Song of Thatched Cottage Broken by the Autumn Wind
Du Fu
In August, the high autumn wind roared and rolled up the triple thatch on my house. Mao flies across the river and spreads across the outskirts of the river. The taller ones hang on the treetops, while the lower ones float around the pond.
The group of children in Nancun deceived me because I was old and weak, and I could not bear to face them as thieves. He carried thatch into the bamboo without hesitation, his lips were burnt and his mouth was dry and he couldn't breathe. When he came back, he leaned on his staff and sighed.
The wind in Russia makes the clouds dark, and the desert turns dark in autumn. The quilt has been as cold as iron for many years, and the delicate child is lying on it and is cracked inside. There is no drying place for the leakage at the bedside, and the rain is like hemp on the feet and has not been stopped. Since my period is disordered and I don’t sleep much, how can I get wet all night long?
There are tens of millions of mansions in Ande, which can shelter all the poor people in the world with joy. They are as peaceful as a mountain that does not stand up to wind and rain. Alas! When I suddenly see this house in front of my eyes, my house alone will be broken down and frozen to death!
In the second year of Qianyuan (759) of Emperor Suzong of the Tang Dynasty, there was a famine in the Guanzhong area, and the people were in dire straits. In the autumn of this year, Du Fu abandoned his official position and went to Qinzhou (now Tianshui, Gansu), and then passed through Tonggu (now Chengxian, Gansu) to Sichuan. With the help of relatives and friends, he built a thatched cottage by the Huanhua River in the western suburbs of Chengdu, and lived a temporarily stable life. He felt happy and contented, so he sang about the spring rain, walked in search of flowers, and entertained himself by the riverside, drinking poetry and wine. Entertain yourself. However, this superficial comfort could not conceal his poverty, nor could it dilute his consistent concern for the country and the people. In the autumn of the second year of the Yuan Dynasty (761), a storm hit his hut, which once again woke him up from his romantic seclusion life, made him face reality, and made him sad, so he wrote this poem.
The title of the poem itself is very interesting. The hut is damaged by the autumn wind, why do you still need to "sing a poem"? What affects the poet's poetic sentiment?
The poem begins with description, which is completely realistic. First, write about the power of the autumn wind. Its "howling" is its momentum, and its "accomplishment" is to sweep away the thatch on the house. Then, write about your helpless situation. Facing this strong man of nature, I have no choice but to let it do what it does and watch my own thatch. Crossing the river, it flew high and hung on the treetops, and then sank low to the pond.
Facing the violence of nature, the poet is relatively calm and even has some patience to appreciate it. But when faced with the naughty boy's "taking advantage of the situation", he really got angry. It truthfully writes about his gaffes, so candidly. Rather than being angry with the children, it is better to say that he is angry with himself. He hates that he is old, has no support in life, has accomplished nothing, and is of no use to the country or his family. Maybe I still blame myself for my lack of cultivation and being careless like children. In short, after being anxious, he became calm and gradually thought hard.
After the strong wind, black clouds come in. Needless to say, the autumn rain comes uninvited. The poet withdrew his sight, no longer paying attention to the changes in nature, but focused his mind on the hut where he lived. After years of poverty and homelessness, he couldn't even make a quilt, and even that quilt, which was as cold as iron, was torn by children who didn't sleep well. The house was full of leaks and there was no dry place, but the autumn rain continued regardless. What kind of life is this? The night is long and the poet has insomnia. And "I've been in chaos", I don't know how many nights I've had like this, what's the use of shedding tears on my lapels?
Suddenly, the poet stirred up from his meditation and shouted, "There are thousands of vast buildings, and the great shelter will make all the poor people in the world happy." At this time, ideals defeated reality, and will defeated sighs. Although he currently lacks a residence that is as safe as a mountain in weather conditions, if such a house suddenly appeared in front of him, which could warm the poor people in the world, he would rather stay in the hut alone and die of the cold! What kind of feeling is this? This is a feeling of helping the world by fully appreciating the sufferings of the people and understanding the warmth and warmth of the world, just like when he wrote "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells" in the midst of war and chaos.
This is an ancient poem in the form of a song. The continuous changes in rhyme and rhyme reflect the characteristics of the "song". The scattered combination of single lines of prose sentences and even long and short sentences also reflects the dynamic feeling of the "line". It is precisely because of the touch of reality and the inner desire that the poems can emerge naturally from the heart without any false modification. The whole poem is narrated first, then discussed and lyrical. It not only describes the poet's embarrassment of poverty and even anger, but also expresses the poet's broad mind, which is sincere and touching.
