Cicada
Tang Dynasty: Li Shangyin
pure of heart and therefore hungry, all night long you have sung in vain.
oh, this final broken indrawn breath, among the green indifferent trees!.
yes, I have gone like a piece of driftwood, I have let my garden fill with weeds.
I bless you for your true advice, to live as pure a life as yours.
Translation
It's hard to be full when you live on high branches, although you lament and hate without sympathy.
After the Five Watches, the sound of falling was almost cut off, but the trees were still green.
My official position is humble, my whereabouts are erratic, my hometown is difficult to return, and my hometown's countryside has long been deserted.
I'm alert to your call. Me, too. My family is surrounded by four walls, and my family is poor.
Note
With: Because of. Bo official: refers to the humble official position. Too high to be full: the ancients thought that cicadas lived in high places, so they said "too high to be full".
Hate sounds: moaning repeatedly because of hate. Fee, in vain.
gēng: In ancient China, the night was divided into five periods, and the time was struck by drums, so it was called "Gē ng". Sparse to break: refers to the cicada sound sparse, close to breaking off.
green.
Bo Huan: The official position is humble. The stalk is still extensive: The book "The Warring States Policy and Qi Ce" is published: The earthen puppet said to the peach stalk: "Today, the stalk of Zhi Tao in the East Country is also carved as a person. When it rains, the water will come and flow away, so what will the child drift like?" Later, it was a metaphor of wandering and lonely. Stems refer to branches of trees.
Hometown: the name of one's former home, hometown. The weeds have been leveled: the weeds have been leveled and covered the fields. Weeds, weeds. Flat means that weeds grow flush.
Jun: The cicada. P: Reminder.
also: also. Family cleaning: the whole family is poor. Lift, all. Clear, poor, lofty.
Appreciation
This poem first describes the cicada's situation, then jumps directly to his own experience, expressing his feelings directly, and finally naturally returns to the cicada, with a harmonious beginning and ending and coherent meaning. The whole poem starts with a cicada and ends with a cicada, which is closely organized. The description of cicada and the poet's affection are tactfully expressed in a seamless blend and unity, and it is a masterpiece of supporting things and chanting.
"pure of heart and therefore hungry, all night long you have sung in vain." The first couplet started with the life habits of cicadas. "Height" is a metaphor for one's lofty height with cicada-perched tall trees; Cicada's "difficulty in satiety" coincides with the author's life experience. From "not being full" to "sound", there is "hate" in sorrow. But this kind of singing is in vain, and it can't get rid of the difficult situation. That is to say, because the author is lofty, he lives in poverty. Although he expresses his feelings to powerful people and hopes to get their help, it is futile in the end. This combination of the author's own feelings to chant things seems to distort the original appearance of things, because cicadas have no "difficulty in satiety" and "hate". It seems unreal for the author to say this, but the truth of chanting poems is the truth of the author's feelings. The author does have this feeling. As long as "height" and "sound" are consistent with cicadas, the author can write his unique feelings about "height" and "sound", which can be written as "from afar" (Yu Shinan's Chanting Cicada) or "pure of heart and therefore hungry", both of which are true for two different authors.
oh, this final broken indrawn breath, among the green indifferent trees!. "Zhuan Lian means that after the even, the sound of sparse was almost cut off, and the trees were still green and unmoved.
By the dawn of the fifth watch, the cicada's singing was sparse and almost cut off, but the leaves of a tree were still so green, and they were not sad and haggard because of its "sparse" and looked so ruthless. Here comes another feature of object-chanting poems, that is, unreasonable and wonderful. The cicada's "sparse" has nothing to do with the "green" of the leaves, but the author blames the tree for its indifference. This seems unreasonable, but the irrationality shows the author's true feelings. "I want to break up" is not only about cicadas, but also about my own life experience. Cicada said that it is unreasonable to blame the tree for its ruthlessness; As far as the life experience is concerned, it is reasonable to blame the powerful for being "ruthless" when they could have relied on the shade. Poetry about objects is mainly lyrical, so this irrationality becomes reasonable in lyricism.
