The grass grows in the original land, withering and growing every year.
The wildfire cannot be burned out, but the spring breeze blows it again.
The distant fragrance invades the ancient road, and the clear green meets the deserted city.
I sent the king and grandson off again, and the love was full of farewell.
——Tang Bai Juyi's "Farewell to the Ancient Grassland"
This poem was "cut in half" and selected into primary school Chinese textbooks, leaving only the first four sentences, which are basically one sentence. It is a "picture-telling" material, and it doesn't appear to be a farewell poem at all. Bai Juyi lived in the mid-Tang Dynasty, and the Li Tang Dynasty was already "waning to the west" in the era he lived in. Even a young man still had the melancholy of the times, so his farewell poems would not be as high-spirited as Li Bai's, but full of sadness. . However, there are only a handful of cheerful poems among the masterpieces of ancient Chinese poetry, and those poems with a melancholic tone are more likely to move people and become famous poems that transcend the times; similarly, those poems that are heart-wrenching and weeping are also rare, and those poems with a melancholic tone are more likely to move people. The sad songs of Bai Zhuan Lonely Night can often shake people's hearts and become masterpieces. We cannot specify the criteria for good poetry, but we can be sure that there is a type of good poetry whose aesthetic appeal is: poignancy. Bright colors often shine in poignant poems, and these bright colors give people lingering hope or rare comfort in the sad tones; there are no torrents of tears in the poignant poems, but there are looming tear stains, and the lightly curled brows will always stay in the readers' hearts. The occasion will last for a long time.
"Farewell with Ancient Grass" is a poignant poem.
1
The main body of the image in the whole poem is spring grass. Originally, spring grass should give people vibrant hope and vitality. However, the spring grass in this poem can never hide the melancholy look.
First of all, spring grass grows in ancient plains. The lines in "Youxian Advocacy" and "Fuzhai Manlu" are called "grass on Xianyang Plains". It can be seen that this ancient plain refers to Xianyang Ancient Plains. Xianyang was the old capital of the Qin Dynasty, which was burned down by Xiang Yu. Qin and Chu changed over. Although the Han and Wei Dynasties recovered, they never regained their former prosperity. These spring grasses grew out of the palaces of the old royal capital, and the more vigorous they were, the more heartbreaking they became. When people in the Tang Dynasty mentioned Xianyang Ancient Plains, they immediately felt a sense of eternity, and often felt a sense of desolation. Zheng Gu said, "I stayed in Xianyang City, and the past was sad and regretful." Yuan Zhen said, "Suddenly I recalled the plains of Xianyang, with more than ten thousand hectares of barren fields." On the northern plain of Xianyang, it may become dust as usual." "The green dew and grass on the Xianyang ridge, this is the first autumn of the ages." "The Qin Prison Qi in Xianyang, grievances and pains become things." "The tears in Xianyang in the dream, the heart of Jiangling after waking up." "The lonely Xianyang Road ", the family returned to the tomb", although these poems are mostly related to mourning Yuan Zhen, Xianyang is actually a sad place in Tang poetry.
The commonly used text for this sentence is "Li Li Yuan Shang Cao", using "Li Li" to modify the spring grass, seemingly describing its vigorous growth, but in fact it is borrowed from "The Book of Songs·Wang Feng·Mill Li" The artistic conception of the chapter: "The millet is separated, the seedlings of the rice. The pace is slow, and the center is swaying. Those who know me say that I am worried, and those who don't know me say what do I want. Who is here in the long sky?" This is a poem. A prosperous little official returned to his hometown a few years after the destruction of Haojing, the original royal capital of the Western Zhou Dynasty. He saw the crumbling palace walls and the extremely lush wild millet. Sadness, that's what it means. The more luxuriant the spring grass (or wild millet) is, the more painful it is inside.
In the poem, spring grass not only grows on the abandoned ancient plains, but also extends along the "ancient road" to the "deserted city". The "ancient road" is naturally traveled by few people, but friends who travel far away will ride their horses on the "ancient road", and their destination may be the "deserted city". The two images of ancient roads and deserted cities once again render the desolation of Xianyang Ancient Plains full of sadness. It seems that only the author and his friends are saying goodbye on the vast wilderness. The two people in the vast ancient plains covered with spring grass are actually so small and lonely. There is no joy that spring is budding.
