I joined the army at the age of fifteen and returned home at the age of eighty.
Dao met a fellow villager:
"Who is there at home?"
"Looking from a distance, it is Jun's home.
There are many pine and cypress tombs. "
The rabbit enters from the dog's sinus,
The pheasant flies from the beam.
The atrium gave birth to the valley,
The well gave birth to the sunflower.
Pounding grain to make rice,
Gathering sunflowers to make soup.
The soup and rice are cooked for a while,
I don’t know who it is!
When I go out and look east,
tears fall and stain my clothes.
The above records include "Fifteenth Military Expedition", "Ancient and Modern Music Records", and "Original Poems", all of which are ancient poems. The twenty-fifth volume of Guo Maoqian's "Yuefu Poetry Collection" listed it among the "Lianggujiao Transverse Blowing Songs" and titled it "Song of the Purple Horse". Before the "Fifteenth Military Expedition", there are eight more lines including "Burn the fire and burn the wild fields". Here, we agree with the "Collection of Yuefu Poems" and regard this poem as Han Yuefu, and according to the current version, we retain its verses below "Fifteenth Conquest of the Army".
Notes
Ah: pronouncing words.
Tomb: high grave.
Lilei: It is related to "fortress" and describes the appearance of mounds and tombs connected one after another.
Dog sinus: a wall hole for dogs to enter and exit.
Lugu: Plants that are not sown are called "Lvsheng". The valley where travelers are born is called "Lv Valley".
Yi: Give it to you.
Soup: vegetable.
A brief analysis of "Fifteen Years of Military Expeditions"
Fifteen years of military expeditions, he did not return until he was eighty years old. When meeting a fellow villager, he asked, "Who is in your home?" "Looking from a distance, it's your home. There are many pine and cypress graves." Rabbits come in from the dog's sinuses, pheasants fly from the beams; valleys grow in the atrium, and sunflowers grow in the wells. The grain is pounded to make rice, and the sunflower is picked to make soup. The soup is cooked for a while, but I don't know who will eat it. When I went out and looked eastward, my clothes were stained with tears.
"Fifteen Years of Military Expedition" is a Han Dynasty Yuefu folk song that exposed the unreasonable military service system in feudal society. It reflected the injustice and pain of the working people under the dark military service system at that time. The work is true, profound, infuriating, and makes people cry.
"When I meet a fellow villager, I ask, 'Who is there at home?'" The protagonist's ideological context has changed from sixty-five years of war to the wilderness and long ancient roads. Thinking of the eager questions, eager to know but afraid of knowing, the readers' wings of reverie spread out by the first two lines of the poem also end in the protagonist's anxious questioning. Just as the protagonist's sixty-five-year war life is not described in detail, the work also omits descriptions of his exposure to the elements, his hurried travels, and his surprise encounters with fellow villagers. The question "who is there at home?" launches the story. The focus of the work - home. "When a young man leaves home and his elder brother returns home, his local pronunciation has not changed and his hair on his temples has faded." Sixty-five years have passed. How dare you expect that your family will be fine and your loved ones are still alive? It is a blessing to have one or two survivors. So he just asked, who else in the family is lucky enough to survive? However, the answer from the "countryside people" was like a basin of ice-cold water being poured down when standing in the ice and snow: "Looking from a distance, it is Jun's house, with numerous pine and cypress tombs." In these turbulent years, my dear and lovely Dear relatives, is there no one left alive? Full of hope, full of heartfelt feelings, sixty-five years of wind, frost, rain and snow, sixty-five years of accumulated feelings in my heart, who can I talk to and express to whom? Only the green pines and cypresses and the tombs? So, is this my home? No, no, impossible!
The reality before him is: "Rabbits enter from the dog's sinuses, pheasants fly from the beams; valleys grow in the atrium, and sunflowers grow in the wells." Seeing the near sight from a distance, his eyes are filled with even more desolate and miserable scenes. . The author did not say that the house was deserted, but caught a hare and saw people crawling into the livestock den to think that it was safe. The pheasant was frightened and fell on the beams in the house, thinking that it was safe. The author did not directly write that the garden was deserted and messy, but only ingested the scene. The two "shots" of sunflowers and grains growing randomly beside the well and in the atrium make the house empty and the garden desolate, which makes the image even more heartbreaking. You see, a dusty old man stands in front of a "home" that once had lively fires and neat gardens. He is alone and alone. He has been looking forward to the home for sixty-five years but has no relatives to welcome him. The home is more unexpected than he imagined. It's worse than ten times, a hundred times... What kind of situation is this, and what kind of emotional waves will it set off in the readers? The author did not directly express or exaggerate his feelings, but the work received a stronger lyrical effect than direct expression.