"yes, I have gone like a piece of driftwood, I have let my garden fill with weeds." Neck tie means that my official position is humble like a peach stalk drifting, and the weeds in my home have long been barren and flat.
There is a turning point in the neck couplet. Instead of chanting cicadas, I turn to myself, which breaks the limitation of chanting cicadas and expands the content of the poem. The author works as an aide in various places and is a small official, so he is called "Bo Huan". It often flows around, like a puppet drifting around in the water. This unstable life makes him miss his hometown, what's more, the weeds in his hometown and the weeds in the field have become one, and the author's homesickness is even more urgent. These two sentences seem to have nothing to do with the chanting of cicadas above, but they are still related secretly. "Bo Guan" is associated with "high difficulty in satiety" and "hate for noise", and a small official is humble, so "difficult to satiety" and "noise". After this turning point, the lyrical meaning of chanting cicadas above is more clear.
"I bless you for your true advice, to live as pure a life as yours" came back to chanting cicadas, and wrote cicadas with anthropomorphic method. "Jun" and "I" are opposed to each other, closely combining chanting with lyricism, and echoing the beginning and ending. The cicada's difficulty in satiety corresponds to my poor family. The chirping of cicadas reminds me that this little official, who is in a similar situation to cicadas, thinks of "I have let my garden fill with weeds", which inevitably evokes the idea of returning to the country. Commenting on this poem, Mr. Qian Zhongshu said: "The cicada is hungry and moans, but the tree is indifferent and self-green (self-green is a good explanation of the word" Bi "). Trees are heartless and people ('I') have feelings, so they feel the same way. Cicada perches on a tree, but it's forgotten. Cicadas don't sing for me, but I call them "warning each other", which means cicadas are also "heartless" to me, and I have feelings for them. Intricate and delicate. " Mr. Qian pointed out that not only the tree is heartless but also the cicada is heartless, further explaining the intricate relationship between cicada chanting and lyric.
The beauty of chanting things lies in that "the things are wonderful, and the merits are closely attached". This poem of chanting cicadas, "vivid and ethereal, super-metaphysical", was praised by Zhu Yizun as "the best in chanting things". Poets express their noble character by the cicada's high drinking and dew, which can be described as a typical example of chanting with things.
Extended reading: A summary of Li Shangyin's achievements
There are about 6 poems handed down by Li Shangyin, among which the theme of current politics is directly touched. Li Shangyin's epic poems have made great achievements. They are by no means sickly moans of "thinking about the love of the past", and they are also different from those poems written by predecessors to express their feelings by relying on the past. Instead, they focus on drawing lessons from history to refer to Chen's political affairs and criticize the current times to supplement them, making history-chanting a special form of political poetry. Untitled poetry is Li Shangyin's unique creation. Most of them are based on the theme of lovesickness between men and women, and their artistic conception is faint, their feelings are full of twists and turns, their words are beautiful, their tone is beautiful and they can be dense and dense, which makes people feel sad to read. Li Shangyin's world outlook basically belongs to the Confucian system because of his childhood environment and education, and his attitude towards life is active in joining the WTO and eager to make a difference. At the same time, he was able to think independently, and he dismissed the preaching that "learning the Tao must seek the ancients, and learning from the literature must be learned" very early, and even came up with such a bold idea that "Kong Shi has nothing beyond morality, benevolence and righteousness". In poetry creation, he was initially fascinated by Li Heqi's lofty style and the poetic style of the Southern Dynasties, and wrote many poems that sang love, such as Yantai, Heyang and Hanoi. After his repeated humiliation and destruction showed him the rugged road of life, his poems began to show resentment and some criticisms of society. In the end, the change of manna opened his eyes with bloody reality, which made him take a big step forward in thought and creation. At this time, his poems such as "Two Feelings" and "Re-feeling" have been quite profound and powerful in criticizing decadent politics.