From "Liangzhou Ci" by Wang Han of the Tang Dynasty
The luminous cup of grape wine reminds you to drink pipa immediately.
Lord Grim, lying drunk on the battlefield, how many people have fought in ancient times?
Appreciation:
This Qijue is a beautiful frontier poem. Frontier poems can be judged by their attitude toward war. It can be divided into two categories: praising war and exposing war. The nature and background of the war written in this poem are unknown, but judging from the poet’s emotional pulse, this is undoubtedly an anti-war poem. However, it does not describe the war directly, but expresses the war-weary grief of the soldiers through drinking before the war. The writing is very subtle and tortuous. The first sentence is brightly colored, deliberately exaggerating the beauty of the banquet: the crystal clear and sparkling cups are filled with grape wine, and the soldiers gather together to drink. As I write this, I suddenly feel frustrated: "I want to drink" but I have no choice but "Pipa will urge me immediately". The beauty of this sentence structure of up, two, and down is that it suddenly leads to a turning point in the meaning of the text.
The band on horseback played the pipa to urge people to set off, which caused the soldiers' mood to change drastically. They were forced from a lively and comfortable drinking environment to a tense and exciting pre-war atmosphere. It seems that I can no longer drink alcohol! However, "Don't laugh when you are lying drunk on the battlefield." The meaning of the third sentence changes again, telling us: Although the military orders are like mountains at this time, the urgers urge themselves, the drinkers drink themselves, and they are determined to "lie down drunk". The poet seems to be expressing his heart on behalf of the soldiers: What the hell, even though we are about to set off, we still drink heavily and fall drunk on the battlefield without hesitation. You won't laugh at this kind of drinking, right? The words "Lord, don't laugh" were raised in the midst of frustration, leading to the saddest and most decisive sentence in the whole poem. This is the interrogative sentence at the end of the poem "How many people have fought in ancient times?", which exaggeratedly displays The cruel consequences of war speak to the universality and deepen the theme of the poem.
Obviously, what is complained here is not only the battle faced by the soldiers, but all the "ancient times" that were launched by the ruling class for their own interests and drove thousands of soldiers Go to a war to die! The whole poem expresses the anti-war lamentation. It reveals the tragic fact that there have been very few survivors since the beginning of the war. However, it uses a heroic and broad-minded pen to express a tragic emotion of seeing death as if it were home. This is Through this seemingly bold and open-minded mind, people can see more clearly the sadness and disillusionment deep in the hearts of the soldiers.
"Collection of Tang Poems" said that this poem "pretends to be bold and bold, but it is extremely sad." It can be said that the author's intention is deeply rooted in it. This poem does indeed reveal the negative emotions criticized by contemporary commentators, but in that era and in such a cruel environment, soldiers and poets generally could only have this kind of sad feeling about the endless side court battles. Emotions, we don’t have to be harsh on this.