Tang Libai
Rizhao incense burner produces purple smoke,
Looking at the waterfall hanging in front of Sichuan.
Flying down from 3,000 feet,
It's been nine days since I suspected that the Milky Way had set.
[Introduction to the author]
Li Bai (70 1-762) is a representative writer in the poetry circle in the prosperous Tang Dynasty and a great romantic poet after Qu Yuan in the literary history of China. He is brilliant and passionate, and his poems are praised by Du Fu as "poems that shock the wind and rain and make the gods cry". He is called a poet.
Li Bai, whose word is Taibai, was born in Ji Cheng, Longxi (near Tianshui, Gansu), and was born in Broken Leaves, Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan). At the age of five, he followed his father to Qinglian Township, Zhangming County, Sichuan Province. When I was a teenager, I read widely and learned fencing. At the age of 26, I went out to Shu and began a period of wandering for an official position. His ambition to serve the country was not shown, and his bohemian character towards the powerful was destroyed by the powerful. Li Bai left Chang 'an after being disappointed with his career. I have been wandering north and south 10 for many years, during which I met Du Fu and became girlfriends. In 755, the Anshi Rebellion broke out, and Li Bo was unjustly imprisoned and later pardoned and returned to China. Wandering in a foreign land in his later years, he died in Dangtu (now Anhui Province) in 762.
There are more than 900 poems by Li Bai, which are rich in content. Some criticize the dark reality, some sympathize with the people's sufferings, some express their ambition to serve the country, some express their own pain and resentment, and some lament the natural scenery. The high spirit of pursuing physical and mental freedom and personality liberation is the main theme of his poems.
In art, Li Bai inherited and carried forward the romantic spirit and creative techniques, and applied myths and legends, galloping imagination, bold exaggeration and image metaphor to perfection and ease. Li Bai's own two poems are the most vivid descriptions and generalizations of his poetic language.
[Notes]
Lushan Mountain: Located in the south of Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province, it is a famous scenic spot in China.
Incense burner: that is, incense burner peak, in the northwest of Lushan Mountain, it is named because it looks like incense burner and the mountain is often covered with clouds.
Purple smoke: Under the sunlight, the clouds are purple. Near the waterfall, the misty water vapor appears purple through the sunlight, so it is called "purple smoke".
Hanging Qianchuan: Hanging on the water in front.
Doubt: Doubt.
Galaxy: a white cloud-like band of light around the sky seen on a clear night, consisting of a large number of stars.
Nine days: the sky is extremely high. The ancients thought that the sky had nine weights, and the highest level was called nine days.
[Poetry translation, poetry]
When the sun shines on the incense burner peak, a faint purple smoke rises.
Looking from a distance, a waterfall hangs in front of the mountain.
There are 3,000-foot waterfalls flowing rapidly.
It is doubtful that the bank collapsed in nine days.
The sun shone on the incense burner peak, raising a purple mist. From a distance, the charming waterfall hangs in front of you like a wall. This wonderful landscape flying high above thousands of feet, in a trance, I suspect that it is from the Milky Way in the cloud nine.
[Writing background]
In the fifteenth year of Tianbao, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty adopted the suggestion of Fang Mo, the new prime minister, and handed down the imperial edict of "controlling the family", dividing his four sons into four directions, which led to the rebels entering the camp. Unexpectedly, before this imperial decree, Prince Hengli ascended the throne in Lingwu (now Lingwu County, Ningxia), changed the country name to the first year of Zhide, and honored Xuanzong as the emperor's father. Xuanzong learned that although he was unhappy, he was old. Secondly, considering that he caused a rebellion on the throne, he felt guilty and did not pursue the fait accompli. However, Wang Yong Kun Li, in his golden age, was powerful and ambitious. He was dissatisfied with Hengli's unauthorized claim to the king, so he was not ordered to go to Shu. Instead, he moved to Jiangxia and continued to expand his army and recruit talents to compete with Su Heng. So Li Bai was unfortunately tricked into his shogunate, then arrested and imprisoned, and finally exiled to Yelang. This is another story. At this time, Li Bai wanted to visit his brother in Zhang Yu because of his wife's longing for his brother, so he left Xuancheng and came to Lushan Mountain, which is close to Zhang Yu. Lushan Mountain is a famous mountain in the world with unparalleled scenery. Li Bai kept for nine days and loved for nine days. He wrote many poems to praise the beautiful scenery of Lushan Mountain. Look at Lushan Waterfall, which is the most representative one.
[Appreciation]
Li Bai has traveled many famous mountains and rivers in his life, and he loves the scenery of Lushan Mountain very much. It can be seen from his poems such as "Passing away from the World" (one of the waterfalls looking at Lushan Mountain) that he had the idea of retiring from Lushan Mountain in his later years. This poem may be the work of his later years. "Looking at Lushan Waterfall" has two songs, the first one is a five-character ancient style, and the second one is here, which is a seven-character quatrain.
This is a poem about scenery. The poet looked at the scenery from a distance under the incense burner peak of Lushan Mountain. He first looked from the incense burner peak above, "Rizhao incense burner gives birth to purple smoke", the sun shines on the incense burner peak, and purple smoke rises in the incense burner. Smoke is generally grayish white. Why is the smoke here purple? Because there is a waterfall under the incense burner peak, water vapor transpiration, mixed with cloud gas, penetrates the sunlight and reflects purple. From a distance, purple smoke clouds hover around the peak shaped like incense burners. How beautiful the scenery is! Smoke from incense burner is a common thing, and poets use it to describe the wonderful landscape of incense burner peak.
