Source: Xiaohua Poetry
If we talk about the beautiful words of ancient poets describing the sound of rain, Xiaohua poems are first recommended by the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu's "Spring Night Rain" and the Song Dynasty lyricist Jiang Jie's "Poppy Beauty Listening to the Rain".
Because the former uses "moisturizing things silently" to convey the joy of hearing the sound of rain, it can be said that silence is better than sound, and the latter uses "one step ahead, drip to the dawn" to describe the dense, non-healing, continuous sound of rain, which pushes life to the extreme.
In other words, how good is the sound of rain in ancient poems? Du Fu listened to it all night, and Jiang Jie spent his whole life listening to the sound of rain.
So how beautiful is the sound of rain in their writings? Then listen carefully to the words of the poems.
Let's take a look at the sound of rain in Du Fu's "Happy Rain on a Spring Night".
Du Fu's five-character poem "Happy Rain on a Spring Night" can be said to be a well-known and well-known poem.
The poem is catchy to read, whether it is in the Tang poems of the enlightenment reader, or in the Chinese textbook, this poem has always been one of the selected poems in Du Fu's poems, and it can also be said that the poem "Spring Night Rain" is a masterpiece in Du Fu's poems.
"Spring Night Rain" is a poem written by Du Fu in the spring of the second year of the reign of Emperor Suzong of the Tang Dynasty (761), when the poet lived in a thatched cottage on the bank of Huanhua River in the western suburbs of Chengdu. Because in order to escape the Anshi Rebellion, the poet took his family all the way to Chengdu to settle temporarily.
At this time, Du Fu was nearly half a hundred years old, and he had settled down from a long period of exile and began a temporarily peaceful pastoral life, and the poet's mood was also quiet and leisurely.
Therefore, in this poem, the poet describes the wonderful scene of the rain on a spring night with joy, which is a very wonderful five-character poem in the rain poem. "Spring Night Rain", the original poem is as follows:
Good rain knows the season, when spring happens.
Dive into the night with the wind, moisturizing things silently.
The wild trails are dark, and the river boats are bright.
Xiao looks at the red wet place, and the flowers are heavy in the official city.
The title of the poem "Spring Night Rain" not only describes the season and time of the poem, but also shows the poet's emotions.
"Spring night" indicates that it is a certain night in spring, "rain" means that spring rain has fallen on this night, and the word "joy" is the exposure of the poet's emotions.
The word "joy" in the title of the poem is the poet's joy at the timely arrival of the spring rain, and the word "joy" is the key word to locate the theme of the whole poem.
The whole poem revolves around the poet's description of the joy of the spring rain and the imagination based on the spring rain.
(1) The spring rain in the first couplet
In the first couplet of the poem, the poet can't help but praise this timely spring rain. Because spring is the season when everything grows, it needs to be moistened and watered by rain.
As the saying goes, "spring rain is as expensive as oil", a timely spring rain can moisten the plants, especially the spring rain is especially important for the growth of crops in the field.
Therefore, in the face of this timely spring rain, the poet's mood is unconcealed joy. The poet used the word "good" to praise this spring rain.
Because the poet thinks that the spring rain seems to understand that the growth of plants is inseparable from the moisture of the rain, the poet says that this is a spring rain that "knows the season". The poet uses anthropomorphic rhetorical devices here, clearly personifying the rain.
In particular, the word "knowledge" in the first sentence is used very well, and it is written in time for this spring rain to come in a timely manner, which can be said to take into account the form and spirit of the spring rain.
(2) The sound of rain in the jaw joint
The softness and finesse of the spring rain is a further description of this timely rain by the poet. These two sentences still use anthropomorphic rhetorical devices.
"Diving into the Night" is to write about the softness of the spring rain, highlighting the shape of the spring rain, and "Silent and Silent" is to write about the fineness of the spring rain, highlighting the sound of the spring rain.
