The plantains do not show their lilac knots, and they are both sad in the same spring breeze." It means to write about the sorrow of women who are not allowed to meet their lovers. The plantains are a metaphor for the lover, and the lilacs are a metaphor for the woman herself. Both of them are in a different place because they cannot meet each other. Sorrow.
Source: Tang Dynasty Li Shangyin's "One of Two Poems as a Gift"
Original text
"One of Two Poems as a Gift"
—(Tang Dynasty) Li Shangyin
Upstairs, desires rest at dusk, and the jade ladder crosses the hook in the middle of the moon.
The plantains do not show their lilac knots, and they are all worried in the spring breeze.
Translation
The desire to go up to a tall building alone at dusk is still gone, the stairs are blocked by the lover, and the crescent moon is like a hook.
The lilacs are still in bud even though the banana heart has not yet opened. Before letting go, they were each sad towards the spring breeze.
The sunrise shines on the high-rise building, and the people upstairs who are sad about separation sing "Stone Island"
Even though their eyebrows are like spring mountains, The spring mountain is like eyebrows, but I don’t know how much sorrow I have to bear.
Notes
1. The banana heart is not unfolded.
2. Lilac. Knot: Originally refers to the buds of lilacs, which are clustered like knots. It is used here to symbolize the unresolved melancholy.
3. In the same spring breeze: plantains and lilacs face the cold spring breeze at dusk together (the poem begins. The banana is a metaphor for the lover, and the lilac is a metaphor for the woman herself).
Appreciation
"Upstairs at dusk" indicates that the time is dusk and the place is on a tall building. In works, such an environment is highly suggestive and is often used to express separation and lovesickness. For example, Li Bai's "Entering a tall building in silence, there are people upstairs feeling sad" unfolds in this kind of artistic conception. Going up to a tall building, I wanted to lean on the railing and look out into the distance, but I gave up in the end. "desire to stop" means "stop". The answer is hidden in the next sentence.
"Jade Ladder" is a good name for stairs and stairs. "Hengjue" means "Hengdu". The poet Jiang Yan of the Southern Dynasties wrote in "Ode to Advocating Women's Self-Grief" that a beautiful woman in the Han Dynasty fell out of favor and lived alone, with "moss accumulated." "The silver pavilion is astringent, and the net is full of traps. The jade ladder is empty". "The jade ladder is empty" means that the jade ladder is empty and no one comes to climb it. The "jade ladder is horizontal" in this poem means that the jade ladder is horizontal and there is no way to get up. , it means that lovers are prevented from coming here to meet. It turns out that the protagonist is eager to see his sweetheart and can't help but go upstairs to take a look. Suddenly he thinks that he can't come, so he stops looking. A period of new sorrow. During this hesitant advance and retreat, a crescent moon in the sky cast a faint light, projecting her infinite longing and disappointment into the lonely figure. It not only highlights the loneliness and desolation of the environment, but also has symbolic meaning: the moon is missing but not round, just like a pair of lovers who are unable to meet.
The plantains are not showing their lilac knots, and they are facing the same spring breeze.
The "spring breeze" contrasts with the "sorrow". There is no spring color in the eyes of a sad person. He looks up at the moon, and the crescent moon is like a hook. When he lowers his head and looks closely, he can see that the banana tree has not yet stretched, and the lilac tree is full of flowers. They are flower buds that cannot bloom; they face the cool spring breeze at dusk, each with their own sorrow. This is not only a description of the real scene in front of the protagonist, but also a description of people through objects. The banana is used as a metaphor for the lover, and the lilac is used as a metaphor for the woman herself. It is a metaphor that the two people are in the same place in a different place, and they are both worried about not being able to meet each other.
The plantains are not unfolded and the lilacs are not opened. This is an objective natural scene, and there is no need to worry about it, but in the eyes of the protagonist, it is full of sadness. This is because there is sorrow in the heart, so it is difficult to stretch the banana leaves; because the belly is full of hatred, it is difficult to open the petals of resentment. People are extremely sad, so it hurts their feelings, and the sadness that touches their eyes adds to the hatred of leaving others. These two lines of poetry empathize with the scenery, use the scenery to express feelings, use metaphors exquisitely, and integrate the symbols of xing into one.
The poet uses unopened plantains and solid lilacs to compare melancholy, which not only makes abstract emotions visible, tangible, and concrete, but also makes this comparison have a certain symbolic meaning. The stagnant plantains and solid lilacs are not only the triggers of the protagonist's melancholy; as images of the poem, they also become the carrier and symbol of his melancholy.
These two sentences have a beautiful artistic conception and swaying music. They express the wandering between two places with "one kind of lovesickness and two places of leisure and sorrow" as a long-lasting interest and full of emotions. Lu Minggao of the Qing Dynasty said: "The beauty lies in the 'sameness', and the beauty lies in the 'separate'. What others can't say enough, I can sum it up in one sentence." What I admire is the endless rhyme of these two lines of poetry.
About the author
Li Shangyin, courtesy name Yishan, also known as Yuxisheng and Fan Nansheng, is a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty. His ancestral home is Qinyang, Hanoi (now Jiaozuo City, Henan Province), and he was born in Xingyang, Zhengzhou. He is good at poetry writing, and his parallel prose has high literary value. He is one of the most outstanding poets in the late Tang Dynasty. Together with Du Mu, he is called "Xiao Li Du", and together with Wen Tingyun, he is called "Wen Li". Cheng Shi and Wen Tingyun have similar styles, and they are all ranked sixteenth in their families, so they are called the "Thirty-Sixth Body". His poems are novel in conception and beautiful in style, especially some love poems and untitled poems, which are sentimental, beautiful and moving, and are widely read. However, some poems are too obscure and difficult to understand. There is a saying that "poets always love Xikun and hate that no one writes Zheng Jian." Because he was caught in the partisan struggle between Niu and Li, he was very frustrated in his life. After his death, he was buried in his hometown Qinyang (now the junction of Qinyang and Boai County, Jiaozuo City, Henan Province). The works are included in "Li Yishan's Collected Poems".