Professor Jiang Zhaohe’s famous work "Portrait of Du Fu" depicts an old poet with a thin body and a sad face. I have to say that this image is indeed consistent with the Du Fu in our minds who lived a life of wandering and worried about the country and the people. But we may often forget that Du Fu, a poet, was once a boy.
1
In 712, during the prosperous age of Kaiyuan, Du Fu was born in Gong County, Henan. His distant ancestor Du Yu was a famous general in the Western Jin Dynasty. His grandfather and father were both court officials. His maternal grandfather was also the Cui family of a famous family at that time. It can be said that he was an authentic scholarly and official family. Moreover, Du Fu was very talented since he was a child.
As a smart young man who came from a scholarly and official family, and in the most prosperous era in Chinese history, the mental state of the young Du Fu can be imagined. Let's look at his "House Soldier Cao Hu Ma":
Another example is this song "Painting an Eagle":
Good horses and goshawks are the symbols of Du Fu's lofty ambitions. "Wang Yue", which we are more familiar with, was also created during this period.
Not only that, the young Du Fu also had a passion for socializing with friends at night banquets - "Checking books will burn a short candle, reading a sword will lead to a long cup", and he also had cynical rants - "Drinking and singing songs in vain" Who is the hero of flying and domineering! "How high-spirited! The young Du Fu expected that he could make a difference and believed that he could.
2
History did not give Du Fu such an opportunity.
In 745, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty appointed Yang Yuhuan as his imperial concubine. "The spring night is short and the sun is rising, so the king will not come to court early from now on." The treacherous prime minister Li Linfu controlled the government, deceived and flattered his superiors, and rejected the loyal and good subordinates, laying the foundation for disaster. In 747, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty issued an edict to recruit wise men, but Li Linfu dismissed all the scholars who came to take the exam, and advised Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty that "there are no wise men left in the wild". And Du Fu was among the scholars taking the exam.
Du Fu was deeply disappointed with the government. There are these sad sentences in Qian Ye's poem "Twenty-Two Rhymes for Wei Zuocheng":
This once high-spirited young man was severely polished by reality. As if that wasn't enough - in 755, after getting an official position, Du Fu went home to visit relatives and found that his youngest son had died of starvation. He wrote this incident in "Five Hundred Words of Empathy from Beijing to Fengxian County":
When his youngest son died of starvation, he felt ashamed to be a father. But he also thought that as a minor official in the imperial court, he was exempted from taxes and was so miserable. Wouldn't it be even more difficult for ordinary people?
I really want to know, deep in Du Fu's heart at this time, how he placed the young Du Fu, the high-spirited Du Fu. Behind the concern for the country and the people, how much is the sorrow for oneself?
Three
But this was the beginning of Du Fu's wandering life.
In 755, the Anshi Rebellion broke out. "The Yu Yang Chao stirred the ground to come, shocking the song of colorful clothes and feathers." In 756, Chang'an was in crisis. After Du Fu settled his family, he took the risk and defected to the newly ascended Tang Suzong. As soon as he set off, he was captured by the rebels and taken to Chang'an, where he saw with his own eyes the tragic fall of the capital. The famous poem "Spring Hope" was written at this time:
Eight months later, Du Fu risked his life and fled. I met Suzong of Tang Dynasty in Fengxiang and served as Zuo Shiyi. Later, because he tried to protect the prime minister Fang Guan, he offended Emperor Suzong of the Tang Dynasty and was demoted together with Fang Guan. In 759, Du Fu, deeply disappointed with politics, resigned. Within a year, he and his family traveled to Huazhou, Qinzhou, Tonggu, and finally arrived in Chengdu.
When we think of Du Fu, we will think of thatched cottage. But when Du Fu finally found his thatched cottage, he was already in his forties and was far from the high-spirited young man.
IV
In 760, Du Fu built a thatched cottage next to Huanhua Creek in Chengdu with the support of relatives and friends. Relying on his old friend Yan Wu, who was then the Yin of Chengdu, Du Fu finally had a peaceful time. The poem "Jiangcun" is a proof:
This poem couplet is quite lively and interesting, and the comfortable and leisurely life style of the family is vividly displayed on the page.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. In 762, his friend Yan Wu was summoned to Beijing, and a rebellion broke out in Shu. Du Fu once again traveled between Langzhong, Mianzhou, and Hanzhou. In 763, the Anshi Rebellion was put down, but the country was still in depression. In 764, Yan Wu entered Shu again, and Du Fu also returned to Chengdu. Before setting off, he went to the tomb of his friend Fang Guan to say goodbye and wrote "The Tomb of Taiwei Bie Fang":
When Du Fu looked at Fang Guan's tomb, he must have thought of his own ending - those Ambition and passion were eventually buried in a pile of loess.
Five
After returning to Chengdu, on the recommendation of Yan Wu, Du Fu became the biggest official in his life - Yuanwailang of the Ministry of Inspection and Industry. But Du Fu was already frail and sick, and he hated the darkness of officialdom, so he resigned after only half a year. Soon Yan Wu died of illness, and Du Fu lost his support and wandered again. At this time, Du Fu was fifty-three years old.
After that, Du Fu and his family wandered successively in Jiazhou, Rongzhou, Yuzhou, Zhongzhou, Yun'an, Kuizhou and other places in Shu. Soon there was another chaos in Shu, and Tubo and Uighurs were waiting for an opportunity to invade again. The land of Shu was devastated and the people were in dire straits. Perhaps because he felt that he was about to die soon, he began to recall his boyhood. "The Grand Tour" wrote:
Du Fu knew that there was no hope for him to look forward in life, and he could only look back at what he was like when he was a boy.
After leaving Shu, Du Fu wandered around Jingchu again.
In the spring of 770, he met Li Guinian in Tanzhou, whom he had met many times in the mansions of dignitaries when he was a boy. His heart must have been filled with sentimentality about the rise and fall of the past and present, but the expression in the poem "The Year of Li Gui in the South of the Yangtze River" was extremely restrained:
In the winter of 770, Du Fu wrote "The Three-Day Book on the Pillow in a Windy Boat" "Sixteen Rhymes Presented to Relatives and Friends in Hunan", with the final chapter looking back on one's life. Soon after, he died of illness in a small boat on the Xiangjiang River.
Six
There are eight tombs of Du Fu in the country. In addition to the memorial tombs in various places, it is generally believed that Du Fu was buried in Xiaotian Village, Pingjiang County, Hunan Province today. There are still descendants of Du Fu living there.
Du Fu's poetry creation is called "the history of poetry", which is certainly true. But for Du Fu himself, he was only sentimental about himself and that era - sentimental about the young man in bright clothes and angry horses, who had grown old in the wandering world, but had not yet been able to realize his yearnings and ambitions. Because he was a teenager, his wandering and loneliness are even more heart-wrenching, and the era he lived in is even more touching.
The rivers and lakes have become distant and cold, and the poems will be forgotten if the books are not turned over. I am Mr. Wang Shi, a straight man born in the 1990s who wanders between literature and philosophy. Nice to meet you.