A Discussion of Wang Anshi's Chrysanthemum Poem王文公菊詩議
予按西淸詩話。載王文公詩曰。黃昏風雨暝園林。殘菊飄零滿地金。歐陽脩見之曰。凡百花皆落。獨菊枝上黏枯耳。何言落也。永叔之言。亦不爲大非。文公大怒曰。是不知楚辭云夕飡秋菊之落英。歐陽九不學之過也。予論之曰。詩者。興所見也。予昔於大風疾雨中。見黃菊亦有飄零者。文公詩旣幸云黃昏風雨暝園林。則以興所見。拒歐公之言可也。強引楚辭則其曰。歐陽某何不見此。亦足矣。乃反以不學。一何褊歟。脩若未至博學洽聞者。楚詞豈幽經僻說。而脩不得見之耶。況脩一代名儒也。而以不學目之。又何大甚也。予於介甫。不可以長者期之也。
Looking into the Xiqing shihua (西淸詩話), I found it setting down a poem by Wang Anshi (王安石) which runs: 「At dusk, in wind and rain, the garden grove grew dark / withered chrysanthemums scatter and fall, and the ground is full of gold.」 Ouyang Xiu (歐陽脩) saw this and said, 「All the many flowers fall, but the chrysanthemum alone merely withers while it clings upon the branch; how then does he speak of its falling?」 Ouyang Xiu's words are not greatly wrong either.
Wang Anshi grew greatly angry and said, 「This is not to know that the Songs of Chu (楚辭) says 「At evening I eat the fallen blossoms of the autumn chrysanthemum」; it is the fault of Ouyang Xiu's not having studied.」
I discuss it thus. A poem is the raising of feeling upon what has been seen. Long ago, in a great wind and a harsh rain, I too saw yellow chrysanthemums scatter and fall. Since Wang Anshi's poem had already said 「At dusk, in wind and rain, the garden grove grew dark」, it would have been right to block Ouyang Xiu's words by saying that he raised his feeling upon what he had seen. If he must drag in the Songs of Chu, it would have been enough to say only, 「How is it that Ouyang So-and-so has not seen this?」 Yet instead he said that the man had not studied; how narrow of heart he is!
Even if Ouyang Xiu did not come up to those of wide learning and broad hearing, how should the Songs of Chu be some obscure classic or out-of-the-way tale, that Ouyang Xiu had not seen it? Still more, Ouyang Xiu was a famed scholar of his age, and to point at him as one who had not studied — how excessive, again, is that! I cannot look to Wang Anshi as to an elder.
Interlinear notes 1
The base text also writes Ouyang Xiu (歐陽脩) as Yongshu (永叔, his courtesy name), Ouyang Jiu (歐陽九), and Lord Ou, and Wang Anshi (王安石) as Lord Wang Wen (王文公, his posthumous title), Lord Wen, and Jiefu (介甫, his courtesy name); since each of these is one man, they have been gathered under one name apiece. — Translator