This poem can be divided into three stanzas. The first stanza has five lines, each rhyming, and the five flat-tone rhymes of "Hao", "Mao", "Jiao", "Shao" and "Ao" are heard in the wind. "The high autumn wind in August roars and rolls up the triple thatch on my house." It started quickly. The three words "wind roaring" have a loud sound, and reading it is like hearing the roar of the autumn wind. The word "anger" personifies the autumn wind, making the next sentence not only action-packed but also full of strong emotions. The poet finally built this thatched hut and just settled down, but the autumn wind roared in and rolled up layers of thatch, as if deliberately against him. How could he not make the poet extremely anxious? The word "fly" in "The grass flies across the river and spreads across the countryside" closely follows the word "roll" in the previous sentence. The "rolled" thatch did not fall beside the house, but "fly" away with the wind and "fly" across the river. , and then "sprinkled" them scatteredly and like raindrops on the "river suburbs": "the tall ones hang on the forest tips" and are difficult to get down; "the lower ones float to the Shentan Col" and are also difficult to recover.
"Rolling", "flying", "crossing", "sprinkling", "hanging" and "floating", one after another, the dynamics not only form a vivid picture, but also closely affect the poet's sight, setting the tone Touch the poet's heartstrings. The genius of the poet is that he does not express his emotions abstractly, but embodies his emotions in objective descriptions. When we read these lines of poems, we clearly see a skinny old man in thin, shabby clothes, leaning on a cane, standing outside the house, watching eagerly as the roaring autumn wind rolls up the thatch on his house layer by layer, blowing it across the river. Go, scattered everywhere in the river suburbs; and his anxiety and resentment towards the wind-damaged house cannot but arouse the screams in our hearts.
Five sentences in the second stanza. This is a development of the previous section and a complement to the previous section. The thatch written "Sajiangjiao" in the previous section cannot be taken back. Is there anything that can be recovered if it falls on flat ground? Yes, but they were taken away by the "Nancun group of children"! It is appropriate to pay attention to the five words "Bullying me because I am old and weak". If the poet is not "old and feeble", but is young and strong, he will naturally not be bullied like this. "You can bear to be a thief in front of me" means that you can bear to be a thief in front of me! This just expresses the poet's resentment at being bullied because he is "old and powerless". It is by no means really charging the "group of children" with "thieves" and having to go to the government to deal with the crime. Therefore, if "the lips are burnt and the mouth is dry and you can't breathe", there is nothing you can do. In the words of the poet "Wu Lang Again", this is exactly "I would rather have this than poverty"! If the poet had not been very poor, he would not have been so anxious about the strong wind blowing away the thatch; if the "group of children" had not been very poor, they would not have braved the strong wind to hold those worthless thatch. All this is the clue at the end. The lofty aspiration of "building tens of thousands of mansions and sheltering poor people all over the world with joy" is exactly based on the reality of "poverty all over the world". "Returning and leaning on the staff and sighing" are collected in one and two stanzas. Probably as soon as the poet heard the howling of the north wind, he was worried about the danger of the thatched hut that was not strong enough, so he went out with a stick. Only when the wind blew the hut apart and the thatch could not be taken back, did he have no choice but to walk home. "Leaning on the stick", of course, corresponds to "old and feeble". The word "自" in "自 sigh" is very painful! The poet could only sigh for himself when he suffered such an unfortunate experience, and did not arouse the sympathy and help of others, so the decline of the world's atmosphere was beyond words, so the content of his "sigh" was very profound! When his own house was in ruins, he had nowhere to stay, and he could not get sympathy and help from others, he clearly thought of countless poor people in similar situations.