These two sentences describe the shape and harmony of the spring rain in detail, and if there is one word to describe the spring rain in Du Fu's pen, this word is "tangible and silent".
This can't help but remind people of the description of spring rain in the famous contemporary writer Zhu Ziqing's prose "Spring":
Rain is the most common, two or three days at a time. Don't be annoyed. Look, like cow hair, like flower needles, like filaments, densely woven diagonally, and the roof of the house is covered with a thin layer of smoke.
Zhu Ziqing's spring rain is soft and delicate, and Zhu Ziqing's sentence describing the spring rain "like cow hair, like flower needles, like filaments" highlights the morphological characteristics of spring rain.
The use of Zhu Ziqing's sentences can well reflect and interpret the characteristics of the spring rain-shaped harmony in Du Fu's poems, "sneaking into the night with the wind, moisturizing things silently".
"Diving into the night" and "silent" have formed a poetic cooperation and mutual care. These two poems not only show that the spring rain is a drizzle accompanied by the wind, but also show that the spring rain is intended to nourish the growth of all things, which is a timely spring rain.
The three words "latent", "moist" and "fine" in the jaw couplet vividly write the characteristics of this spring rain. In the eyes of the poet, the reason why this spring rain is good is because of the timely time when the spring rain moistens all things.
Savoring the poems carefully, there is another reason why the poet is happy, that is, the spring rain seems to be empathetic, but chooses to get up at night, not to delay the work of people during the day, but also to get up quietly at night.
The two sentences of "sneaking into the night with the wind, moisturizing things silently" also indicate the whereabouts of the spring rain and the role of the spring rain, and the words are filled with the poet's joy.
The poet's euphoric mood continues and strengthens the emotional melody in the first couplet, and these two sentences also play a role in connecting the previous and the next in the chapter and line of the whole poem.
(3) Rainy night in the neck couplet
The couplet is the poet's visual description of the scenery on a rainy night. The poet looked around: only the lights on the boat were bright, not even the surface of the river could be seen, the path could not be distinguished, the sky was full of dark and heavy clouds, and the ground was as black as the clouds in the sky.
The two sentences of the neck couplet first write the environment, the night at this time is dark, and in the fishing boat in front of the thatched cottage on the bank of Huanhua River in the western suburbs of Chengdu, where the poet is located, the fishing fire in the boat is bright.
"The fire of the river boat is bright" is the poet's close-up of the fishing fire, the fishing fire and the night form a vivid contrast of colors, one bright and one dark, the contrast is strong, and the darkness of the night is more prominent.
In the couplet, the poet sketches a rainy night through the chiaroscuro of the night and the fishing fire. Under the dense black rain clouds in the sky, only a little riverboat fishing fire was bright. This point of the river boat fishing fire conveys the poet's feelings of hope and expectation for this spring rain.
The poetic imagery of the neck couplet also provides a good artistic conception and foreshadowing for the poetic progression and the sublimation of the poet's emotions in the tail couplet.
(4) The sound of rain in the tail couplet, silent is better than sound
The last couplet is the scene in the Jinguan City that the poet imagined as the dawn after the rain. The poet closely follows the joyful mood of the poem "Happy Rain on a Spring Night", and describes the charming scene of Jinguan City in the early morning after the rain in his imagination.
After a night of good rain, everything is moistened, and the next day the clouds disappear and the rain stops, and nature is a scene of vitality after the rain. The flowers that best represent spring are more delicate and brilliant after the rain.
"Jinguancheng" is another name for Chengdu, because Chengdu has a tradition of breeding silkworms since ancient times, and Chengdu's brocade industry is also very developed.
Therefore, since the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the imperial court has set up brocade officials in Chengdu to manage the silkworm and brocade industry, so Chengdu was later called "Jinguan City". The Shu brocade produced in Chengdu has always been a tribute to the court.
