It's from Mujiang Song written by Bai Juyi, a poet in Tang Dynasty.
A sunset gradually sank into the river, half green and half green.
The loveliest thing is the ninth day of September. The bright pearl's bright crescent moon is shaped like a bow.
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Ode to Mujiang is one of Bai Juyi's "miscellaneous methods". The beauty of the whole poem lies in taking two beautiful pictures of nature and combining them. One is the gorgeous scene of the sunset reflected on the river, and the other is the hazy night when the crescent moon rises and the dew is crystal clear. Both of them have their own beautiful scenery, and it is even more exciting to watch them together. Poets also add metaphors to their poems appropriately to make the scenery more vivid. Because this poem permeated the relaxed and happy liberation mood and personality of the poet after he left the court voluntarily, the whole poem became the artistic carrier of the poet's aesthetic psychological function in a specific situation.
The first two sentences are about the river at sunset. "A sunset is spreading in the water". The sunset shines on the river, but it means "spreading" instead of "taking pictures". This is because the "sunset" is very close to the horizon, almost touching the ground, and it really looks like it is "paved" on the river. The word "shop" also appears euphemistic and gentle, describing the unique softness of the autumn sunset, giving people a cordial and leisurely feeling. "Half the river is rustling, half the river is red", the weather is clear and windless, the river flows slowly, and there are tiny ripples on the river. The part that receives more light shows "red"; Where there is little light, there is dark blue. The poet grasped the two colors on the river, but showed the scene that the river was sparkling at dusk and the color changed rapidly in the sunset. The poet was intoxicated and put his happiness in the description of the scenery.
The last two sentences are about the night scene when the new moon rises. The poet lingered until the early moon rose, the cool dew fell and a better realm appeared in front of him. The poet leaned down and saw the grass by the river covered with crystal dew. Dewdrops on the green grass are embedded in it like real beads. With the metaphor of "real pearl", not only the roundness of dew is written, but also the luster of dew shining under the new moon. When the poet looks up again, a crescent moon rises, just like hanging a delicate bow in the blue sky. The poet condensed two scenes in heaven and earth into a poem-"Dew is like a pearl, and the moon is like a bow". From a crescent moon bent like a bow, the author remembered that it was "the third night of September", and could not help but blurt out his lovely praise for it, expressing his feelings directly, pushing his feelings to a climax and causing waves in his poems.
Through the description of the two visual images of "dew" and "moon", the poet created a harmonious and quiet artistic conception, and used this novel and ingenious metaphor to describe and color nature in detail, describe its capacity, draw its shape and show readers a wonderful picture. There seems to be a lack of time connection between describing the sunset river and praising the moon dew, but the night on the third day of September is invisibly connected with time, and it is connected with dusk, dew and the moon, which means that the poet enjoys it from dusk to the moon and contains the poet's love and love for nature. Comments on Yang Shen's Poem of Sheng 'an in Ming Dynasty: "The poem is full of rhyme. It is said that the sun is spreading water, and the blue of the river is like the color of rustling; Half the river is red, and the sun is reflected. It can be described as micro-painting. " Comment on the poem Wine in Tang and Song Dynasties: "Qiu Jiang scrolls and writes beautiful scenery." Comments on Wang Shizhen's Selected Poems of Tang Poetry in Qing Dynasty: "Beautiful, absolutely beautiful and charming."
In addition, the issue of time in this poem is also worthy of readers' attention.
First, "Ode to the Twilight River" is not always about "the scenery of the Twilight River". If we only look at the title of Ode to Mujiang, it seems that this poem should be sung until the twilight river scene around sunset, but the words "night" in the poem, "poor night in September" and "dewdrops as real as pearls as bows" are obviously writing about "night". According to the explanation in Ci Hai: "Dew is water droplets that condense on the surface of the ground or ground objects because of the heat emitted by water vapor in the air, which makes the surface temperature of the ground or ground objects lower than the air temperature (but still higher than 0℃). It is more common in sunny and windless nights or early morning. " It can be seen that the title and content of this poem are not consistent, and it is not always written about twilight river scenery. When understanding this poem, we must grasp this feature, and we can't just understand the content mechanically from the title. Some people think that the title of this poem is not completely consistent with the time in content, which is the author's negligence or pen mistake. In fact, this situation is very common in Tang poetry. For example, Du Fu's "Sunset" has been written from dusk to "grass dew drops autumn roots"; Jia Dao's Twilight in the Mountain Village was also written from sunset to bright moon. Therefore, we can't study literary works completely with the research methods of natural science.
Secondly, "Ode to the Twilight River" mainly talks about "Twilight River Scenery". There are four lines in the poem Ode to Mujiang. The first two sentences describe that the setting sun shines obliquely on the river, which is the most real twilight river scene. In the last two sentences, the poet lingers until the new moon rises In the poem, "the third day of September" and "the moon is like a bow" are closely linked, describing the natural scenery at dusk. Here, "the third day of September" points out the time, and "the moon is like a bow" is what the poet sees. Of course, this kind of scene can only be seen shortly after sunset, so these two sentences mainly talk about the river scene in the twilight, not the "beautiful night scene" mentioned in some books.
The last two sentences are mainly based on the scenery of Twilight River, which has its scientific basis. According to the common knowledge of astronomy, on the third day of September, the moon is located about 45 east of the sun, and its shape is like an inverted C-shape, that is, "the moon is like a bow". Sunset appears in the low air in the west and southwest, and the visible time is limited to 2 to 3 hours after sunset. From the poem, the author sees that the moon is like a bow, and the height of the moon's horizon is not very low. Due to the influence of trees, buildings and fog, it is too low to see. On this basis, readers can infer that when the author saw "the moon is like a bow", it was at dusk on the third day of September, not long after the sun set. From the perspective of folk time, it still belongs to the category of evening, that is, "dusk."
Thirdly, Ode to Mujiang wrote three different "times". Through the above analysis, the first two sentences of Ode to Mujiang were written before sunset (briefly) or at sunset; The last two sentences are mainly written after sunset (short time), that is, dusk; The last two sentences also lead to a period of time in the evening. This is completely in line with the author's viewing order, that is, the author saw the sunset before sunset, the moon like a bow after sunset, and the dew like a real pearl at night. Most materials think that "the moon is like a bow" and "the dew is like a real pearl" are seen by the author at the same time at night, writing in the sky before and writing underground after. In fact, this is because of the lack of common sense of astronomy and meteorology, ignoring the "time difference" between two natural phenomena. As mentioned above, the author can only see "the third day of September" and "the moon is like a bow" shortly after sunset. At this time, because the sun has just set, the heat lost on the ground is not much, and the cool dew has not yet formed; By the time the night is "like a real pearl", the moon like a bow has sunk below the western horizon.