When hard work comes,
There are few stars around.
The mountains and rivers are broken and the clouds are surging.
Life experiences ups and downs.
Fear. The beach says fear,
Sigh in the ocean.
People who have never died since ancient times,
Take the heart of Dan and follow history.
Modern translation
Looking back on my early experience of being an official through the imperial examination,
Now the war has subsided for four weeks.
This country is in danger,
How can a person take a bath be described as duckweed?
Fear of the fiasco at the beach still scares me.
It's a pity that I am alone in the ocean below zero.
Who can live forever since ancient times,
I want to leave a patriotic heart to reflect on history.
To annotate ...
① Lingdingyang: In the Pearl River Estuary south of Zhongshan, Guangdong. Wen Tianxiang was captured by the Yuan Army in December of the first year of Zhao Minxiang's reign at the end of the Song Dynasty (1278) and imprisoned in the Lingdingyang warship. In the first month of the following year, Yuan Marshal Zhang Hongfan attacked Cliff Mountain, forcing Wen Tianxiang to hand over Zhang Shijie, the commander-in-chief who stuck to Cliff Mountain. So, Wen Tianxiang wrote this poem. ② "hard work" sentence: trace back his early life experience and all kinds of hard work since he became an official. Encounter, encounter the court selection; It used to refer to an official who passed the imperial examination because he was proficient in a certain classic. Wen Tianxiang has been in Baoyou, Song Lizong for four years (1256), ranking first among Jinshi. 3 fight and be thin: being thin is barren and thin. Here, song and yuan war is drawing to a close. The Southern Song Dynasty died in this year (1279), and at this time it was unable to resist. Surrounding stars: Zhou Xing is the annual star, which circulates in the sky for twelve years, so Zhou Xing refers to twelve years. Surrounding the stars, that is, in 48 years, Wen Tianxiang was 44 years old when he wrote this poem, and the surrounding stars here are integers. In the old notes, "the surrounding stars" were mostly used as the four years since Wen Tianxiang 1275 applied for the diligent king. In fact, the first two sentences of this poem should be understood together, which is a review of the poet's life experience. (4) The phrase "a leopard cannot change his spots" means that the national situation and personal destiny are irreversible. ⑤ Fear Beach: In today's wanan county, Jiangxi, the current is fast, and it is one of the eighteen beaches in Ganjiang. In the second year of Zong Jingyan, Song Rui (1277), Wen Tianxiang was defeated in Jiangxi and retreated to Fujian through the beach. ⑥ "Zero Ding" sentence: lamenting the current situation and one's own courage and isolation. After the poet was captured, he was imprisoned in a warship in Lingdingyang. ⑦ History: History. Before paper was invented, bamboo slips were used to take notes. When making bamboo slips, bamboo sweat (moisture) must be removed by fire, so it is called a history book.