"The breeze knows my will, and the bright moon shines on my heart" comes from Li Bai's "Qing Ping Tiao·Part 1".
"Qingping Diao·Part 1"
Tang Dynasty: Li Bai
The clouds think of clothes, the flowers think of face, the spring breeze blows on the threshold and the dew is rich.
If we hadn’t met at the top of the jade mountain, we would have met under the moonlight at Yaotai.
Translation:
When I see clouds, I think of her gorgeous clothes; when I see flowers, I think of her gorgeous appearance; when the spring breeze blows on the railings, the dewdrops moisten the flowers and make them more colorful.
With such a natural beauty, it is either the fluttering fairies seen on the top of the jade mountains, or the goddesses under the moonlight in front of the Yaotai Hall.
Notes:
Qingping tune: a kind of song tune. "Ping tune, Qing tune, Se tune" are all the relics of Zhou Fang.
The sentence "Thinking about clouds": When I see the splendor of clouds, I think of the gorgeous clothes; when I see the beauty of flowers, I think of the beauty of a beautiful woman. In fact, clouds are used as metaphors for clothes and flowers are used as metaphors for people.
Sill: Railing; Revlon: The peony flowers are even more colorful with the crystal dewdrops.
"If it weren't for...": It means "either...or...".
Qunyu: The name of the mountain, the legendary place where the Queen Mother of the West lived. The whole sentence describes the imperial concubine as being astonishingly beautiful. It is suspected that she is either the fluttering fairy seen on the top of the jade mountain, or the goddess under the moonlight in front of the Yaotai Palace.
Creative background:
According to records from the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, there are three poems in this group. One day in the spring of 743 AD (the second year of Tianbao by Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty) or 744 AD (the third year of Tianbao), Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty and Concubine Yang were watching the peonies in the Chenxiang Pavilion in the palace. Li Bai entered the palace under the imperial edict and wrote these three poems on golden flower paper. This poem is one of them.
Appreciation:
This poem is cleverly imagined and easy to read without any trace of artificiality. The language in the poem is rich and colorful, and the words are flowing. When reading this poem, one feels like the spring breeze fills the paper, the eyes are filled with flowers, and the human face is blurred. There is no need to describe it. Naturally, people feel that this is a peony, a beauty and a jade color, and not anything else. .
The first song uses peonies to compare with the beauty of the imperial concubine. The first sentence uses clouds to compare clothes and flowers to appearance; the second sentence uses flowers to be moistened by the spring breeze, just like a concubine receiving the favor of a king; the third sentence uses fairies to compare to noble concubines; the fourth sentence uses Chang'e to compare to noble concubines. This repeated comparison creates an image of a beautiful woman as gorgeous as a peony. However, the poet used clouds, flowers, dew, jade mountains, Yaotai, moonlight, all light-colored words to praise the plump appearance of the imperial concubine without revealing any trace.
In art, this poem mainly uses a variety of rhetorical techniques.
First, use the rhetorical technique of metaphor. For example, the sentence "Clouds think of clothes and flowers think of appearance" uses metaphorical rhetoric to describe the beauty of Concubine Yang's appearance and clothes, and to show Concubine Yang's wealth and dignity.
Secondly, it uses personification and exaggerated rhetorical techniques. For example, the sentence "The spring breeze blows the threshold and reveals Revlon" describes Yang Guifei's beautiful appearance and noble status through personification and exaggerated rhetoric.
About the author:
Li Bai (701-762), also known as Taibai and Qinglian Jushi, was a romantic poet of the Tang Dynasty and was hailed as the "Immortal of Poetry" by later generations. His ancestral home is Longxi Chengji (to be tested). He was born in Suiye City in the Western Regions. He moved to Mianzhou, Jiannan Road with his father when he was 4 years old. Li Bai has more than a thousand poems and essays in existence, and the "Collection of Li Taibai" has been handed down to the world. He died of illness in 762 at the age of 61. His tomb is in Dangtu, Anhui today, and there are memorial halls in Jiangyou, Sichuan, and Anlu, Hubei.