The original text and translation of "Listening to the Flute in Shouxiang City at Night" are as follows:
Original text:
The sand in front of Huile Peak is like snow, and the moon outside Shouxiang City is like frost. .
I don’t know where to play the reed pipe, and I have to march all night to see my hometown.
Translation:
The sand in front of Huile Peak is as white as snow, and the moonlight outside the city is like autumn frost.
I don’t know where the melancholy reed pipes were blowing, and all of them looked at their hometown overnight.
Shoujiang City: Zhang Renyuan, a famous general in the early Tang Dynasty, built the Sujiang City north of the Yellow River in order to defend against Turks. It was divided into three cities: east, middle and west, all in today's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Another theory is that in 646 AD, the 20th year of Zhenguan, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty came to Lingzhou in person to accept the surrender of the Turks, and the name of the city came from this.
Literary Appreciation
This is a poem that expresses the nostalgia of the border soldiers. It depicts the strong homesickness and sadness of the border soldiers from multiple angles.
The first two sentences of the poem describe a unique scenery of the frontier fortress on a moonlit night. Looking into the distance, tall beacon towers stand on the hills that wind for dozens of miles. Under the beacon towers is an endless desert. , like a snowy wasteland under the moonlight. Looking closer, the moonlight outside Gaocheng is as bright as the frost in late autumn. The desert is not a snowfield, but the poet says it looks like snow. The moonlight is not autumn frost, but the poet says it looks like frost.
The poet writes in this way in order to use this cold scenery to exaggerate the sadness and desolation of his mood. It is this snow-like desert and frost-like moonlight that make the night in Shuangjiang City seem particularly empty and bleak. It also made the poet particularly strongly feel the loneliness of being in such an isolated place, and developed a feeling of homesickness.
Reference for the above content: Baidu Encyclopedia - "Listening to the Flute in Shoujiang City at Night"