Then look down at Xianglu Peak Waterfall. "Looking at the waterfall before the river", from a distance, a waterfall hangs on the water in front. The most vivid thing here is the word "hang". The waterfall was originally water that suddenly poured down from the mountain wall. From a distance, it looked like a cloth hanging, so it was called a waterfall. The author uses the word "hang" to describe it from top to bottom, which is very vivid. There is a poem "Hanging 300 feet" in the poem "Looking at Lushan Waterfall", which also uses "hanging" to describe Xianglufeng Waterfall.
The third and fourth sentences further describe the waterfall, "flying straight down", which describes the rapid situation of the waterfall rushing straight down from the high mountain wall. "Three thousands of feet" is an exaggerated figure, which, like the above-mentioned "hanging 300 feet", exaggerates the momentum of the waterfall flying down from the extremely high place of the steep mountain wall. The last sentence "Suspected that the Milky Way has fallen for nine days" means that people suspect that the Milky Way has fallen from the extremely high sky. The Milky Way is a silvery white band of light that surrounds the sky on a clear night. It is both spectacular and full of mysterious beauty. This is a natural astronomical wonder. Using the Milky Way to compare waterfalls shows the magnificent wonders of waterfalls, which is really ingenious. When the poet uses this metaphor, he doesn't use the word "like" or "like", but uses the word "doubt" to deliberately say whether it is true or not, emphasizing the realistic degree of similarity between the two.
This poem uses rich imagination, metaphor and exaggeration to show the unique charm of Lushan Waterfall, and also embodies the spirit of the great poet Li Bai.
[The Cause of the Galaxy Waterfalls on the Earth]
"Rizhao incense burner gives birth to purple smoke, and the waterfall hangs thousands of rivers. Flying down three thousands of feet, it is suspected that the Milky Way has fallen for nine days. " This is a poem by Li Bai describing Lushan Waterfall. Waterfalls are magnificent natural scenery in people's eyes, and their surging momentum makes the landscape of the motherland more magnificent and vivid. In China, there are many waterfalls, not only Lushan, Yandang, Huangshan and Moganshan ... There are waterfalls in many famous mountains. There are more and bigger waterfalls on the river, such as Huangguoshu Waterfall on Baishui River in Guizhou, Hukou Waterfall on the Yellow River and Pinshuilou Waterfall on Jingbo Lake in Mudanjiang, all of which are magnificent and magnificent waterfalls.
Why are there waterfalls? That's because the terrain here suddenly drops and the height varies greatly. When the water flows out from here, it suddenly falls to form a waterfall.
There are many places where the terrain changes greatly, and the conditions with water flow may not be met. Rivers often have water, so there are many waterfalls on rivers and where the riverbed changes greatly.
On a river, the rocks at the bottom of the river are different everywhere, some are soft and some are hard. Soft is easy to be destroyed and the terrain becomes low; Hard damage is slower and appears higher. At the junction of soft and hard rocks, the terrain is quite different, and waterfalls will appear. Some tributaries of rivers flow into the mainstream, because the mainstream rivers are very destructive, scouring the riverbed deeply and the tributaries are very shallow, so waterfalls can also be formed here. If it is a glacier instead of running water, it can scrape out valleys with different depths, providing conditions for the formation of waterfalls, which mainly appear in high mountains.
Other factors will also change the terrain. For example, if the river bottom breaks, one side of the earth's crust sinks and the other side rises, of course, it will form a waterfall; In addition, when rivers are blocked by lava from volcanoes, sand falling from landslides and sediments from glaciers, lakes are formed, and because of the high water in lakes, when they flow into rivers from lakes, they often form waterfalls; The lake on the mountain sent water to the foot of the mountain, and naturally it plummeted. There is a waterfall about 60 meters high at the Tianchi exit at the top of Baitou Mountain. Groundwater flowing from caves in the mountains can also fall badly, forming hanging galaxies.
Waterfalls are formed for many reasons. The appearance of waterfalls clearly shows that the earth's crust is constantly changing.
After the waterfall appeared, it was not forever. Where the water falls, the water power is the most severe, and the damage to the earth's crust is particularly severe. The steep cliff where the waterfall falls keeps collapsing and retreating in the opposite direction of the current. Finally, the part above the river bottom does not protrude, and the waterfall will gradually disappear. As early as 100 years ago, British geologist Ryle discovered that the famous Niagara Falls had retreated1.2 km in the last 35,000 years.
The intensity of a waterfall is related to its water volume and drop. The so-called gap is also its height. The greater the amount of water and the drop, the greater the power of the waterfall falling.
Faced with such a magnificent waterfall, poets and painters often have to recite poems and paint for it. However, in the old society, due to the limitations of the times, even if Li Bai was unrestrained, he could only sigh in front of this masterpiece of nature, and even had the idea of "May he die forever".
In the eyes of working people, waterfalls are no longer just for viewing, but more importantly, they are a great force that can be tamed. Great waterfalls can generate electricity, and small waterfalls can also push machines to grind rice and flour, which can save a lot of labor. In ancient China, although those natural waterfalls have not been utilized, people began to build dams and weir water to drive millstones, stone tablets and blowers more than 65,438+0,000 years ago. Now, on the one hand, we use natural waterfalls, on the other hand, we build many dams on the river on a large scale to raise the water level of the river and form artificial waterfalls, big or small, to serve us. For example, in Liujiaxia Water Control Project, the dam is as high as147m, which is more than 8 times higher than Hukou Waterfall, the largest natural waterfall on the Yellow River. In the future, even larger artificial waterfalls will appear on the Yangtze River, dwarfing the world-famous waterfalls. The people's glorious and heroic labor is writing poems that have never been seen in history.