Quatrain·Two orioles singing the green willows
Author: Du Fu
Two orioles singing the green willows, and a row of egrets ascending to the blue sky.
The window contains Qianqiu snow of Xiling, and the door is docked with a ship thousands of miles away from Dongwu.
Notes
Xiling: Xiling Snow Mountain.
Qianqiu Snow: refers to the snow on Xiling Snow Mountain that has not melted for thousands of years.
Mooring: mooring.
Soochow: The territory of Wu State in ancient times.
Wanli Ship: A ship that travels thousands of miles away.
Translation
Two orioles sang in the sky,
A row of egrets flew in the sky.
You can see the snow in Xiling that has not melted for thousands of years from the window.
There are ships sailing from Dongwu thousands of miles away from Dongwu moored at the door.
Creative background
In 762 AD, during the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, Yin Yanwu from Chengdu entered the dynasty. At that time, due to the "Anshi Rebellion", Du Fu fled to Zizhou for a time. The next year, the rebellion was put down and Yan Wu returned to Chengdu. Du Fu also returned to Chengdu thatched cottage. At that time, he was in a good mood. Faced with the vitality of this school, he couldn't help but write this short poem on the spot.
"Quatrain" is the name of the poem, but it does not directly indicate the content of the poem. This form is convenient for writing about a scene or object and expressing the author's feelings at a moment. What the poet saw occasionally triggered his inner passion, and he wrote down his own feelings without thinking about the topic for a while, so he used the metrical "quatrains" of the poem as the title. Du Fu wrote a group of poems in this form, consisting of four poems, with "quatrains" as the general title. "Quatrain·Two Orioles Singing the Green Willow" is one of them.
Appreciation
This poem depicts four independent scenery, creating a vibrant picture. The poet is intoxicated with it, looking at the ships from Soochow, unconsciously hooked. When homesickness arises, the delicate inner activities naturally reveal themselves.
The poem begins with a vibrant natural beauty, creating a fresh and relaxing atmosphere. In these two sentences, the poet describes the beautiful scenery in detail from different angles. Emerald is fresh green, the color in early spring when everything revives and sprouts vitality. Pronounced as "ming", the oriole's cry gives people a crisp and pleasant feeling. In early spring, pairs of orioles sing joyfully on the willow branches where the buds are beginning to sprout, creating a lively and festive scene. The orioles sit on the willows and sing, which is a sign of vitality in silence. The next sentence uses a more obvious momentum to describe the vitality of nature: the sky is clear and green, and the egrets are flying in this fresh sky, This is not only a kind of free and comfortable comfort, but also a kind of upward striving. The use of the word "up" here is very clever. These two sentences use "yellow" to contrast "emerald" and "white" to contrast "green". The colors are bright and bring out the vitality of early spring. Two sentences also mention the cry of orioles. The poet depicts this vibrant and colorful early spring image from two perspectives: visual and auditory. This vivid and colorful technique also adds to the vitality of the poem. Furthermore, the first sentence describes the orioles sitting on the willows and singing, and the second sentence writes the egrets flying into the sky. The space is much wider. From bottom to top, from near to far, the poet can see and feel everything. The whole environment is filled with vitality, which shows the vitality of early spring from another angle.
The third sentence, "The window contains the Qianqiu snow of Xiling", the poet looks out the window. Because the air in early spring is fresh and the sky is sunny, he can see the Xiling Snow Mountain. The previous two sentences have pointed out that it was early spring, and the autumn snow in winter was about to melt, which gave readers a moist feeling. There is a word "han" between "window" and "snow" in this sentence, expressing When the snow first melts, the moisture moistens the window lattice that has been frozen in winter, which better expresses the poet's feelings about the vitality of early spring with moisture. As for "Xiling", the poet saw the first melting ice and snow in front of the window and thought of the Xiling near the grass hall. He thought of the long-lasting snow on the Xiling Mountain and replaced the remaining snow on the window with the eternal snow on the Xiling. The artistic conception expressed is broader. This is the poet's way of blending things into each other when observing things and expressing his feelings. In addition, the poet has had the ambition to serve the country since he was a boy. After decades of obstacles, he finally had the opportunity to re-implement it, and the years of war were quelled. This is the same as the poet seeing the melting snow in front of the window and thinking of Xiling, and The thousand-year snow on the ridge replaces the lingering snow on the windows, which gives the poet a perfect connection with the feeling of the stubborn snow melting away. But at the same time, the poet uses this feeling to illustrate a kind of difficulty from another perspective: freezing three feet is not a day's cold, and it is even more difficult to melt thousands of years of snow. Therefore, the poet has deeper worries in his faint hope. Therefore, this sentence is not just a description of the snow in front of the window, it has a deeper meaning, and this kind of observation of the scenery is actually implicit in one or two sentences. The numbers of "two" and "one line" are clear and distinct, and the reason for careful observation is not because of the relaxed and happy heart, but because the poet wants to relieve the depression and boredom that have been idle for a long time. This is similar to the observation of the scenery in "The water threshold brings the heart", "Fish come out in the drizzle, and the swallows slant in the breeze" and in "Qujiang", "You can see the butterflies deeply through the flowers, and the dragonflies fly in the water." , also expresses the boredom in the heart with a fresh and free scene.