The old man, who is a little confused, a little confused, and a little sad, has become numb to the feeling of the desolate home just like he is indifferent to the "numerous pine and cypress graves". So, he silently pounded off the husks of the ripe millet and picked the tender leaves of the mallow. But when the rice was cooked and the soup was boiling, he suddenly remembered that he didn't know who to feed it to.
"When I went out and looked east, my clothes were stained with tears." He walked out of the dilapidated door and looked east. He might still have hope. Who did he see? What did you see? Maybe he saw a long-lost relative? Maybe nothing was seen. He came out of his fantasy in a daze, with tears streaming down his face. He can no longer cry like a young man, only the words that embody sixty-five years of hardship, sixty-five years of longing, sixty-five years of anticipation, sixty-five years of dust on the battlefield, and sixty-five years of human life. The old tears of vicissitudes of life fell on the dust-covered skirts.
The five words "tears stain my clothes" contain such rich, deep and painful emotional connotations! By the end of the poem, the emotional intensity of both the author and the reader has reached its peak.
The whole poem highlights the image of the old soldier who "served in the army at the age of 15 and returned home at the age of 80". It also focuses on portraying the image of "home" and only writes the word "village" in one stroke. The image of "people" is also very distinct. The weather-beaten, old and anxious old man, the unscrupulous and outspoken villagers, the home with decaying grass and ancient cypresses and barren graves, all together constitute a real and moving picture with a socially significant theme, which typically reflects the society of the Han Dynasty. A side of reality. In particular, the contrasting narration between the protagonist and his family pushes the theme and artistic level of the work to a new level: a man who has served in the military for sixty-five years is actually the only survivor of his family. For relatives who have not served in the military, the pine and cypress trees on their graves are already lush and lush. It is conceivable that their poor and miserable lives are not as good as the soldiers who may die every moment; the work is specifically about the protagonist who has been fighting for the country for sixty-five years but failed. The misfortune and misfortune of being unable to return home, and being homeless when he returned home. Compared with his misfortunes and those of his relatives who had no choice but to walk into silent, dark, and cold graves, he felt miserable. He is the "lucky one". In this way, the work not only exposes the darkness and evil of the feudal military service system, not only expresses the misfortune of an eighty-year-old man, but also reflects the darkness of the entire social reality at that time, expressing the misfortune and misfortune of the entire people that is deeper than individual misfortune. The decline of society and the turmoil of the times have sublimated the theme of the work. The whole poem is both concise and profound. The selection and tailoring of the content and the arrangement of the structure are all just right and original. It has well received the "meaning behind the words", the main idea is both spoken and unspoken, the artistic conception is profound, and the charm is long. artistic effect.
This is a narrative poem that depicts the scene of a veteran who "left home when he was young and returned home" when he returned home and what happened after he arrived home. It expresses the veteran's emotions and reflects the social reality at that time. , has a certain typical significance. The opening line is extraordinary: "You join the army at the age of fifteen and return home at the age of eighty." These two sentences bluntly say that the veteran joined the army at the age of "fifteen" and returned home at the age of "eighty". It seems ordinary, as if it was said inadvertently, It's solid but intriguing, and quite capable. He "joined the army at the age of fifteen" and where he went is not explained in the poem. What his military life was like and what the battle conditions were like are also not explained in the poem. This leaves a lot of room for the reader's imagination. But one thing is clear, that is, his "military conquest" was motivated by war, and he had been there for decades! The contrast between "eighty" and "fifteen" highlights the long period of his "military expedition"; the echo of "beginning to return" and "military expedition" indicate that he never came back midway. It can also be seen from this sentence: the age of the protagonist of this poem is 80 years old.
