In the twentieth year of the reign of Emperor Dezong of Tang, in 804 AD, the poet Li Yi was fifty-seven years old. In this year, Li Yi climbed the Ruzhou City Tower for the second time, recalling the scene of the first time he climbed the city tower thirty years ago, and thousands of emotions about the country and individuals rushed in his heart, so he wrote a poem "Shangruzhou County Tower", the original text is as follows:
At dusk, the drum horn resembles a border state, and it went up to this building thirty years ago.
Today's mountain city is weeping, and sadness is not only sad autumn.
"At dusk, the drum horn resembles a border state", at dusk, I climbed the Ruzhou City Tower and heard a drum horn sound similar to that of the Border Plug area. Ruzhou was originally the hinterland of the Central Plains, and according to common sense, it was impossible to have the sound of the side plug drum horn. However, when the poet who was nearly twilight climbed the ruzhou city tower at dusk, he heard the sound of drums and horns, hinting at the critical situation in the Ruzhou area. Ruzhou, located in the Central Plains, is still like this, and it is conceivable that the tension in the country at that time was deeply worried.
"Thirty years ago I went up this tower," I climbed this tower thirty years ago. In this sentence, the poet traces back to the past, thirty years ago, the poet has been serving as a lieutenant of Zheng County, Huazhou for five years, and has not been promoted for a long time, and he is depressed. At this time, the poet stood in the castle tower and looked out, feeling that thirty years were like a flick of a finger, during these thirty years, the poet served in the shogunate in many festivals and experienced military life; in the past thirty years, the situation in the country has also undergone tremendous changes, the division of the feudal towns has become more and more intense, the chaos in Huaixi has not yet subsided, and the individual and the country have not changed as they were thirty years ago.
"Today's mountain city is weeping", today, I am relatively weeping with this mountain city. The poet traces the past and caress for the present, personal encounters, and changes in the country make the poet feel all kinds of emotions, and sorrow comes from it. So the poet stood on top of the city tower and burst into tears. But the poet does not only write about his own tears, but from both sides of the pen, not only write his own tears, but also write Ruzhou tears, in an anthropomorphic way to write a mountain city tears, you can imagine the depth of the pain in the poet's heart, the tragedy of the people of Ruzhou.
"Sadness is not only sad autumn", my sadness is not only caused by sad autumn. Since Song Yu issued the sigh of "Sorrowful Autumn is also angry, Xiao Ser's grass and trees fall and decay", "Sorrowful Autumn" has become a common content in poetry, but because of the poet's encounters, the reasons for The Tragic Autumn are not the same. For Li Yi, there are two reasons for his "sadness", one is to hurt himself, and the other is the sadness of his separation. Among them, the most important reason is the "sorrow of separation".
"Those who know me are worried for me, and those who do not know me say what I want", in this poem, the poet only writes that "sadness is not only sad autumn" and then abruptly stops, without specifically writing the reason for "sadness". We must consider the poet's personal suffering and the background of the era in which he lived to infer the reason for the poet's sadness, which is what Mencius called "knowing people and discussing the world", and if we do this, perhaps we can become the poet's "knowers".