The words "red", "wet" and "heavy" in the couplet are used to describe the flowers after the rain, and these three words are concise and expressive, accurately depicting the color and posture of the flowers that have been wet by the rain.
Spring is a season of brilliance, and thousands of purple and red flowers will decorate spring in a gorgeous and colorful way. The flowers that bloom in spring are moistened and washed by a night of rain, and the dust on the petals is washed away, making them more and more delicate.
In the early morning flowers, there are still a little raindrops on the petals, which are as crystal clear as dew, and the little raindrops on the purple and red flowers make the petals more and more delicate.
Because the petals are stained with raindrops, the poet expands his imagination: he wants to wait for the dawn to go to Jinguan City to see the flowers, he looks at it, the flowers of the entire Jinguan City are more and more delicate, and the bright flowers will decorate the whole Jinguan City with a new look.
Inside and outside Jinguan City, flowers are like brocade, thousands of purples and thousands of reds, moist and plump, full of spring, nature is full of thriving scenes, showing infinitely beautiful prospects.
In the eyes of the poet, the new look of Jinguancheng is because of the spring rain that knows the season, and the poet expresses his praise for the spring rain in the tail couplet, which is the sublimation of the poet's joy at the spring rain. At this time, the poetry is closely linked with the theme, and the scenery is intertwined.
"Xiao look at the red wet place, the flowers are heavy in the Jinguan City", the spring color of the Jinguan City in the poet's imagination is clear and bright, and the poet also vividly shows the bright and delicate scenery of the Jinguan City and the poet's joyful mood through imagination.
Let's look at the sound of rain in Jiang Jie's "Poppy Beauty: Listen to the Rain".
This poem is so defence-breaking, perhaps everyone who reads "Poppy Beauty Listening to the Rain" will invariably and involuntarily express the emotion of "I don't understand the meaning of the words at first reading, and I am already a person in the words when I read it again".
This poem is only 56 words, and the whole word does not have any description, which summarizes the time span and ups and downs of the lyricist's life, which is the biggest feature of this word.
The lyricist does not use abstract narration to summarize, but from his long life and tortuous experience, he intercepts the picture of "listening to the rain" in three different periods of his life: youth, prime of life, and now, and shows the poet's journey with different feelings of "listening to the rain" in different periods.
Three pictures are three realms and three lives. With the display of frame by frame, the lyricist's mental journey and the sublimation of the emotional world are also revealed.
The original words of Jiang Jie's "Poppy Beauty Listening to the Rain" are as follows:
The young man listened to the rain song upstairs, and the red candles were dim. In the prime of life, listening to the rain in the passenger boat, the river is wide and the clouds are low, and the broken geese are called the west wind.
Now listening to the rain monk's house, the temples have stars. The joys and sorrows are always ruthless, one step ahead, bit by bit until dawn.
Jiang Jie is a very famous lyricist, he got the nickname of "Cherry Jinshi" because of the famous sentence in "A Cut Plum", "The streamer is easy to throw people, the cherry is red, and the plantain is green".
Jiang Jie's poem "Poppy Beauty" summarizes the poet's life in a gradual order of time with three extremely dynamic pictures, which are the three scenes of listening to the rain in his youth, listening to the rain in his prime and listening to the rain in his twilight years.
(1) The young man listened to the rain song upstairs, and the red candle was dim
"The boy listens to the rain song upstairs, and the red candle is dim", which describes the scene of the lyricist listening to the rain when he was a teenager.
Jiang Jie, the word Shengyi, the number Zhushan, the late Song Dynasty and the early Yuan Dynasty, the Xianchun ten years in the Jinshi. Jiang Jie's ancestors were a wealthy family in Yixing, and he lived a life of fine clothes and food since he was a child. It can also be said that his teenage years were spent in a privileged family environment.
