Original text:
Yuan Xiang keeps flowing, why does Qu Zi complain?
Autumn wind rises at dusk, and maple trees whisper.
Translation:
The Yuan River and Xiangjiang River rolled forward, and Qu Yuan was beaten by traitors. How sad it is that the great cause cannot be realized. At dusk, the autumn wind blows gently, and the maple trees near San Lv Temple rustle.
Dai Shulun (732-789), a native of Jintan, Runzhou (now Jintan County, Jiangsu Province) in the Tang Dynasty, was an official and a guest. Dr San Lv is the official title of the patriotic poet Qu Yuan. San Lv Doctor's Temple, or Quzi Temple, is located on Renshan Mountain by the Miluo River in Miluo County, Hunan Province. The title of this "Complete Tang Poetry" is "Crossing San Lv Temple", and the content is slightly different. The Temple of Doctor San Lv is a poem with five elements, and it is the first miniature bonsai in modern poetry.
Qu Yuan was loyal to the monarch and patriotic, but he was released repeatedly. He was first exiled to Hanbei by Chu Huaiwang, and later exiled to Jiangnan by King Qing Xiang. In his later years, the capital of Chu State was breached by Qin Jun, and Qu Yuan lived in Xiangjiang River. Seeing the ruin and death of the country, he was extremely desperate. On the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in 278 BC, it sank in the Miluo River, a tributary of Xiangjiang River. Qu Yuan's second exile was in Hunan, and Yuanjiang and Xiangjiang are the two main rivers in Hunan. Therefore, this ancient poem by Dai started from the two rivers.
"Yuan Xiang keeps flowing, why does Qu Zi complain?" . Dai uses the river to describe grief, and uses the endless river to describe grief and resentment. Rivers are objective things, and resentment is subjective emotion, which seems irrelevant. It seems unreasonable to link them together, but it is a literary truth, unreasonable and wonderful. Beauty lies in sentimentality. In the case of strong emotional impulse, people's feelings and perceptions tend to be strongly subjective. The first two poems not only vividly express the poet's deep memory of Qu Yuan, but also implicitly praise Qu Yuan's immortal spirit and eternal soul.
"Autumn wind rises at dusk, rustling maple trees". Literally, it can be translated as: the sun sets, the autumn wind rises, and the maple leaves whisper. As long as readers know a little about Qu Yuan's life, it is not difficult to see Dai's inner sadness and endless sense of the past and the present, which is the deepening of Qu Yuan's grief. Sunset and autumn wind, these two specific times and scenery are easy to make people sad, and Fenglin is more related to the dead.
This poem has the characteristics of short words and long feelings, shallow feelings and far feelings, and expresses abstract ideas in vivid language. As this poem says, Qu Yuan's spirit is immortal; It is Qu Yuan's great personality that makes future generations solemnly write down in the history books that "although there are three Chu, Qin will die". It is also Qu Yuan's great personality that inspires talented people in this land to come forth in large numbers, making "Only Chu Youcai" a legendary story. By extension, Qu Yuan's personality and works have become one of the powerful spiritual pillars of the Chinese nation.