Early trip to Shangshan
Starting in the morning to recruit the priests, the travelers are sad for their hometown.
The sound of chickens is heard in Maodian and the moon is shining in Banqiao.
The oak leaves have fallen on the mountain road, and the orange flowers are bright on the post wall.
Because of the dream of Du Ling, the geese filled the pond.
The reason why this poem is recited by people is that it truly reflects some of the common feelings of ordinary travelers in feudal society through distinctive artistic images. Shangshan, also called Chushan, is located in the southeast of today's Shang County, Shaanxi. The author left Chang'an in the late years of Emperor Xuanzong's reign in the Tang Dynasty and passed through here.
The first sentence expresses the typical situation of "leaving early" and is very general. When I wake up early in the morning, the sound of carriage and horse bells is already ringing inside and outside the hotel, and many activities such as roping horses and driving cars are already included in this. Although the second sentence refers to the author himself, it also applies to ordinary travelers. "It's good to be at home for a thousand days, but it's difficult to go out for a while." In feudal society, due to many reasons such as transportation difficulties and lack of favor, ordinary people often relocated and were afraid to travel far. The poem "A traveler is sad for his hometown" can arouse readers' emotional excitement.
Three or four sentences have always been popular. Mei Yaochen once said to Ouyang Xiu: The best poem should be "a scene that is difficult to describe as it is now, with endless opinions hidden behind the words." Ouyang Xiu asked him to give an example, and he cited these two sentences and Jia Dao's "Strange birds crow in the wilderness, and the setting sun scares travelers", and asked: "The road is hard, and the journey is sad, isn't it beyond words?" ("Sixth Edition") "A Poetry Talk") Li Dongyang further analyzed in "Huailutang Poetry Talk": "'The sound of chickens in that cottage and the moon, and the frost on Banqiao's footprints', people only know that they can express sorrow and wild conditions in the meaning of words, but they don't know two sentences There are no one or two idle characters in it, only the words "Guan Guan Se" are mentioned, and the rhyme is sonorous and the imagery is concrete, which is rare at first. If it is forced to be arranged and overlapped, regardless of the clear and voicing of the characters and the harmonic rhyme, I can describe the scenery. How can you use things? "Sounding rhyme" and "concrete imagery" are the necessary conditions for all good poems. Li Dongyang put forward these two points as the subordinate conditions of "no need for one or two idle characters, only mention and focus on looking for characters", which can well explain the artistic characteristics of these two lines of poetry. The so-called "Xianzi" refers to all kinds of words other than nouns; the so-called "Ti-Duo-kegguan-wu-sezi" refers to the selection and combination of nouns that represent typical scenery. These two poems can be broken down into ten nouns representing ten kinds of scenery: chicken, sound, thatch, shop, moon, person, trace, board, bridge, frost. Although in the poem, "chicken sound", "Maodian", "human traces" and "Banqiao" are all combined into a "partial phrase" of "attributive plus central word", because the attributives are all nouns, they still The concrete sense of the noun is retained. For example, in the word "rooster sound", the combination of "chicken" and "sound" can evoke the visual image of long-awaited crows, right? "Maodian", "Humanji" and "Banqiao" are also similar to this.
For the sake of safety, travelers in ancient times usually "settled in before it was too late, and watched the sky early when the rooster crows." Since the poet is writing about early travel, the sound of the cock and the moon are characteristic scenery. And Maodian is a characteristic scenery in the mountainous area. "The rooster sounds like a moon in a thatched shop", the traveler living in a thatched shop gets up to look at the sky when he hears the crowing of the rooster, and when he sees the moon in the sky, he packs his bags and gets up to go on his way, etc. Many contents are vividly expressed.
Similarly, for early travelers, Banqiao, Shuang and the human traces on Shuang are also distinctive scenery. The author set out on the road when the rooster crowed and the waning moon had not yet set, which can be regarded as an "early journey"; however, it was already "the frost on Banqiao". This is really "if you go early, there are even more early travelers"!
