Tang Dynasty: Wang Wei
You have just come from our hometown, and we must understand the world.
Did the plum blossom when you came to the engraved window of my house?
Translation of Three Miscellaneous Poems (Ⅱ)
You have just come from our hometown, so you must know the way of the world in your hometown.
Did Chimonanthus praecox bloom in front of my carved window when you came?
Notes on three miscellaneous poems II
Tomorrow: When I come.
Qǐ window: a window with carved patterns.
Have you blossomed? Have you blossomed? Zhuó flowers are in full bloom. Not, used at the end of the sentence, is equivalent to "no" and expresses doubt.
The Creation Background of Three Miscellaneous Poems (Ⅱ)
After the Anshi Rebellion, the poet lived in seclusion in Jin Meng for many years. Living in a foreign land for a long time, suddenly meeting an old friend in a foreign land aroused the author's strong homesickness, so he wrote this poem to express his strong homesickness.
Appreciation of Three Miscellaneous Poems (Ⅱ)
The lyric hero in the poem ("I", not necessarily the author) is a person who has lived in a foreign land for a long time. Suddenly, he met an old friend from his hometown. The first thing that aroused him was a strong homesickness, eager to know the scenery and personnel of his hometown.
The first two sentences vividly express this feeling of "I" in a form close to the natural state of life without modification. The word "hometown" appears repeatedly, which shows homesickness; "should know" shows a desire to know the feelings of the countryside and reveals a kind of innocence and kindness. Simply describing my feelings, psychology, demeanor and tone in a specific situation is actually a very frugal pen and ink.
There are a long list of questions about "things in my hometown". In the early Tang Dynasty, Wang Ji wrote an article "Seeing the Villagers in the Hometown of Meditation", from the old son of a friend, the nephew of a clan brother, the new trees in the old garden, the width of Mao Zhai and the density of willows to the flowers in the garden, which has not been completed so far. But the "I" in this poem put aside these things and asked alone: When you passed my silk window, did the plum blossom bloom the first cold flower? ? It seems that my hometown is very memorable, just in front of the window. This is very unnatural. But this is not a pose.
A person's nostalgia for his hometown is always associated with people, events and things closely related to his previous life. The so-called "homesickness" is completely a kind of "thinking in images", and all the people who are homesick come up with concrete images or pictures. Old friends in my hometown, mountains and rivers, customs and customs are all worth remembering. However, it is often some seemingly ordinary trivial events, which cause cordial nostalgia, such as Han Mei at this window. It may contain intimate and interesting events in family life in those days. Therefore, this cold plum is no longer an ordinary natural thing, but a symbol of hometown. It's poetic and typical. So this cold plum naturally became the concentrated sustenance of my homesickness. In this sense, asking "the first cold flower that blooms it" is completely in line with the logic of life. One person.
There are often such unpretentious and poetic works in ancient poetry. It seems so simple that it doesn't need any skills, but it actually contains the most advanced skills. A poem like Han Mei, through special embodiment, is a typical skill, but this skill embodies a plain and homely form. This is the so-called combination of cleverness and simplicity. Wang Ji's poem "Ask a Villager who Meditates His Hometown" may be simpler than this poem, but its series of questions are far less artistic than Wang Wei's. Isn't news worth pondering?
Appreciation of Three Miscellaneous Poems (Ⅱ)
This poem is written in the first person, and interrogative sentences are used throughout. The four sentences are all words that the wanderer asked about his hometown people. A wanderer who has been away from home for a long time is homesick. When I meet people in my hometown, I can't wait to get to know my family. He must care about many things, among which his wife is the most concerned. But he just didn't ask his wife directly, and he didn't ask other important things. He just asked if the cold plum in front of the window had opened, which seemed incredible. After careful consideration, this problem, as the predecessors said, is really "light and wonderful". There is a word "yee" in front of the window, so the person in the window must be a beautiful woman and wife who dreams of wandering. Huang Qing Shu Can commented on Tang poetry and said: "The word' window' is full of affection." Exquisite body odor and this slim "cold plum" are even more intriguing. Maybe it was planted by my beloved wife, or maybe I heard them swear by each other. In short, it is a witness or symbol of their love. So the wanderer has a deep impression and special feelings for it. He didn't directly say that he missed his hometown and loved ones, but expressed his concern that Han Mei didn't have such a small thing that touched his feelings. Instead, it expresses the nostalgia for my hometown and wife, and the nostalgia for the past, which is particularly subtle, strong and profound.
Wang Wei, who is proficient in five-character quatrains, is short in space and suitable for using the artistic characteristics of seeing the big from the small and seeing the big from the small, leaving only a little feeling, deleting all kinds of scenery images of his hometown as far as possible, leaving only the plum tree in front of the window. It is in this description of feelings and scenery that can no longer be purified that infinite feelings are revealed and endless reverie is triggered. Song Gule, a poet in A Qing, commented on this poem in Selected Poems of Tang Poetry: "Spreading my worries and homesickness with trivial suspense." That is to the point.
Mr. Luo Zongqiang compared Wang Wei's poem with Wang Ji's poem "Meditate on Seeing Hometown" when he discussed that poets in the prosperous Tang Dynasty were good at purifying feelings and realms. The themes of these two poems are very similar.
Wang Ji's poems are simple and natural, and his feelings are sincere and touching. But in the poem, he wrote about meeting people from his hometown and asking about his hometown. He asked a series of questions about sons and nephews, planting trees, building wool houses, planting bamboo, rafters, canals, stone moss, orchards and flowers. "He told me exactly what it felt like to see his hometown people want to know everything, without eliminating it or purifying it. So many of these problems are not as impressive as Wang Wei's. " Through this comparison, it is enough to show that "Wang Wei is a master who pursues the purification of feelings and scenery in the creation of artistic conception" (A Brief History of Tang Poetry by Luo Zongqiang).
A Brief Introduction to the Author of Three Miscellaneous Poems (Ⅱ)
Wang Wei (70 1 -76 1, 699-76 1), a native of Zhou Pu, Hedong (now Yuncheng, Shanxi), was a poet in the Tang Dynasty and was called "Shi Fo". Su Shi commented: "Poetry is full of paintings; Look at the picture, there are poems in the picture. " In the ninth year of Kaiyuan (72 1), he was a scholar and was appointed as Tai Lecheng. Wang Wei is a representative of poets in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Today, there are more than 400 poems, including Acacia and Autumn Night in the Deep Mountains. Wang Wei is proficient in Buddhism and is greatly influenced by Zen. Buddhism has a Vimalakīrti Jing, which is the origin of Wang Wei's name and ci. Wang Wei's poems, paintings and calligraphy are all famous, versatile and proficient in music. Together with Meng Haoran, they are called "Wang Meng".