Ma Wei is a seven-character quatrain written by Yuan Mei, a poet in Qing Dynasty. This poem examines the love tragedy of Tang Xuanzong and Yang Guifei in the tragic experience of ordinary people, emphasizing that the suffering of ordinary people is far from comparable to that of Guifei. The first two sentences express the poet's deep sympathy for the sufferings of the lower classes. The last two sentences reveal the reality that various misfortunes in society force many couples not to reunite.
The original explanation is that there is no need to sing the joys and sorrows of the emperor's concubines in those days, and there is also a Milky Way in the world, which separates thousands of couples in Qian Qian and Qian Qian. There are countless farewells between couples like Shi Haocun, and the tears of ordinary people are much more than those spilled in the Palace of Eternal Life.
Depth analysis:
Mawei incident happened in Tianbao 14th year of Xuanzong in Tang Dynasty, after the An Shi Rebellion broke out. Li Shangyin lived in the atmosphere of the decline of national power in the late Tang Dynasty, which made him have more critical consciousness of history, more feelings of saving the world for politics, and more hatred for adulterers and wrongdoers. So he wrote this set of poems to achieve the meaning of allegory.
You have been the son of heaven for so many years, how come you can't even protect your own woman, but you don't even have the happiness of ordinary people's families? This rhetorical question, though subtle, is very powerful, inspiring the world to remember the historical tragedy of Tang Xuanzong's indulgence and neglect of state affairs, which led to the country's turmoil and the people's suffering from war.