The last sentence further describes Du Fu's complicated mood at that time. When it is said that the ship comes from "Soochow", this sentence means that the war has been calmed down, transportation has been restored, and the poet feels emotional after seeing things and misses his hometown. The use of the word "Bo" has a profound meaning.
Mo means "to stay but not to leave", and it is this meaning that Du Fu used. Du Fu has been wandering around for many years without settling down. Although he still has a little hope in his heart, that hope has been greatly reduced. He should have known that the ideal of "providing kings, Yao and Shun, and making customs pure" was difficult to realize at that time. Moreover, before Yan Wu recommended him to the court, he had just ended his life in exile. Although he had high hopes for the court, he was extremely disappointed. Feeling hopeless. The word "park" just describes the poet's complicated mood between hope and disappointment. "Wanli" implies the difficulty of achieving the goal. This is juxtaposed with "Qianqiu" in the third sentence. One is from the perspective of time and the other is from the perspective of space. They both describe the difficulty of achieving the goal to express the low hope. . This is the first meaning. Second, the Soochow ship anchored in front of the door is not from Soochow, but to Soochow. Soochow is the symbol of Du Fu's hope. The reason why he did not mention Chang'an directly but "Soochow" is that the poet used the distance between Chengdu and Soochow and the difficulty of the route to imply that it was difficult to realize his ambitions; in addition, Sun Quan of the Three Kingdoms has been praised by many scholars since ancient times. The title "Master of the Ming Dynasty" refers to Sun Quan through the Eastern Wu Dynasty, which not only hints at Du Fu's hope for the emperor of the current dynasty, but also serves as the residence of his ambition to "serve the emperors Yao and Shun". The combination of "Bo", "Wanli" and "Dongwu Ship" into one sentence is precisely to write the word "difficult". The first couplet of the poem is a set of antithetical lines. There are many willows around the thatched cottage, and a pair of orioles are singing happily on the new green willow branches. It is a pleasant scene, full of sound and color, forming a fresh and beautiful artistic conception. "Cui" means fresh green, and "Green Willow" means the phenology of early spring, when willow branches have just sprouted buds. "Two orioles singing in the green willows", the birds are in pairs, showing a vitality and a festive meaning. The second sentence writes about the egret flying freely in the blue sky. This long-legged bird flies gracefully and naturally. The sky is clear and blue, and the egrets are extremely vivid in color against the "blue sky". The four distinct colors of "yellow", "emerald", "white" and "green" are used in succession in the two sentences to weave a gorgeous picture; the first sentence also has a description of the sound, conveying extremely joyful emotions.
The second couplet of the poem is also composed of antithetical sentences. The previous sentence is written through the window overlooking the snowy mountains of the Western Mountains. The snow on the ridge does not melt all year round, so there is accumulation of "thousands of years of snow". The snow-capped mountains cannot be seen when the weather is bad. They are only clearly visible on sunny days when the air is clear. Using the word "Han", this scene seems to be a picture embedded in the window frame, very close to the present. It is self-evident that the poet feels comfortable after seeing such a rare beauty. In the next sentence, if you glance outside the door, you can see the boats moored on the river bank. River boats are common, but the words "thousand-mile boats" have a profound meaning. Because they come from "Soochow". When people think that these ships will soon sail along the Minjiang River, through the Three Gorges, and directly to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, they will feel very unusual. Because of years of war, water and land transportation were blocked by the war, and ships could not travel thousands of miles smoothly. But after the war was calmed down and traffic was restored, ships from Soochow were seen, and the poet could "return to his hometown with his youth as his companion". How could it not make people happy? "Wanli Ship" is opposite to "Qianqiu Snow", one word is about the vastness of space, and the other is about the long time. The poet is in the thatched cottage, thinking for thousands of years, seeing thousands of miles, and how broad his mind is!
The whole poem seems to be one sentence per scene, four independent pictures. What is consistent and makes it constitute a unified artistic conception is the poet's inner emotion. At the beginning, the spring scenery of the thatched cottage was shown, and the poet's mood was peaceful. However, as the sight moved and the scenery changed, the appearance of the river boat touched his nostalgia. Four sentences of scenery completely express the poet's complex and meticulous inner thoughts.
This quatrain contains one scene and one sentence, but they are integrated into one. What connects them is the poet's inner mood. On the surface, it shows a lively scene, but within the cheerful and bright scene, it expresses the poet's sense of loss about the passage of time, loneliness and boredom, and also describes the poet's complex mood when there is a glimmer of hope again. Beyond that hope, there is more of the poet's sentimentality towards disappointment, and the uncertainty and hesitation about whether the hope can come true. The purpose of this poem is to express the poet's complex emotions with fresh and light scenery.