At that time, he was a young man, and it was the norm of his life to drink and sing and dance, and to fly eagles. So when he was a teenager, he listened to the rain on the song tower, and the romantic red candles and candles in the song tower, and the affectionate Luo tent, created a kind of visual effect of singing and dancing, and the lights were bright and green, which made people feel that the lyricist was showing a rich and comfortable state of life.
At this time, listening to the rain is on the song floor, the environment of red candles and tents is rendered, and the word "faint" is added, which vividly and realistically outlines the life state of the lyricist when he was a teenager.
Isn't this kind of life the true portrayal of "the prince of the feast, the beautiful woman in the embroidered pretense, the flower note of the leaves and leaves, the beautiful brocade of the text, the slender jade finger, and the slap of the sandalwood" depicted in "Words Between the Flowers"?
In fact, if you just stay at such a level to understand, then the grasp of the meaning of the word is inaccurate, and it does not reach the deep understanding of the state of life that the lyricist wants to express.
This kind of picture does not show the appearance of the luxurious life of a handsome boy listening to the rain in the song house, what he hopes to reveal should be the vitality of life that is expressed through the appearance of luxury, showing the vigor, vigor and hope of life.
Therefore, it can be seen from this point that the lyricist here is not simply creating the image of a young man listening to the rain in the song building, but through the image of this boy listening to the rain, he uses the superficial luxury life to reveal the tension and vitality of life, that is, the vigorous and upward state of life.
Jiang Jie was born in a wealthy family and has lived a very wealthy life since he was a child, so he has the youth time of "listening to the rain song upstairs as a teenager, and the red candle is dim".
Jiang Jie's "Poppy Beauty" begins with a teenager listening to the rain, not to show his origin, his family background, and his luxurious life in a high-profile manner, but to form a strong contrast with the situation behind.
Although this kind of life is full of the poet's youth, it has nothing to do with sorrow and sorrow, and the poet focuses on rendering only the youthful elegance of "the teenager does not know the taste of sorrow and falls in love with the floor".
The impression of such a stage in the lyricist's mind is eternal and short, and such a cheerful teenage time is used as a foreshadowing, in order to set off the bleak scene of listening to the rain later.
(2) In the prime of life listening to the rain in the passenger boat, the river is wide and the clouds are low, and the broken geese are called the west wind
"In the middle of the boat listening to the rain in the prime of life, the river is wide and the clouds are low, and the broken geese are called the west wind", which describes the scene of the lyricist listening to the rain in his prime.
If Jiang Jie's first picture of listening to the rain is to express the budding and beauty of a simple life that has not suffered any setbacks and pains, and to express the vitality of life in his youth, then in the second picture, the scene of listening to the rain comes to the passenger ship, and the lyricist focuses on the middle-aged wandering and uncertain living conditions.
Jiang Jie's life is unfortunate, he was born in a giant family, his family style is pure, he has read poetry and books since he was a child, he is deeply influenced by Confucianism, and has a strong feeling of joining the WTO. Just as he was entering high school, showing his talent and displaying his ambitions, the times had turned a new page, and Song had already entered the Yuan.
The wheels of history are rolling forward, which is undoubtedly a turning point of fate for Jiang Jie, and his Jinshi diploma has lost its due value at this time.
After entering the Yuan Dynasty, Jiang Jie refused the opportunity to join the government and has been living a life of drifting. "Listening to the rain in the middle of the passenger boat" expresses the miserable and desolate life of the lyricist who is wandering and living in a wandering house through the "passenger boat".
And the important thing is that "the broken goose is called the west wind", the lyricist uses the goose as a metaphor to express that he is like a lonely goose that has lost his flock, no matter how he mourns, no one can understand the misery in his heart.
When he was a teenager, he lived a cheerful life of "listening to the rain song upstairs, and the red candles were dim in the tent", but the reality of the Southern Song Dynasty becoming a thing of the past became the last straw that crushed the poet's dream.
