Cold Food
There are flowers flying everywhere in the Spring City,
Cold Food makes the east wind keep the willows from falling.
At dusk, candles were sent from the Han Palace,
Light smoke dispersed into the house of the five princes.
Author background
Han Hong (date of birth and death unknown), courtesy name Junping, was a poet in the Tang Dynasty. A native of Nanyang (now Nanyang, Henan Province). He has been doing clerical work in the army and is good at writing poems with farewell themes. He is as famous as Qian Qi and other poets, and was known as one of the "Ten Talents of Dali" at that time. Later, the emperor selected him as the person who drafted the imperial edict. There were two Han Hongs at that time. When the minister asked who to choose, the emperor said he should be the Han Hong who wrote "Spring City is full of flowers." This shows how important this poem was at that time. famous. Notes and explanations Spring City: Chang'an City in late spring.
Cold food: In ancient times, during the festival two days before Qingming Festival, people burned fire for three days and only ate cold food, so it was called cold food.
Imperial Willow: Willow tree in the imperial city.
Oblique: For the sake of rhyme, this can be read as xia (second tone) according to the ancient pronunciation. Han Palace: This refers to the imperial palace of the Tang Dynasty.
Biography: given.
Five Marquises: During the reign of Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty, the five brothers of Queen Wang, Wang Tan, Wang Shang, Wang Li, Wang Ji, and Wang Fengshi were granted the title of Marquis and received special favor. This generally refers to the ministers who are favored by the emperor.
Modern Translation of Ancient Poems
In the late spring of Chang'an City, the sky was filled with dancing poplar flowers, and the east wind during the Cold Food Festival tilted the willow trees in Guanzhong. At dusk, new candles were given in the palace, and light smoke first rose over the homes of the emperor and his relatives.
Appreciation of famous lines - "Spring City is full of flying flowers."
This is a satirical poem with a very euphemistic meaning. Before the Tang Dynasty, the Han Dynasty was the most powerful, so people in the Tang Dynasty liked to use the Han Dynasty to compare with the Tang Dynasty when writing poems. Here, the story of the Han Dynasty is also used to satirize the dynasty. The cold food was used to burn fire for three days, but the fire should not have been used until the fourth day. But on the dusk of the third day, the palace gave the candles that carried the fire to the emperor's noble relatives. This small incident shows the emperor's special favor to his relatives and ministers, but the poet wrote it very euphemistically, and started with the wonderful scene of flying flowers in the spring city, and used the description of the east wind blowing willows to naturally introduce the emperor's officials, as if he was praising the emperor's grace. So even the emperor liked it very much. Writing like this that achieves a satirical effect without a single word of criticism is called implicit. If we think about it carefully, we can taste the irony hidden in it.