflects his career disillusionment and spiritual desolation. Having adopted the sobriquet "Daoist of Dragon Isle" after repeated imperial examination failures, Liu endured rootless years in the capital, tasting the bitterness of "finding no gate to serve his country." Through an encounter with a desolate courtesan (implicitly evoking Zhuo Wenjun), the poem refracts parallel fates of thwarted scholars and fallen entertainers, voicing shared anguish over life's reversals and unrealized ideals. Blending historical allusion with contemporary sorrow, the work achieves profound emotional depth and lyrical authenticity.
First Stanza: "老去相如倦。向文君、说似而今，怎生消遣？衣袂京尘曾染处，空有香红尚软。"
Lǎo qù Xiàngrú juàn. Xiàng Wénjūn, shuō shì ér jīn, zěn shēng xiāo qiǎn? Yī mèi jīng chén céng rǎn chù, kōng yǒu xiāng hóng shàng ruǎn.
Aging like weary Xiangru,
to Wenjun I confess my present plight—
how to dispel this gloom?
Where capital dust once stained my sleeves,
only her fragrant rouge lingers soft.
The opening invokes Sima Xiangru and Zhuo Wenjun's legendary romance as a mirror for Liu's decline. "Weary Xiangru" (相如倦) embodies scholarly exhaustion, while "fragrant rouge" (香红) becomes a ghostly trace of vanished intimacy—a sensory relic contrasting with the grit of failed ambitions.
"料彼此、魂消肠断。一枕新凉眠客舍，听梧桐疏雨秋风颤。灯晕冷，记初见。"
Liào bǐcǐ, hún xiāo cháng duàn. Yī zhěn xīn liáng mián kè shè, tīng wútóng shū yǔ qiūfēng chàn. Dēng yùn lěng, jì chū jiàn.
We share this soul-devouring ache.
In the inn's autumnal chill I lie,
hearing sparse rain on wutong leaves,
shivering winds…
Cold lamp-glow recalls
our first meeting.
Here, environmental and emotional cold fuse. "Sparse rain" (疏雨) and "shivering winds" (秋风颤) externalize inner tremors, while the "cold lamp-glow" (灯晕冷) illuminates memory's paradox—its light intensifying present darkness through recollection of lost warmth.
Second Stanza: "楼低不放珠帘卷。晚妆残，翠蛾狼藉，泪痕凝脸。"
Lóu dī bú fàng zhū lián juǎn. Wǎn zhuāng cán, cuì é lángjí, lèi hén níng liǎn.
Her low-roofed room keeps pearl blinds drawn.
Evening makeup ruined,
jade eyebrows smudged,
tear-trails hardened on her cheeks.
The stanza unveils the courtesan's degradation through forensic detail. "Pearl blinds drawn" (珠帘卷) suggests both physical confinement and emotional withdrawal, while "hardened tear-trails" (泪痕凝脸) crystallize sorrow into permanent topography.
"人道愁来须殢酒，无奈愁深酒浅。但托意焦琴纨扇。"
Rén dào chóu lái xū tì jiǔ, wúnài chóu shēn jiǔ qiǎn. Dàn tuō yì jiāo qín wán shàn.
They say wine drowns grief when sorrows mount—
but my grief's ocean-deep, wine shallow.
So I entrust my heart
to scorched zithers
and silk fans.
This couplet masters alcoholic arithmetic: "grief's ocean-deep, wine shallow" (愁深酒浅) quantifies emotional bankruptcy. The "scorched zither" (焦琴) alludes to Sima Xiangru's famed burnt qin—symbolizing talent unrecognized—while the "silk fan" (纨扇) evokes Ban Jieyu's abandoned fan poem, layering historical rejections onto present despair.
"莫鼓琵琶江上曲，怕荻花枫叶俱凄怨。云万叠，寸心远。"
Mò gǔ pípá jiāng shàng qǔ, pà dí huā fēng yè jù qī yuàn. Yún wàn dié, cùn xīn yuǎn.
Don't play riverside pipa songs—
lest reeds and maples
quiver with grief.
Cloud-layers pile ten thousand folds,
my heart drifts into endless space.
The finale rejects musical catharsis, fearing even nature would weep at Bai Juyi's "Pipa Song" allusions. "Cloud-layers" (云万叠) materialize accumulated sorrows, while "heart drifts into endless space" (寸心远) maps emotional exile onto cosmic wilderness.
Holistic Appreciation
The poem constructs a double elegy: for the poet's abandoned ambitions and the courtesan's faded beauty. Liu intertwines their plights through shared symbols—Xiangru's weariness mirrors the courtesan's smudged makeup; his "scorched zither" parallels her "pearl blinds drawn." Autumn's motifs (wutong rain, shivering winds) become joint witnesses to their decline, while historical figures (Xiangru, Ban Jieyu) haunt the present like ghostly precedents.
The work's brilliance lies in its sensory archaeology: "fragrant rouge" and "hardened tear-trails" preserve intimacy's physical traces, while "scorched zithers" and "silk fans" enshrine artistic legacies of rejection. When clouds "pile ten thousand folds," they compress centuries of scholar-entertainer sorrow into one devastating sky.
Artistic Merits
- Palimpsestic portraiture
The courtesan's "smudged jade eyebrows" overlay Zhuo Wenjun's legendary beauty, creating layered feminine archetypes of abandonment. - Liquid thermodynamics
"Grief's ocean-deep, wine shallow" engineers emotional hydrology—measuring sorrow's volume against intoxicants' impotence. - Botanical empathy
Reeds and maples "quivering with grief" extend the pathetic fallacy into ecological solidarity with human suffering. - Cartographic despair
"Heart drifts into endless space" reconceptualizes emotional isolation as celestial dereliction—a soul untethered from earthly coordinates.
Insights
Liu's poem reveals how unrecognized talent and faded beauty share a grammar of loss. The "scorched zither" and "silk fan" become joint relics in a museum of rejection, where every artifact whispers: excellence ignored is beauty's twin in sorrow.
For contemporary readers, the work models resilience through artistic transmutation. When wine fails ("wine shallow"), Liu turns to cultural totems ("scorched zithers"), proving that art outlasts alcohol as a vessel for grief. His final gesture—silencing the pipa to spare nature pain—suggests true compassion lies in containing sorrow rather than performing it.
Ultimately, the poem posits that heartbreak expands consciousness: the farther the heart drifts ("into endless space"), the more it comprehends its place in the human continuum of longing. Liu's cosmic exile becomes not defeat but revelation—that in the "ten thousand folds" of clouds, we discern the accumulated sighs of all who loved, created, and were forgotten.
About the Poet
Liu Guo (刘过 1154 - 1206), a native of Taihe in Jiangxi, was a ci poet of the Bold and Unconstrained School (haofang pai) during the Southern Song Dynasty. Though he remained a commoner all his life, wandering the rivers and lakes, he associated with literary giants like Lu You and Xin Qiji. His ci poetry is impassioned and heroic, and his verse is vigorous and forceful. Stylistically close to Xin Qiji but even more unrestrained, Liu Guo became a central figure among Xin’s poetic followers.
