I expect you to contribute to the world, but you won't live forever.
The wicked succeed in their ambition, but the gentleman gives up halfway. Generally talented people have been buried, leaving only ordinary people.
It's a pity that you have no son to inherit the family business. Fortunately, you are tall and your wife is virtuous.
If you want to go to the grave in Jiangnan, it must be that trees are dying and paper money is flying with the wind.
The first couplet is the author's words of nostalgia and regret for the tomb. Originally, I hoped that the other party could set up a career to save the world during his 100-year life, but his life ended. In Wang Fengyuan's Epitaph, Wang Anshi said that at first he loved the articles of the tomb and his frugality. "That's where he thinks he can contribute to the world" can be used as a footnote for "helping others when facing others".
What Zhuan Xu means is: It's a pity that falcons can't fly, and phoenix can't fly far, just like Zhuan Xu is buried among horses. For example, once the tomb dies, there will be no outstanding talents. The sentence "Qian Qi buried an empty horse" evolved from Han Yu's "Bole crossed the northern field of Hebei, and the horse was empty", which is a new idea. This couplet is slightly flawed, the falcon flies vigorously, and the phoenix has short feathers, which are opposite; If you bury a horse, it will be empty. Both are cause and effect. The relationship between them is different in the upper and lower sentences, and the duality is imperfect.
Wang was a talented young poet in the middle of Northern Song Dynasty. He lives in poverty, but he doesn't want to be an official In the autumn of the first year of He Zhi (1054), Wang Anshi was ordered by Zhou Shu to enter Beijing and cross Gaoyou (now Jiangsu). At that time, Wang Lingxian, who was giving lectures in Gaoyou and other places, asked for an audience with the poem "A Field in Nanshan for the King". Wang Anshi was deeply moved by his talent and character, so he made friends with him.
Later, Wang Anshi married his wife and sister to the tomb, which won his reputation in all directions and made the young poet's works widely circulated. However, the tomb never died, and died young in June of the fourth year of Jiayou (1059) at the age of 28.
Wang Anshi was deeply saddened and sorry for this, and wrote elegies and epitaphs to express his grief. In the autumn of the fifth year of Jiayou (1060), Wang Anshi wrote these three poems in memory of his old friend.