Since then, wandering around and having no fixed place has become the normal life of the poet, so he has lived an unstable wandering life as described in the lyrics, "listening to the rain in the boat", it can be said that Jiang Jie has been in this state of wandering and displacement for the rest of his life.
Jiang Jie in the prime of life, floating in a single residence, has a kind of loneliness and sentimentality like a life, and his life is also facing new troubles and hardships, so he has no choice but to make a choice, choosing a state of existence that is exiled in reality and exiled in spirit.
Boating in the rivers and lakes, passenger ships listening to the rain, is not only the lyricist's tempering of life, but also the lyricist's exploration of life, this is the realm of life, so far to broaden, although on the road of life troubles and sorrows will always be accompanied, but this kind of escape is still worth it, because this is the path chosen by the lyricist himself.
(3) Now listening to the rain monks, the temples have stars. The joys and sorrows are always ruthless, one step ahead, bit by bit until dawn
"Now listening to the rain monks, the temples have stars. Joys and sorrows are always ruthless, one step forward, drip to dawn", this is the scene when the lyricist listens to the rain in his twilight years.
From youth to middle age and then to old age, along the way, the lyricist Jiang Jie has become a white-haired old man, sitting alone under the monk's house and listening to the sound of the night rain.
The bleak evening scene, the depressed situation, and the sad state of mind are vividly reflected in this scene of listening to the rain.
The lyricist has experienced a prosperous youth, a prosperous middle-aged vicissitudes, and a loneliness and loneliness of being alone in a monk's house.
The pain, depression and helplessness in his heart can be imagined, and the bumpy life experience and the ups and downs of life make the lyricist Jiang Jie full of pain and helplessness.
But it is precisely because of such a different life course that the poet has a high degree of awareness and profound experience of life and life.
Looking back on his life, the prosperity of his youth is like a passing cloud, short and beautiful, but poverty and wandering are the normal life that has really accompanied the lyricist through most of his life.
After such a comparison, the lyricist couldn't help but sigh with the vicissitudes and helplessness of "joys and sorrows are always ruthless, one step ahead, drip to the dawn".
In the scene of listening to the rain in the twilight years, the lyricist eliminated the gorgeous rhetoric and the meaning of the obscure words, and fell into the gorgeous and practical, and slowly said it with words that were as clear as words.
Through the picture, we seem to see an old man in the old age of the wind, sitting in the monk's house, the rain outside the window is dripping, this is a cold picture, this person does not write sorrow, but the sorrow has long been permeated in the reader's heart.
In the prime of life, the world was vicissitudes, and the lyricist had to take the passenger boat as his home, wandering and roaming in the water towns south of the Yangtze River; in his twilight years, he still traveled to the rivers and lakes, lived in the monk's house, was lonely, and was infinitely sad, but he wanted to talk about it.
In the word "Poppy Beauty", the lyricist takes personal experience as the starting point and presents three scenes with typical picture characteristics. This is the life experience of the three stages of the poet's life, and it is also the three realms of spiritual exploration.
Three scenes with typical picture characteristics are interspersed with the incident of listening to the rain. The location and direction of listening to the rain are very cleverly integrated in the scene of listening to the rain, showing the lyricist's extremely high artistic skills.
The first thing the lyricist intercepted was a beautiful picture of the red candle tent on the song floor, showing the happy time of his youth. "The boy listens to the rain song upstairs", Jiang Jie, a lyricist in the prime of his youth, lives a carefree life and is full of beautiful visions for life.
The pursuit of happiness is the most beautiful and comfortable time in the poet's life, so for the scene of listening to the rain at this time, the lyricist uses the word "shang", which is just in line with the poet's life situation at this time.
At the time of the scientific examination, when he had not had time to show his talent and ambitions, the image album of history had already turned a new page, and he became the epitome of incompatibility with the times.
Floating in the dwelling, boating in the rivers and lakes, and listening to the rain in the passenger boat are the second pictures intercepted by the lyricist. This has also become the normal life of the lyricist in his prime, the lyricist is in the prime of life, but he can't make a difference, wandering in a lonely boat, and the good times of the "red candle and dusk tent" have passed.
