Three Miscellaneous Poems (2)
Tang Dynasty: Wang Wei
You have just come from our hometown, and we must understand the world.
Did the plum blossom when you came to the engraved window of my house?
translate
You have just come from our hometown, so you must know the way of the world in your hometown.
Did Chimonanthus praecox bloom in front of my carving window when you came?
To annotate ...
Tomorrow: when you come.
② qǐ window: a window engraved with patterns.
(3) Has it blossomed? Has it blossomed? Zhuó flowers are in full bloom. Not, used at the end of the sentence, is equivalent to "no" and expresses doubt.
Distinguish and appreciate
The lyric hero in the poem ("I", not necessarily the author) is a person who has lived in a foreign land for a long time. When I suddenly met an old friend in my hometown, what aroused me first was a strong homesickness, eager to know the scenery and personnel in my hometown.
The first two sentences are unadorned forms close to the natural state of life. This feeling of "I" is vividly displayed, and the word "hometown" overlaps, which shows homesickness: "should know" shows the feeling of eager to know the countryside, reveals a childlike innocence and kindness, and simply describes one's feelings, psychology, demeanor and tone in a specific situation, which is actually very economical.
As for "hometown affairs", you can list a long list of questions. In the early Tang Dynasty, Wang Ji wrote an article "Asking about meeting fellow villagers in Jingsi's hometown", from friends and old children, clan brothers and nephews, old gardens and new trees, the width of Mao Zhai, the density of willows, to the flowers in the courtyard, he still wanted to ask. But the "I" in this poem put aside these things and asked alone: When you passed my silk window, did the plum blossom bloom the first cold flower? ? It seems that my hometown is very memorable, just in front of the window. This is very unnatural. But this is not a pose.
A person's nostalgia for his hometown is always associated with people, events and things closely related to his previous life; The so-called "homesickness" is completely a kind of "thinking in images", and all the homesick people have concrete images or pictures in their minds; Old friends in my hometown, mountains and rivers, local conditions and customs are all memorable, but they also evoke cordial nostalgia. Sometimes it is often something that looks ordinary and trivial, such as Han Mei in this window. It may contain intimate and interesting events in family life in those days. Therefore, this cold plum is no longer an ordinary natural thing, but a symbol of hometown. It's poetic and typical. So this cold plum naturally became the concentrated sustenance of my homesickness. In this sense, asking "the first cold flower that blooms it" is completely in line with the logic of life. One person.
There are often such unpretentious and poetic works in ancient poetry. It seems so simple that it doesn't need any skills, but it actually contains the most advanced skills. A poem like Han Mei, through special embodiment, is a typical skill, but this skill embodies a plain and homely form. This is the so-called combination of cleverness and simplicity. Wang Ji's poem "Ask a Villager who Meditates His Hometown" may be simpler than this poem, but its series of questions are far less artistic than Wang Wei's. Isn't news worth pondering?