It is precisely because he joined the army in the 15th year and returned in the 80th year. During this period, he lost contact with his family for decades and knew nothing about the situation at home. The veteran was eager to know the situation at home, so , which naturally leads to the following - the conversation between the veteran and the villagers on his way back home. The old soldier, "meeting a fellow countryman," couldn't wait to ask: "Who is there at home?" The "townshipman" replied: "Looking from a distance, it is Jun's house, with numerous pine and cypress tombs." A poem by Song Zhiwen, a poet of the Tang Dynasty: " "I am even more timid when I'm close to my hometown, and I don't dare to ask the stranger" ("Crossing the Han River"), which reflects his ambivalence on the way back to his hometown after a long absence. The writing style of this poem is different, but he reaches the same destination by different routes. Song Zhiwen's poem expresses his urgent desire to understand the situation at home on his way back home, while this poem is straightforward. Both show the true emotions of people who have returned home after a long absence. The answer of the "countryside people" in this poem is very clever. It does not explicitly say who else is in the veteran's family, but just points to the numerous high graves covered with pines and cypresses in the distance and says: "That is your home." The implication is that The meaning is: "There is no one else in your family." In fact, the "countryside people" answered this way because they couldn't bear to tell the truth, fearing that the veteran would not be able to bear the pain of family ruin and death. Such ink is obviously used to describe sadness in a sad scene, which also echoes the following text.
What is the situation like at home among veterans? What is his mood like? The four sentences of "Rabbit Cong" follow the above description. What the veteran saw after arriving home was: rabbits came in and out of dog holes, pheasants flew around on the beams; "Lvgu" grew in the courtyard, and "Lvkui" grew on the well platform. "Rabbit" and "pheasant" (pheasant) are both animals, one is in "Gou Dou" (below) and the other is in "Liangshang" (above); "Lugu" and "Lukui" are both unplanted As for the plants that grow by themselves, one is in the "courtyard" (in the courtyard) and the other is in the "well" (on the well platform). What a sad scene these animals and plants in different directions create here! The direct cause of this scene is that there is no one at home among the veterans. And there is no one at home, so who caused it? The poem does not state this explicitly, which leaves room for the reader's imagination. These lines of poems still use sad scenes to describe sadness, and use desolate scenes to highlight the sadness in the hearts of veterans. What makes the veteran even more sad is that he used "Lvgu" to cook rice and "Lvkui" to make soup. It didn't take long to cook it, but he didn't know who to give the rice and soup to, that is, he had no relatives. Enjoyed it. This is exactly what the four sentences "Chong Gu" express. The veteran returns home alone, with no relatives at home, and in the end he is still alone. This not only echoes the above - the responses of the villagers and the scenes the veterans saw after returning home, but also continues to use sad scenes to describe grief.
The last two lines of the poem further express the sadness in the veteran's heart through the description of his movements. Here, the details of the veteran going out to look around ("Looking eastward") and the old man crying ("the tears fell on my clothes") are highlighted, vividly portraying the image of the unaccompanied and lonely veteran, and making him grief-stricken. The confusion is vividly expressed. Just imagine, he "served in the army at the age of fifteen and returned home at the age of eighty." He has no relatives at home and only has a desolate scene. How can he not feel sad about it? What will the future life be like? How could he not feel confused? Who caused his tragic experience? Although the poem does not say it explicitly, it is not difficult to see this as long as we relate to the background of the times when the poem was produced. According to Wu Jing's "Interpretations of Ancient Yuefu Inscriptions", this poem was composed into Yuefu during the Jin Dynasty, and it can be regarded as a work during the wars between the Han and Wei dynasties. It was the militaristic rulers and endless wars at that time that caused the veteran's tragic experience. Reflecting the tragic experience of the veteran also reflects the tragic experience of the common people under the heavy oppression of corvee at that time, and profoundly exposes the dark social reality at that time.
This poem is structured around the veteran's experience of returning home and his emotional changes, which is clever and natural. His experience of returning home is: first returning home→on the way home→returning home→"going out and looking eastward"; his emotional changes are: anxious to go home, anxious to know "who is at home?", full of hope of reunion with relatives ( On the way home)→Fruited hope→Completely disappointed (returning home, the scene is desolate and no one is there)→Sad and crying, feeling at a loss ("Go out and look eastward"). These are attributed to the theme of poetry that exposes the dark social reality. The whole poem uses line drawing techniques to describe scenes and people, with clear layers and simple language. It also uses sad scenes to describe sorrow, which is sincere and unique. It also embodies the artistic characteristics of the lyrical scene of Han Dynasty Yuefu.