Xiju
Liutang Zongyuan
I have been troubled by official hats and robes for a long time, so I am glad to be an exile in this barbaric south. I am now a neighbor of growers and harvesters, and I am a guest of the mountain forest.
I plow in the morning, turn over the grass with dew, and tie a fishing boat at night to break the quiet stream. I walked back and forth, hardly meeting anyone, singing long poems and staring at the blue sky.
To annotate ...
(1) Chai Group: the costumes of ancient officials, referring to official positions. Bind: bind, bind. Nanyi: the ancient name of southern minorities. Be demoted or transferred to remote areas. At that time, the author was demoted to Yongzhou Sima.
2 night flight list: night flight. List: Read "Yin Peng" here, which means to enter the ship. This sentence refers to the sound that the ship makes when it comes home and meets a flowing stone in the dark.
③ Chutian: Yongzhou originally belonged to Chu.
4 bundles: binding.
⑤ Nanyi: This refers to Yongzhou.
(1): demotion and exile.
7 Farmland: rural areas.
8 Even numbers: Sometimes it seems.
Pet-name ruby mountain traveler: hermit in the mountain.
Attendance list: boating.
⑾ Flowing stone sound: the sound of flowing stone excited by water.
⑿ Long song: Play a song.
translate
Tired of official duties for a long time, fortunately, he was relegated to the southern minority areas. When I have nothing to do, I am next to the farmer's vegetable garden, sometimes like a hermit in the mountains. In the morning, I plow and turn weeds with dew. In the evening, when I came back from rowing, the boat hit a boulder and made a noise. Lonely, I can't contact other people. I look at the green Chutian and sing loudly.
Appreciate:
This poem was written by Liu Zongyuan when he demoted Yongzhou as an official and lived in Yuxi. On the surface, the poem is about the ease and self-adaptation of this life, but in fact it is about joy and sadness, and it is obscure.
The poet should be full of grievances when he was demoted to Yongzhou, but at the beginning of the poem, he called it a blessing: "I haven't seen you for a long time, and I am very happy to be an exile here in this wild south China." The poet thinks that he has been an official in the DPRK for a long time, but fortunately, being relegated to this desolate land in the south can make him live a leisurely life. These two sentences are ironic. They describe the unfortunate events as blessings and express their dissatisfaction with the establishment in the DPRK.
"I am now a neighbor of the planter and the reaper. I am a guest of the mountain forest. I plow the fields in the morning, turn over the grass with dew, tie a fishing boat at night and break the quiet stream. "These four sentences emphasize the leisurely feeling of living here. In my spare time, I live next to the old farmer who grows vegetables, and sometimes I really feel like a hermit in the mountains. Take dewdrops to weed in the morning and go downstream by boat at night. "Idle dependence" shows the author's idle state, while "even likeness" pretends to be open-minded and comforts himself. Liu Zongyuan had few talents and great ambitions, but his official career was not smooth and he was repeatedly relegated. This time he was demoted to Yongzhou, far away from Chang 'an. His enthusiasm can't be put into use, his ambition can't be stretched, and his talent can't be reused. Therefore, in this demoted place, I will write about happiness, pretend to be carefree, say that I am glad to be demoted, and pretend to like this comfortable life.
"Go back and forth, I hardly meet anyone, but sing a long poem and stare at the blue sky". Sometimes I am alone all day, and I can't touch a pedestrian, so he sings loudly. His voice echoes in the blue sky of the valley for a long time. How clear and empty it is. This leisurely and chic life makes the poet seem obsessed with his own misfortune, broad-minded and cheerful. The poets here seem to be free and unrestrained, but they are too lonely after all. These two sentences just reveal that the poet's attempt to relax himself and entertain himself when no one cares about him is just a kind of helpless ridicule.
Throughout the poem, the poet seems to have forgotten the pain of being demoted. In poetry, the misfortune of being demoted is called luck, and the lonely and calm life is interpreted as an elegant and leisurely life. In fact, this is all an irony of the poet's anger. Behind this beautified exile life is the poet's deep depression and resentment. The anger contained in the plain surface is even more exciting. As Shen Deqian said in the Qing Dynasty: "Yuxi's poems are in a difficult situation, with clear and indifferent voices, complaints and no complaints, between the lines, and sometimes encounter." This is a very pertinent evaluation.
About the author:
Liu Zongyuan (773-8 19), with thick words, was a famous writer and thinker in the Tang Dynasty. Liu, a native of Hedong (now Ruicheng, Yuncheng, Shanxi), was born in an official family, with few talents and high aspirations. In his early years, he was a scholar in the exam, and his writings were mainly flowery rhetoric. One of the eight masters in Tang and Song Dynasties, Han Yu and he jointly advocated the ancient prose movement in Tang Dynasty and called it Liu Han. Liu Yuxi also called it "Liu Liu". Wang Wei, Meng Haoran and Wei also called it "Wang Meng". Liu Zongyuan left more than 600 poems and works in his life, and his philosophy is characterized by simple materialism. His political thoughts are mainly manifested in his social historical view of attaching importance to "potential" and Confucian people-oriented thought. His literary works are simple and natural in language and elegant and meaningful in style. His representative works include Qian Donkey, Snake Catcher, Eight Stories of Yongzhou, Jiang Xue and so on.