Liangzhou Ci Wang Zhihuan
Far above the Yellow River among the white clouds, there is an isolated city on Wanren Mountain.
Why should the Qiang flute blame the willows? The spring breeze does not pass through Yumen Pass.
The first sentence of the poem captures the special feeling of looking at the Yellow River from bottom (stream) up (stream), from near to far, and depicts a moving picture of "the Yellow River is far up among the white clouds": surging waves. The Yellow River is like a ribbon flying up into the clouds. The writing is really a spiritual leap and a broad atmosphere. Another famous line of the poet, "The Yellow River flows into the sea", has the opposite angle of observation, which is watching from top to bottom; while Li Bai's "The water of the Yellow River comes up from the sky" also writes about watching the upstream, but the movement of the line of sight is from the top to the bottom. Far and near are different from this sentence. "The Yellow River flows into the sea" and "The water of the Yellow River comes up from the sky" are both intended to exaggerate the majesty of the Yellow River flowing thousands of miles, and express the dynamic beauty. The "Yellow River is far above the white clouds" is in the opposite direction to the flow of the river. It is intended to highlight its long-standing and leisurely manner and express a kind of static beauty. At the same time, it shows the vast and magnificent scenery of the border area, which is worthy of being an eternal poem.
The second sentence "an isolated city in Wanren Mountain" shows the isolated city on the fortress. This is one of the main images of this poem and belongs to the main part of the "picture scroll". "The Yellow River is far above the white clouds" is its distant background, and "Wanren Mountain" is its close background. Against the background of the mountains in the distance, we can see that the city is in a dangerous terrain and is in a lonely situation. "One piece" is a commonly used word in Tang poetry, and is often connected with "lone" (such as "one piece of solitary sail", "one piece of solitary cloud", etc.), which is equivalent to "one piece", but has an extra layer of "thinness" in terms of wording. the meaning of. Such an isolated city in Mobei is of course not a residential area, but a fortress on the border. At the same time, it hints to readers that there is a concubine in the poem. As a vocabulary in classical poetry, "lone city" has a specific meaning. It is often associated with the melancholy of separation, such as "The sun sets over the isolated city of Kui Mansion, and every time I lean on the Big Dipper to look at Beijing" (Du Fu's "Autumn Rise"), "I know the Han envoy Xiao Guan is outside Xiaoguan from afar, and I am worried about seeing the sun setting over the isolated city" (Wang Wei's "Qiu Xing") Send Wei Pingshi") and so on. In the second sentence, the image of "lonely city" is introduced first, which prepares the next two sentences for further characterization of Zheng's husband's psychology.
The poem starts from describing the majestic desolation of the mountains and rivers, and expresses the lonely and precarious situation of the defenders. The third sentence suddenly changes and introduces the sound of Qiang flute. The tune played by the Qiang flute was "Breaking Willows", which could not help but evoke Zheng's husband's sorrow of separation. This sentence is based on the poetic meaning of Yuefu's "Horizontal Blowing Song and Song of Folding Willows": "Mounting on horseback, not catching the whip, but bending the willow branches. Playing the flute while sitting on the seat, worried about killing the travelers." The custom of breaking willows to give farewells was most popular during the Tang Dynasty. "Willow" has a more direct relationship with farewell. Therefore, not only will people see the willows, it will cause them to mourn, but even hearing the flute music "Breaking the Willows" will trigger the hatred of separation. The sentence "Qiang Di" does not say "hear the willow tree" but says "resent the willow tree", which is a particularly wonderful phrase. This avoids directly using the name of the tune, turning it into a living thing, and can trigger more associations and deepen the poetic meaning. Outside the Yumen Pass, the spring breeze is not blowing and the willows are not green. People who are leaving cannot break a willow to express their feelings. This is more embarrassing than breaking a willow to say goodbye. Zhengren listened to the music with this mood, and it seemed that the flute was also "resenting the willow". The resentment revealed was strong, and it was expressed euphemistically with "why complain", which was deep, implicit and thought-provoking. This third sentence uses a question to convey such a rich poetic flavor, and the last sentence "The spring breeze does not pass through Yumen Pass" is a natural fit. The use of the phrase "Yumenguan" in poetry is also related to the conquest of people's thoughts. "Book of the Later Han·Ban Chao Biography" says: "I dare not see Jiuquan County, but I hope to be born in Yumen Pass." Therefore, the last sentence is written in the bitter cold of the surrounding area, implying infinite nostalgia and separation. If you compare this "Liangzhou Ci" with some frontier fortress poems after the mid-Tang Dynasty (such as Zhang Qiao's "Old Soldiers of Hehuang"), you will find that although this poem expresses the resentment of those on the border who are not allowed to return home. , but the writing is tragic and desolate, without a decadent and decadent mood, showing the broad mind of the poets in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Even if he writes about tragic resentment, he is also sad and strong, sad and generous. The words "Why complain" not only show the euphemism of his artistic technique, but also show that when the border guards at that time were homesick, they also realized the great responsibility of defending the country and guarding the borders, so they could forgive themselves in this way. Perhaps it is precisely because "Liangzhou Ci" has a sad yet strong mood that it can become a typical representative of "Tangyin".