These two lines of poems are composed purely of nouns, and the scene of the morning walk is clearly in my mind. They are indeed good lines with "contained images".
The two sentences "The oak leaves have fallen on the mountain road, and the orange flowers are shining brightly on the post wall" describe the scenery just after embarking on the road. There are many tangerine trees and oak trees in Shangxian and Luonan areas. The leaves of the oak tree are very large. Although they dry up in winter, they remain on the branches; they will not fall off until the branches are about to sprout buds in the early spring of the next year. At this time, the white flowers of the tangerine tree are already blooming. Because it is not yet bright, the white orange flowers next to the post wall are more conspicuous, so the word "明" is used. It can be seen that the poet has never forgotten the word "morning".
The scenery of the early journey reminded the poet of the scenery of his hometown that appeared in his dream last night: "The geese are full of birds returning to the pond." Spring has come, my hometown Duling, the water in the back pond is warm, and the geese are enjoying themselves; but I am far away from home, resting in a thatched shop and running around on the mountain road! "Dream of Du Ling" complements the mood of homesickness in the Maodian at night, echoes and complements each other with "A Traveler's Sadness for Hometown"; and the scenery of the hometown in the dream is in sharp contrast with the scenery on the journey. What I see in my eyes is "the mountain road with fallen oak leaves", and what I think in my heart is "the pond is full of wild geese". The scenery of "early departure" and the feeling of "early departure" are perfectly expressed.
"Morning Journey to Shangshan" is a famous poem in Wen Tingyun's poems, and it is also a famous poem about Shangluo. The content is average, but the artistic level is very high. It has always been valued by poetry selectors, especially the second couplet of the poem: "The sound of chickens in that cottage and the moon, and the frost of people's footsteps in Banqiao" is even more popular and highly praised.
Wen Tingyun, courtesy name Feiqing, was born in Qixian County, Shanxi Province. He was an influential poet and poet in the late Tang Dynasty. He was born in the seventh year of Yuanhe (812 AD) of Emperor Xianzong of the Tang Dynasty. There are different opinions on the year of his death. Some say he died in 870 AD, and some say he died in 886 AD. According to him, his ancestor Wen Yanbo once served as prime minister during the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty.
He should be considered a descendant of a famous family. But by the time he arrived, his family was in decline and had lost the glory of his ancestors.
Wen Tingyun was ugly, lustful, slovenly and dissolute, but he was talented, quick in writing, proficient in music, and good at poetry. Therefore, he had a bad reputation among scholar-bureaucrats, who thought that he had "talent but no virtue" and "no virtue." During the reigns of Emperor Wenzong and Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, he took the Jinshi examination three times, but failed in all of them. Therefore, he was unhappy in politics throughout his life and only held some minor officials. In his early years, he had visited Prime Minister Linghu's library and was highly regarded. However, later he complained that Linghu was not helpful in his pursuit of fame, so he ridiculed him and turned against Linghu. When Linghu was guarding Huainan, he refused to visit when he passed by. Instead, he went to visit a brothel and got drunk and made trouble. Linghu secretly sent someone to beat him so hard that his teeth were broken. Later, when Yang Shuo became prime minister, he was appointed as an assistant to the Imperial Academy, and he also participated in presiding over the autumn examination. As a result, he praised a candidate named Shao Ye for his satirical article on current affairs, which offended the powerful, and Yang Shou dismissed him from his official position. After that, he wandered around and died in poverty. His poem "Morning Journey to Shangshan" was probably written in the spring of the first year of Xiantong, Yizong of the Tang Dynasty (AD 859), when he went from Chang'an to Xiangyang to join Xu Shang. He was nearly 50 years old at the time.