Two
The whole poem does not fall into a low ebb emotionally because the sad spring grass spreads endlessly into the distance, otherwise it will only be "desolate" without "aesthetics".
The first couplet gathers the spring grass that grows "willfully" with "one year old and one bloom", and expands the fixed spring grass in front of us into a more profound time and space. "One year old, one year old", this is true every year, at least after the great fire of Chuba Xianyang, the space and time of history have become distant, and show overlapping dynamics. "Wither prosperity" is not "prosperity witherness". It is the third spring, and the grass is "prosperous". The reason for writing "withered" is to expand the time and space and set off its "prosperity", so that people will feel a flash of joy after reading it, but also be accompanied by a trace of loneliness. As far as describing the scene is concerned, this sentence is the most touching. There is both a sense of the passing of history and a momentary connection of time and space; there is the joy of the present and the sadness of the past. And all these feelings are grown from the green grass. Every word is written with grass in the open, and every word is written with love in secret.
The couplet "The wild fire cannot burn out, but the spring breeze blows and regenerates" has won Bai Juyi an excellent reputation, "Youxian Advocacy", "Tang Yulin", "Beimeng Suoyan" and "Neng Gaizhai Manglu" There are records in other notes and even in "The Poems of the Whole Tang Dynasty" that Bai Juyi won praise from the senior poet Gu Kuang with this couplet. Gu Kuang first joked about Bai Juyi's name and said, "Mi is expensive in Chang'an, and it is difficult to live in a big city." After reading this sentence, he was moved and said : "There is a saying like this, how difficult it is to live in the world! I preface it with an ear for drama!" Of course, these records are similar to what a novelist said, so there is no need to believe them (Fu Xuancong's research proves that Gu Kuang and Bai Juyi could not have met three years ago in Zhenyuan).
This couplet comes from "Wither and Rong". "Wither" is written before "Rong" and "Rong" is written next. Especially the "spring breeze blows and grows again" written with "Rong" is really the brightest color block in the whole poem! The flow of water is right. When you read it, you can read the pearls and jade flowing and the rhyme is bright. Of course, there is no need to over-understand "wild fire" as "treacherous" or "villain". This is just a sentence that follows the description of the scene. From "spring and youth", I think of "burn marks" (Liu Changqing) There is "Spring comes into the burnt green"), which changes from wildfire to spring grass, injecting a ray of high light into the sentiment of farewell. The reason why this sentence won praise is because the positive emotions of young people are authentically revealed in the farewell poem, and readers' eyes light up after reading it - the natural sunshine of teenagers is the most touching.
Even when he wrote about "ancient roads" and "deserted cities", the young Bai Juyi still used "yuanfang" and "qingcui" to alleviate the sentimentality of the distant world. "The characters 'invasion' and 'connection' are used to describe his virtual spirit. He is good at understanding objects and is especially good at crafting sentences." (Yu Biyun) "Yuanfang" is a metaphor for appreciating the holiness of friends, and "Qingcui" is both The color of the writing is bright and beautiful, and it also contains blessings for friends who have left far away. Some commentators think that this couplet is suspected of "joining the palms". In fact, this is Bai Juyi's proud work when he was young, not a famous poem when he was a proficient poet. Therefore, this couplet of "joining the palms" denies the art of this poem. The results are really unfair. Some people say that this is an exercise written by Bai Juyi before his scientific examination, because the title is "Fu De", which is wrong (Huo Songlin has discussed this, which is quite accurate). This couplet connects the brightest color blocks and the darkest color blocks in the whole poem. There is the worry of disappointment in the hope, and the call of hope in the disappointment. Putting aside the criticism of the "folded palms" poetic method, the most touching part of this couplet is that it always maintains a warm yearning in the face of the lonely reality. This poignant tone is like "the sunset over the building" and "green, fat, red and thin".