Cai Ge "The Book of Songs·Wang Feng·Cai Ge" Translation and Annotation
Explanation: A word about a lover's lovesickness. It's said that friends miss each other.
Original translation annotation
He is picking gexi, ①
Not seeing him for a day,
It’s like March!
The other person’s clothes are rustling, ②
Not seeing each other for a day,
It’s like three autumns! ③
He is picking mugwort, ④
I haven’t seen him for a day,
He looks like he is three years old! That girl picking kudzu.
One day without seeing her seems like three full months.
That girl gathering wormwood.
One day without seeing her seems like three autumns.
That girl picking mugwort.
One day without seeing her
It seems like three years have passed.
March: refers to three months
Sanqiu: Usually one autumn lasts for one year, and later it was used to specifically refer to the three months of autumn. The three autumns here are longer than three months and shorter than three years. They have the same meaning as three seasons and nine months.
Three years old: refers to three years.
Author's biography:
"The Book of Songs" was compiled into a book around the middle of the sixth century BC. It is said to be written by the founder of Confucianism compiled by Confucius. It is my country's first collection of poems, with 305 works collected. It is divided into three parts: "Wind", "Elegance" and "Song", all of which are named after music. "Feng" is a local tune, which contains folk songs from the fifteen countries at that time; "Ya" is divided into major and minor ones, mostly composed by nobles; "Song" is a song used for ancestral temple sacrifices.
Appreciation 1:
"Picking Ge" expresses the intense feeling of a man in love who is eager to meet his lover. The poem is still mainly in the form of overlapping repetitions. "Picking Ge", "Picking Xiao" and "Picking Artemisia" are all a life of labor, but the emotion of longing is deeper and deeper, from "March" to "March" "Three Autumn", "Three Years Old". Exaggeration without distortion, otherwise it is not enough to express inner emotions.
Appreciation 2:
The poem mentions three types of collection objects, which also appear in other chapters of "The Book of Songs". "Zhou Nan·Ge Tan" describes the harvesting and processing of female domestic slaves Ge, used for weaving. "Wang Feng·Ge Lei" uses kudzu to bring out the misfortune of the homeless man. "Xiaoya·Polygonium Xiao" starts with Xiao and praises noble gentlemen. "Daya·Shengmin" describes the scene of the sacrifice and writes: "Take the Xiao for the purpose of sacrifice, and take the rice for comparison." The Xiao and beef and mutton intestines are burned together to emit a strong aroma. The plants that appear in the poem are common collection objects, giving people a sense of intimacy.
The author expresses his attachment to the woman he loves and shows the huge gap between physical time and psychological time. Because of the deep longing, one day is like March, Three Autumn, and Three Years old, and the arrangement is also arranged in a ascending pan. "Zheng Feng·Zijin" also has a poem: "One day without seeing is like missing in three months."
Xiao and Ai appear as positive objects in "The Book of Songs", but in "Li Sao", Xiao and Ai have become negative objects: "Where was the grass in the past, now it is like this Xiao Ai. "Xiao and Ai are common plants. Therefore, Qu Yuan devalued them to highlight the value of vanilla, which is the opposite aesthetic orientation to the affirmation of Xiao and Ai in The Book of Songs.