Translation of Zhou Bangyan's poem "Spring Rain"

In the mountain forest, the farmer held the plow and whispered in a low voice, and a white gull landed outside the flowers from time to time.

If you want to test the amount of spring rain, just look at the spring water in the wild pond, which can freely turn a small boat.

Appreciation:

The first two lines of this poem describe the poet standing on a high place, looking around, and saw a group of farmers talking about something next to the mound in the grove; three or four lines Addressing the topic head-on, looking at the scene in front of him, the poet observed that a wild pond was overflowing with water. Although he did not write about the spring rain itself, he wrote about the scene after the spring rain and the "joy" brought by the spring rain. The whole poem is simple and unpretentious. It does not write from the front, but highlights and exaggerates from the side, using the scene to describe the emotion, and the picture is vivid and vivid.

This poem describes spring rain, but the poet does not focus on the scene in the rain, but on the scene after the rain. The imagery he chooses is also very different from other works that sing about rain, making people feel refreshed after reading it.

The first sentence "The cultivators support the grass and talk to each other in the forest hills" writes that after the spring rain, the villagers help the grass and talk to each other on the hills. Although the poet did not describe the mood of the farmers in half a word, the word "language" fully revealed the farmers' joy at the spring rain. "The Book of Songs Daya Gongliu" describes the situation of Zhou people living in peace, which is described by the two sentences "Yu Shiyan, Yushi Yuyu". The word "yu" is used here to have the same effect. At the beginning of spring farming, the farmland is waiting for plowing, so farmers "help the grass and talk".

After describing the scenery of the forest hills, the poet turned his attention to the water flowing outside the flowers. After the spring rain has moistened it, the spring flowers are colorful and red. Beyond the spring flowers, there is meandering water. Due to the obstruction of spring flowers, there was no spring water, but sometimes sand gulls were seen flying down, trying to gather on the sandbank. Du Fu once wrote a poem, "What does the fluttering look like? There is a sandy gull in the sky and the earth." In the vast sky and the earth, between a long river, a sandy gull suddenly appeared. Its vast momentum is the weather of the Ministry of Industry. This poem is written with the word "fall", which is more light and lively than Ye Lao.

The last two sentences get to the point, asking how much rain will come. After the poet finished asking himself, he answered: "The wild pond is overflowing with water and you can return to the boat." Since it is a wild pond and no one is taking care of it, the water must be shallow and difficult to anchor. However, after the spring rain this time, the water rose sharply, and you can actually get back to the boat. You can imagine the intensity of the rain. It is said that "spring rain is as precious as oil", so it is no wonder that the cultivators helping the grass and talking to each other were delighted and happy.

The whole poem refers to the spring rain, writing about cultivators, sand gulls, and wild ponds. All three of them contain otherworldly meanings. The people in the village are wild and old, farming mulberry and hemp, needless to say, the sand gulls are floating and relaxed, and the boats returning to the wild pond are safe and independent from the world. Therefore, this poem has a faint air of elegance in its freshness. The author's poem "I am so sad that I am startled, my dreams are light and hard to remember, and I feel sorry for myself and my loneliness" ("Dayou·Yuediao Chunyu"). Although they both write about spring rain, the feelings they express are completely different.