Traveling night book nostalgia
[Tang] Du Fu
Fine grass breeze shore, dangerous lonely night boat.
The stars are flat and wide, and the moon gushes large rivers.
Famous articles, officials should be old and sick off.
What does Fluttershy look like? Heaven and earth a sand gull.
In 765, Du Fu left Caotang in Chengdu, Sichuan province with his family, took a boat to the east, and drifted on the Minjiang and Yangtze rivers. This five-character poem was probably written when he was passing through The area of Yuzhou and Chungju (both in present-day Chongqing).
The first half of the poem describes the scene of the "night of travel". The first two sentences write a close-up scene: the breeze blows the grass on the riverbank, and the boat with a high mast moored lonely on the moonlit night. At that time, Du Fu was forced to leave Chengdu in desperation. In the first month of that year, he resigned from the post of jiedushi staff officer, and in April, his friend Yan Wu, who had survived in Chengdu, died. In this miserable and lonely situation, he decided to leave Shudong. Therefore, here is not an empty scene, but an allegorical scene, through which his situation and feelings are shown: as small as the grass on the riverbank, as lonely as a lonely boat in the river.
The third and fourth sentences write the vista: the evening star is low, the plains are vast; the moon is surging with the waves, and the great rivers are flowing east. These two sentences are written in a majestic and vast manner, and have always been praised by people. What feelings of the poet are implied in these two scene sentences? Some people think that it is "open and far away" (Pu Qilong's "Reading Du Xin Xie"), and some people think that he wrote the feeling of "joy" (see "Tang Poetry Collection: Du Fu's Five Laws of Illustrations"). It is clear that the poem is written about the miserable situation of the poet's wanderings in his twilight years, and the above two explanations only emphasize the literal meaning of the poem, which is difficult to convince. In fact, the poet wrote about the vast plains, the mighty rivers, and the brilliant stars and moons precisely to reflect his lonely image and the sad mood of unspeakable. This technique of writing mourning with musical scenes is often used in classical works. For example, "Once Upon a Time, Yang Liu Yiyi" in "Shijing Xiaoya Tsevi", with the beautiful scenery of spring to reflect the sad mood of the soldiers on the expedition, how moving it is!
The second half of the poem is "Book Nostalgia". The fifth and sixth sentences say, a bit of fame, where is my article good? To be an official, you should retire because of old age and illness. This is the opposite, and the intention is very implicit. The poet had great political ambitions, but he had long been suppressed and could not be carried out, so his fame was written because of the article, which was really not his wish. Du Fu was indeed old and sick at this time, but his suspension was mainly due to old age and illness, but because he was excluded. Here the unevenness in the poet's heart is revealed, and at the same time, it is revealed that political frustration is the root cause of his wandering and loneliness. Regarding this association, Huang Sheng, a beginner in the late Ming and Qing dynasties, said that it was "a language of no blame and self-blame" ("Du Shi Said"), and Qiu Zhao'ao of the Qing Dynasty said that it was "five genera are self-humble, and six are self-understanding" ("Detailed Notes on Du Shaoling"),I am afraid that it is not very appropriate.
The last two sentences say, what is the appearance of a floating body? But it's like a sand gull in the vast world. The poet is in a state of self-sufficiency to express his sorrows. The water and sky are wide, and the sand gulls are floating zero; people are like sand gulls, migrating to the rivers and lakes. This joint scene is lyrical, profoundly expressing the sentimentality of the poet's inner drifting, which is really a word and a tear, and it is deeply moving.
The Qing Dynasty Wang Fuzhi's "Poetry of Jiang Zhai" said: "Although the scene is divided into things in the heart, the scenery is full of emotions, the love is born of the scenery, and each other hides their houses." "Scenes hide each other in their homes, that is, allegories in scenery and allegories in love. The former writes scenes that are suitable for expressing the feelings that the poet wants to express, so that the feelings are hidden in the scenes; the latter is not to write about emotions in the abstract, but to hide scenes in the writing. Du Fu's poem "Traveling in the Night" is an example of the scenes in classical poetry and hiding each other's houses.
Source: Excerpt from The Appreciation Dictionary of Tang Poetry, by Yu Pingbo et al., Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, August 2013.
Editor-in-Charge: Tong Yu