Appreciation of ancient poems by Yao Chi 丨

Yao pond

Li Shangyin [Tang Dynasty]

Yaochi Amu's window opened, and Huang Zhu sang and mourned.

Eight Jun traveled thirty thousand miles a day, and King Mu did not come back.

Translation:

The carved windows of the Queen Mother of the West on the Yao pond opened to the east, and only the sound of the "Yellow Bamboo Song" was heard to shake the hearts of the people of the earth.

King Mu of Zhou had eight horses that could travel thirty thousand miles a day, so why did he not come again for the breach of contract?

exegesis:

The "Biography of Mu Tianzi" says: King Mu of Zhou traveled west to Kunlun Mountain, met the Queen Mother of the West, and feasted on King Mu in Yaochi. Before parting, the Queen Mother of the West wrote a song: "The son will not die, but will still be able to return." King Mu also replied with a song, agreeing to come back in three years. He also carried King Mu on his southern journey, and in the face of a great snowstorm, the people were frozen, and he once wrote "Song of Yellow Bamboo" to mourn the people. It is also said that King Mu had eight horses and traveled 30,000 miles a day. In the late Tang Dynasty, several emperors superstitiously believed in the way of the gods and immortals, took Dan medicine, and vainly sought eternal life, so that they died of poisoning by taking Jindan. This article is combined with the above legends to generate a scene, and the scene of the Immortal Queen Mother waiting for King Mu to return and disappear, in order to satirize the emperor's falsehood of seeking immortality.

This poem is based on the legend that the Queen Mother of the West met King Mu of Zhou. The author grasps the fact that the West Queen Mother hopes that King Mu will "come back" and that King Mu may not promise to come back, and fictionalizes a plot in which the West Queen Mother hopes for the return of King Mu: The West Queen Mother pushes open the window decorated with carved and colored ornaments, looking to the east, but there is no trace of King Mu, only the sound of "Yellow Bamboo Song" mourning the earth. The first sentence is the beautiful scenery of the fairyland, and the second sentence is the poignant scene of the human world, forming a strong contrast.

This contrast contains two meanings: one is a metaphor that the person who wrote the song is dead, only the song remains in the world, although the fairyland is beautiful, how can it not be taken to go, implying the irony of seeking immortality; one is to use the poetry of "Yellow Bamboo Song" to imply that the people are starving and freezing, while the ruler is pursuing immortality, and Shitu enjoys it forever, implying a rebuke to the ruler for seeking immortality.

The last two sentences of the poem are about the mental activity of the Queen Mother of the West who did not see King Mu: The eight horses that King Mu rode on were speeding fast, and they could travel thirty thousand miles a day, and if they wanted to come, it would be as easy as a palm, but why hadn't he come as promised? The Queen Mother of the West graciously invited King Mu to come again, and King Mu had promised to come again, and it was convenient to come, and it was convenient to ride on the Eight Horses, but King Mu did not come in the end, not to mention that King Mu was dead and his death was self-evident. However, the Queen Mother of the West was still waiting through the window. This shows that the Queen Mother of the West hopes that King Mu of Zhou will not die, but this hope has finally been disappointed. Even if the immortals, such as the Queen Mother of the West, could not save King Mu of Zhou from death, then those so-called immortal techniques in the human world were naturally even more unreliable, and they did not believe in the vainness of the immortals and their false self-seeing.

It has always been ironic to seek immortals, and mostly from the perspective that immortals cannot meet. But this poem is conceived through a layer, from the point of encountering the gods and immortals and restoring the benefits. When King Mu meets immortals, Yaochi feasts, and it is said that he can enjoy the blessings of eternal life, but he will inevitably die in the end; Not only that, but even the immortal himself was at a loss as to "why King Mu wouldn't do anything again." Such a god, such a fairy, is not completely vain!

Ji Yun commented on this poem: "Exhaust the words as you want, but swallow them with questioning words, so they are exhausted but not exhausted" (Commentary on Li Yishan's Collected Poems). It is precisely because the last two sentences do not make positive rebukes, so this poem has a subtle implication in the clear and smooth, and the aftertaste of reading is endless. Ye Xie said that "Li Shangyin's seven absolutes, deep and elegantly worded, can be empty for hundreds of generations" ("Original Poem")

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