The eight sentences in the third stanza describe the plight of a broken house and continuous rain. The two sentences "The wind in the sky fixes the color of the clouds, and the desert turns dark in autumn" use a large brush dipped in thick ink to render a gloomy and melancholy atmosphere, thereby highlighting the poet's gloomy and melancholy state of mind, while dense raindrops are about to fall from the deserted autumn sky. Sprinkling to the ground was already expected. The two sentences "The quilt has been as cold as iron for many years, and the delicate child has been lying in bed to pieces" cannot be written by an author who has not experienced poverty. It is worth noting that this is not only a sign that the quilt is old and torn, but also a preparation for the story below that the house is broken and leaking. In August in Chengdu, the weather is not "cold". It is precisely because "the bedside room leaks and there is no place to dry, and the rain is like hemp on the feet without stopping", so it feels cold. "Since my menstruation is chaotic and I have little sleep, how can I stay wet all night long?" Two sentences, one vertical and one closed. At one point, it expands from the current situation to all the painful experiences since the Anshi Rebellion, from the precarious hut to a dilapidated country with frequent wars; at the other end, it returns to the reality of "long nights of wetness". Worrying about the country and its people, coupled with the "long night of being wet", how can one fall asleep? "He Youche" echoes the previous "Uncut", expressing the poet's eagerness to both stop the rain and look forward to the dawn. And this mood was inspired by the difficult situation of the house being broken and leaking and the quilts like iron. So from the personal difficult situation to the similar situation of other people, it is a matter of course, and it naturally transitions to the end of the poem.
"There are tens of millions of vast buildings, and the poor people in the world are all happy. They are as safe as a mountain in the wind and rain." Seven-character sentences are used before and after, and nine-character sentences are used in the middle. The sentences are consecutively followed, and the expression is broad. Words about realm and pleasant emotions such as "Guangsha", "Millions of Rooms", "Dabi", "World", "Happy Face", "An Rushan", etc. have loud sounds, thus forming a sonorous and powerful rhythm. and the momentum of galloping forward, which accurately expresses the poet's unrestrained passion and fiery hope bursting out from the painful life experience of "no place to dry in the bedside room" and "how to get wet in the long night". This kind of unrestrained passion and fiery hope is not enough to be sung, so he sighed, "Wow! When I suddenly see this house in front of my eyes, my house will be broken down alone and freeze to death!" The poet's broad mind and lofty ideals have reached this point. Show it vividly.
Belinsky once said: "No poet can become great because of himself and by describing himself, whether describing his own pain or describing his own happiness. Any great poet They are great because the roots of their pain and happiness extend deeply into the soil of society and history, because they are the organ and representative of society, the times, and mankind." Du Fu described himself in this poem. However, when we read the last section, we knew that he was not simply describing his own pain in isolation, but expressing the pain of the "poor people in the world" and the suffering of society by describing his own pain. Suffering, the suffering of the times.
If you don’t understand the content of his “sigh” deeply when you read “When I came back and leaned on my stick and sighed,” then it’s enough to read “Wow! When I suddenly see this house in front of my eyes, my hut will be broken down alone and frozen to death.” , it should be seen that he is not lamenting, losing sleep, or speaking out just because of his own misfortune! On the autumn night when the storm struck mercilessly, the poet's mind was not only that "my hut is broken alone", but also that the huts of "the poor people in the world" were all broken... Du Fu's passionate feelings of concern for the country and the people and his lofty ideals that urgently demand to change the dark reality have been exciting the hearts of readers for thousands of years and have had positive effects.
Translation
In the depths of autumn in August, the wind was howling, and the wind swept away several layers of thatch on my roof. Thatch flies across the Huanhua River and is scattered on the other side of the river. The thatch that flies high is entangled in the tall treetops, and the grass that flies low flutters and sinks into the low-lying pond.
A group of children in Nancun bullied me because I was old and weak. They actually had the heart to commit thieves in front of me and ran into the bamboo forest holding thatch without any scruples. It was no use shouting until my lips were scorched and my mouth was parched, so I had no choice but to come back, leaning on a cane and lamenting my misfortune and the desolation of the world.
After a while the wind stopped, the dark clouds in the sky were as black as ink, and the late autumn colors were gloomy and gradually darkened. The cloth quilt had been used for many years, and it was cold and hard, like an iron plate. The child was not sleeping well, kicking and kicking, and the quilt was torn. (Because) the roof leaked, and there was no dry place at the head of the bed. Lines of raindrops continued to fall. Since the war, I have had very little time to sleep. The nights are long and the house is leaky and the bed is wet. How can I wait until dawn?
How can we get tens of millions of spacious and tall houses to universally shelter the poor people (scholars) in the world and make them all smile! The house is not shaken by wind and rain, and is as stable as a mountain.
well! When such a tall house appears in front of me, even if my hut is blown to pieces and I freeze to death, I will be willing to do so!