"Morning Journey to Shangshan" is indeed beautifully written, especially the two sentences "The sound of chickens, the moon in that store, and the frost of Banqiao". The author only uses a few nouns to vividly outline a story. This is a picture of an early spring dawn in a mountain village that is full of beauty of form, spirit, shadow and color. Reading it today, the scenery of the early spring dawn on Shangshan Road more than a thousand years ago is still vivid in my mind and feels more intimate. There have been many commentators on this poem, but some of the comments are far-fetched and taken for granted. For example, the first sentence "Start in the morning to recruit priests." More commonly known as "ringing the bell on the levy cart" in the morning. Duo is a good bell. The explanation in the "Ancient Chinese Dictionary" is "a small bell hung under the necks of cattle and horses or under the eaves." According to the actual situation of Wen's poverty at that time, it would be difficult for him to travel long distances by car. At the same time, if you are in a car, you may not be able to see the frosty footprints of people walking on the wooden plank bridge over the river. Therefore, to be more precise, this sentence should be the shopkeeper ringing the bell hanging under the eaves of the shop to urge the customers to get up and go on their way. Then there is the word "Banqiao" in the fourth sentence "The frost on Banqiao". Everyone who lives in Shangluo Mountain has probably experienced that before the 1970s, whether it was the Danjiang River or other rivers and streams in the mountains, wooden bridges (some also made of logs) were erected on the rivers in front and behind the villages. ), for mountain people to work in the mountains and in the fields and for travelers to walk, eliminating the pain of taking off their shoes and wading into the water. This kind of wooden plank bridge is usually erected in the autumn after the flood season, and dismantled in the early summer of the next year before the flood season arrives. In the frosty days of late autumn, early winter and early spring, when people walk on the bridge in the morning, they can always see a thin layer of white frost on the bridge deck. If you step on it, it will leave clear marks. The sentence "Frost on Banqiao" is a vivid and true portrayal of this scene. As for Banqiao Town, which is now 40 miles northwest of Shangzhou, it is even more unlikely to have anything to do with Wen's poem. Because Banqiao Town is not on Shangshan Road and is far away from this avenue, Wen Tingyun will never go around that far to visit the "Plank Bridge". Regarding the two sentences "The oak leaves have fallen on the mountain road, and the orange flowers are shining on the post wall", some annotations say "the oak leaves have fallen" and there are traces of frost, so they say that this poem is about the scene of "late autumn", which is also a purely taken-for-granted theory. . The "Quake" tree belongs to the Fagaceae family and is a tree with broad, oval leaves. The common people in Shangzhou all know what "oak leaves" are, and they use them to line steamed bun cages and make rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival. The oak leaves do not fall in autumn and winter, but wither and turn yellow on the branches. The dead leaves will not fall off until the new leaves sprout in the second spring. "Zhi" is commonly known as "Tieli Village" by Shangzhou people. Aurantium aurantium grows in clusters, with few leaves and many thick thorns. It blooms white flowers in spring and has orange-like fruits, dark green and bitter in taste. Citrus aurantium usually grows on river banks, banks or beside the walls of people's yards. Some people even plant it as a fence. Nowadays, they are rare. In the 1950s, they could be seen everywhere along the river banks and villages along the Danjiang River. These two sentences are also true descriptions of the scenery on Shangshan Road in early spring. The word "ming" in the sentence "Zhi Hua Ming Post Wall" is used very cleverly and accurately. Because under the moonlight before dawn, the white citrus flowers outside the station wall looked particularly bright and dazzling. In short, this five-character poem is very particular in describing the scene and expressing emotions, as well as in the use of words and rhythm, showing high artistic skills. The first and fourth couplets echo each other from beginning to end, expressing the poet's long journey, the hard work of missing his hometown, and the feeling of loss and helplessness due to his unsatisfactory official career. The second and third couplets use the vivid yet quiet scenes in front of him to echo the title of the poem. "Going early on the mountain road" also reflects the desolation and loneliness of the poet at that time. The scene in the whole poem is integrated and touching.
Wen Tingyun's poems and articles are all very distinctive, but generally speaking, his writing is not as good as poetry, and his poetry is not as good as words. The ideological content of his poems is relatively narrow and thin, and most of them are fragrant, soft and gorgeous descriptions of women, but his artistic level is very commendable. His Ci, in particular, had a greater influence on later generations. He has been called the originator of the "Huajian School" Ci style in the past dynasties.