The Yueyang Tower describes the sunny scene with the joy of birds and the leaping of fish: gulls gather together and scales swim; the orchids on the shore are lush and green.
"The Story of Yueyang Tower" was written by Fan Zhongyan, a writer of the Northern Song Dynasty, at the request of his friend Teng Zijing, the governor of Baling County, on September 15, the sixth year of Qingli in the Northern Song Dynasty (1046), to rebuild the Yueyang Tower. Among them, the poems "Be worried about the worries of the world first, and be happy after the joys of the world" and "Don't be happy with things, don't be sad with yourself" are the more famous and frequently quoted sentences.
The article sets off Yueyang Tower through a side description of Dongting Lake. Teng Zijing was demoted after being falsely accused of using official money without authorization. Fan Zhongyan took advantage of this opportunity to implicitly advise him to "not be happy with things, not to be sad with oneself", trying to use his own "worry about the world first, and then worry about it". His sentiments of helping the world and his optimistic spirit have infected old friends.
This is the purpose of this article, and it also determines the style of combining narrative and discussion. "The Story of Yueyang Tower" goes beyond the narrow scope of simply writing about landscapes and towers, and combines the dark and bright changes in nature, the wind and rain, and the "emotion of viewing things" of "immigrant poets", thus placing the focus of the full text on discussion. In terms of political ideals, it expands the realm of the article.
In the spring of the fourth year of Qingli, Teng Zijing was relegated (zhé) to guard Baling County. In the next year, the government will be harmonious and people will be harmonious, and everything will be prosperous. Then the Yueyang Tower was rebuilt, its old structure was added, and poems by Tang Xian and modern people were engraved on it. Belong to (zhǔ) and give (yú) a composition to record it.