The life of floating and living in the zero residence makes the lyricist only feel sad and sad. The poet saw that the misty clouds and mist met the vast river, and a lonely goose came from the sky with a terrible wail, and he listened to the sound of the rain in the passenger ship, feeling the coldness and desolation of the cold rainy night, and how sad and sad his mood was.
Jiang Jie's life at this time was hesitant and lonely, but compared with the twilight of his life, the situation at this time had not yet reached the state of extreme loneliness, so for the scene of listening to the rain at this time, the lyricist used the word "medium", which also fit the artistic conception of the word and the mood of the lyricist.
Life is like a dream, the past is like smoke, and it is carefully pursued in the wind and rain. Listening to the night rain in the monk's house is the third picture intercepted by the lyricist, showing a picture of an old man with gray temples listening to the night rain under the monk's house.
The lyricist is from the romance of his youth, the displacement of his prime, to the twilight of his life, he tasted all the joys and sorrows, his temples were dyed with frost, and he lived in a monk's house. The joy of youth has long since died, and the sorrow and hatred of the prime of life have gone, leaving only the loneliness of the current situation and the depression of the state of mind.
The two sideburns frost flowers, the years have passed and the ambition is empty, the lyricist in the guest monk's house feels more lonely, his emotions have reached the extreme point of pain, the ruthlessness of joys and sorrows, the lyricist has already experienced it with his life.
"Now listen to the rain under the monk's house" of the lyricist, not only two sideburns frost flowers, but also a single shadow, most of his life drifting away from the years of living, to today's parasitic fence, he has tasted the joys and sorrows of life, the lyricist at this time is lonely.
The life footprints that the lyricist has walked, the mental journey he has experienced, and the emotional experience he has felt are finally condensed in the image of such a monk listening to the rain in the last years of the lyricist, at this time his heart is like water, and his calm heart can no longer ripple, so he can listen to the sound of the rain in front of the eaves all night until dawn.
Why did the lyricist stay up all night? Because the sorrow and pain in his heart had not been relieved, and he could not completely let go of his mentality, the lyricist just changed the way of expressing his sorrow to a monk's house listening to the rain.
This other form of sorrow is the restraint and deepening of emotions. Therefore, for the scene of listening to the rain at this time, the lyricist used the word "down", which is very appropriate, which is also consistent with the situation and mentality of the lyricist who is in his last years and is getting worse.
At this time, I heard the sound of the night rain again and again, but on the surface it seemed to be indifferent, and concluded with "a step forward, a little bit until dawn", which seemed to show the indifference of the lyricist that everything is empty and all thoughts are lost.
But through the surface of the language, behind this "pre-order" is the expression that the lyricist cannot listen, speak, or cherish. The faint sentence "a little bit of the front of the step to the dawn" is actually deeply tragic, hiding extremely strong feelings and deeper pain, which is hidden in the depths of the poet's heart.
Listening to the rain until dawn all night, this is the pain of those who can't sleep at night, and the little rain not only hits the front of the steps, but also hits the heart of the lyricist.
Throughout the whole word, the lyricist is nothing more than copying the three different states of life he has experienced, and summarizes the different environments, different lives and different moods in different periods from youth to prime age to old age with three symbolic pictures.
The bumpy life experience and unfortunate life experiences made the lyricist Jiang Jie full of pain and helplessness. But it is precisely because of such a different life course that the poet has a high degree of awareness and profound experience of life and life.
Jiang Jie's scenes of listening to the rain in different periods of his life, the song in the rain is his voice in different periods, and these three scenes of listening to the rain are actually three pictures of the lyricist's heartfelt journey and emotional experience, and they are also the understanding of life. In other words, the perception of listening to the rain three times in this poem is actually the realization of the three realms of life.