The famous Tang Dynasty poets Liu Yuxi and Bai Juyi were good friends, and they were once relegated from Kyoto, and their careers were very bumpy. Later, once, they were recalled to Beijing at the same time and met in Yangzhou. Therefore, Liu Bai and the two of them wrote poems and sang to each other at the banquet, comforting each other. Among them, a poem written by Liu Yuxi to Bai Juyi has become a masterpiece throughout the ages.
The first link of this poem, "Bashan Chushui desolate, abandoned for twenty-three years", Liu Yuxi used only fourteen words to summarize the tragic experience of his little half life, he was abandoned by the imperial court, who was relegated to a remote and desolate place, it has been twenty-three years. "Bashan Chushui" originally meant the ancient ba and chu states, which generally referred to some places where Liu Yuxi was degraded.
The jaws use two allusions to express the poet's sense that things are not human and that time has passed. "Nostalgic Empty Yin Wen Di Fu" tells the story of Xiang Xiu, a person in the Western Jin Dynasty, and Xiang Xiu's friends Ji Kang and Lu An were killed because they were dissatisfied with Sima Shi. After Ji Kang and Lu An died, Xiang Xiu passed by their former residence and heard his neighbor playing the flute, and he couldn't help but feel sad. The house is still that house, the flute is still the flute, but the owner of the house, the audience of the flute, has been buried underground.
The same is true of Liu Yuxi, twenty-three years later, he returned to Beijing from the degraded place, and many of his good friends who had been in the capital before have passed away.
"Turning to the countryside like rotten Ke people", telling the story of the jin dynasty when the king hostage, he went up the mountain to cut firewood, saw two boys playing chess, stopped to watch, and when the chess was finished, he found that the axe he used to chop wood was rotten, and when he went down the mountain to return to the village, he found that it had actually been a hundred years. For Liu Yuxi, he felt that the days he was degrading were like Wang Qian's chess on the mountain, and time passed unconsciously, and when he returned to Beijing, he found that the situation had changed greatly.
The neckline uses two metaphors to illustrate that the old must be replaced by the new. "A thousand sails on the side of the sinking boat, a thousand wood springs in front of the sick tree", ostensibly to say that next to the overturned boat, there are many other boats riding the wind and waves, in front of the withered trees, there are many other trees growing vigorously, in fact, it is implied that life will always encounter ups and downs, and the nearby bumps are always full of endless hope.
At the time of writing this poem, Liu Yuxi had been relegated to a remote place for twenty-three years, but despite being relegated for so long, he finally waited for hope, and the imperial court finally summoned him back to Beijing, which led to his reunion with Bai Juyi in Yangzhou. Therefore, no matter what kind of darkness you are in, you should have hope, yearn for the light, be optimistic and strong.
Liu Yuxi's 14 words have also become popular sentences, encouraging countless descendants who are at a low ebb.
The end of the poem returns to the encounter between Liu Yuxi and Bai Juyi. "Listening to a song of Junge today, temporarily relying on the spirit of a cup of wine", Liu Yuxi gradually overcame his miserable state of mind and recovered some spirit through conversation and talking with Bai Juyi, and in the cup after cup of wine. Sure enough, the comfort of a friend is a good medicine to cure pain.
Liu Yuxi is in a difficult situation, but he can still write such an optimistic text, which is indeed admirable!