一贬再贬的诗人

我这个星期在读苏轼的词，越看越觉得奇怪，他最有名的那些作品，好多都是他被贬到很远的地方以后才写出来的。

I've been reading Su Shi's ci-poems this week, and the more I read the stranger I find it. A lot of his most famous works were written only after he was demoted to somewhere far away.

被贬是什么意思？

What does 'demoted' mean here?

就是因为做错了事，或者得罪了朝廷里当权的人，被降职，派到很远、很穷的地方去，不再有实权。苏轼当时写诗批评朝廷的一些新政策，后来被抓进监狱，差点丢了命，最后被贬到黄州。

It means because you did something wrong, or offended the people in power at court, you get demoted and sent somewhere far away and poor, with no more real authority. Su Shi at the time wrote poems criticizing some of the court's new policies, was later thrown in prison, nearly lost his life, and finally was demoted to Huangzhou.

那他在监狱里，后来又被贬，应该很难过吧，怎么反而写出了最好的作品？

So he was in prison, then demoted after that. That must have been awful. So why did he end up writing his best work instead?

这正是我觉得奇怪的地方。他在黄州的时候，没有钱，也没有权力，自己种地过日子，可是他在那几年写的东西，到现在还是他最有名的。好像越难过的时候，他写得越好。

That's exactly what I find strange. When he was in Huangzhou, he had no money and no power, and farmed the land himself to get by. Yet the things he wrote in those years are still his most famous ones today. It's almost as if the worse things got, the better he wrote.

我不同意越难过写得越好这句话。我觉得是因为他本来就写得好，只是被贬以后有时间，没有别的事情要做，才能一直写。要是没有才华，被贬一百次，也写不出好东西。

I don't agree that the worse things got, the better he wrote. I think it's that he was already good at writing, and after being demoted he simply had time and nothing else to do, so he could keep writing. If he had no talent, he could be demoted a hundred times and still not produce anything good.

那你怎么解释，他后来离朝廷越来越远，先被贬到惠州，甚至海南，那时候他已经老了，身体也不好，可是他的诗里，还是能看到一种很轻松的态度，好像什么都打不倒他。

Then how do you explain that he later moved farther and farther from the court, first demoted to Huizhou, then even to Hainan, by which point he was already old and in poor health, and yet in his poems you can still see a kind of relaxed, unshaken attitude, as if nothing could knock him down.

这倒是真的。不过我们现在能读到的，都是他写出来、而且留下来的东西。跟他一起被贬的人，有没有人也很有才华，只是被贬以后，什么都写不出来，最后就这样被大家忘了？

That part's true. But what we can read now is only what he wrote and what actually survived. Among the people demoted along with him, were there any who were also talented, but couldn't write anything after being demoted, and were simply forgotten by everyone in the end?

你的意思是，我们现在觉得被贬能写出好作品，其实是因为我们只记得那些成功了的人，忘了那些被贬以后真的被打垮、什么都没留下的人？

You mean, the reason we now feel that being demoted can produce good work is actually because we only remember the ones who succeeded, and forgot the ones who were genuinely crushed by it and left nothing behind?

对，我们看到的历史，可能本来就是留下来的人的历史，被打垮的人，连让我们讨论他们的机会都没有。

Right, the history we see might already be the history of the people who survived. The people who were crushed don't even get the chance for us to discuss them.

那这样说，苏轼算是运气好，还是他真的比别人更能承受困难？

So by that logic, was Su Shi simply lucky, or did he genuinely have a greater capacity to endure hardship than others?

我觉得两个都有。运气让他没有被真的打垮，没有死在监狱里；但是能在那么困难的日子里还写出这么多好东西，也确实需要一种别人少有的本事。这两件事，谁也代替不了谁。

I think it's both. Luck kept him from being genuinely crushed, kept him from dying in prison. But being able to write so much good work through such hard days really did take an ability few people have. Neither of these two things can replace the other.