Climb to the ancient city of Luoyang
Xu Hun
The grains and millet are separated from half of the wild wormwood,
How could the people of the past work in this city?
The sound of water goes to the east and the city changes,
The mountains rise to the north and the palace is high.
The crows make noise and dusk clouds return to the ancient battlements,
The wild geese are confused by the cold rain and fall into the empty ditch.
Poor Fairy Gouling Deng,
She is still drunk with peach while playing her sheng.
Appreciation of Xu Hun’s Poems
Luoyang is a famous ancient city where the Eastern Han, Cao Wei, Western Jin and Northern Wei were the capitals. During the reign of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, a new city was built eighteen miles west of the old city. During the reign of Emperor Wu Zetian, it was expanded and became the eastern capital of the Tang Dynasty, while the old city was abandoned. Xu Hun's poem is a tribute to his old city.
When we came to see it off, a desolate and declining scene appeared before our eyes: rows of grains and wormwood were everywhere, and the old city style was no longer visible. "The millet is separated" is derived from the sentence "the millet is separated" at the beginning of the "Book of Songs: Millet Li". According to traditional interpretation, the original poem describes the overthrow of the old capital after the Zhou royal family moved eastward, so as to express the thoughts of the decline of the country. The use here also implies the memory of the rise and fall of past dynasties.
From the decline of the city, the poet turned to the scene when it was built. The "city" in "城this" is used as a verb here, meaning to build a city. The word "knowledge" in "How can one not know how hard one works" here means to be in charge. The people have worked tirelessly and built this city with their own hands for generations. Wouldn't it be a pity to let it be abandoned and ruined?
The poet's associative activities then expanded to a broader aspect. "The sound of water going east" is both a real scene (so Luo City is close to the north bank of Luoshui River) and a pun. "The Analects of Confucius" records that Confucius once passed by the river, looked at the surging river and sighed: "The dead are like this, and they don't give up day and night!" The poet also expressed the passage of time and the world from the Luoshui flowing eastward under his feet. A sense of vicissitudes of life: the bustling markets, prosperous court meetings, bustling crowds, and many joys and sorrows of the past all changed and appeared in the noisy sound of water, and finally disappeared. Thinking of all this, it really makes people's thoughts surge and ups and downs!
If the "sound of water" is a moving scene, the "mountain shape" is a still scene. The combination of movement and stillness is secretly connected with the sense of vicissitudes of life. There is Mang Mountain in the north of Luoyang City. One is Mang Mountain, which stretches for more than 400 miles. It has become a natural barrier for the ancient capital. From a high position, one can overlook the whole city. Liang Hong of the Eastern Han Dynasty's "Five Ao Songs" said: "The northern awning is coming, oh! Looking at the emperor's capital, the palace is coming, oh! The people's hard work is coming, oh! Liao Liao is not yet central, the city is coming, oh!" Although it is no longer as prosperous as it once was, the remaining palaces still stand tall, as if to bear witness to history. With the still life as a backdrop, the rapid changes in people and events can be felt particularly strongly. On the surface, this couplet appears to describe a scene, but in fact it summarizes the tremendous changes in social history for thousands of years. It contains the poet's infinite sadness and has always been recited by people.
The third couplet returns from Mercedes-Benz’s imagination to reality, further lighting up the atmosphere with the scenery in front of us. Dusk clouds, cold rain, ancient battlements (low walls on the city), and empty trenches combine to form a desolate picture. In the silence, a few crows and a few shadows of geese add to the bleak atmosphere.
At the end of the story, we extrapolate from the impermanence of worldly affairs to the eternal existence of gods. Feng (gu Gou) Ridge, namely Fengshi Mountain, is located southeast of Yanshi, Henan Province, about a hundred miles away from Luoyang. Legend has it that the prince of King Ling of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty attained immortality and ascended to heaven on a crane on the top of Fengshi Mountain. Later generations are troubled, but who can be as carefree and detached from the world as Wang Zijin? The poet cannot resolve this contradiction and can only end the whole poem with a sigh.
Xu Hun lived in the late Tang Dynasty when the Tang Dynasty was in decline. He traced the old ruins of mountains and rivers, admired the ups and downs of the past and present, and sighed deeply, which contained a layer of sadness about the disillusionment of reality. This poem has a desolate beginning, a broad ending, neat parallels, and flexible syntax. It is also called a masterpiece among his nostalgic poems. It's a pity that the second half is relatively thin. Although the neck couplet is carefully crafted, it fails to bring out new ideas and lacks the potential to turn waves. The ending falls into a cliché.