This is a poem about palace resentment. It describes a lonely palace maid. On the night of Chinese Valentine's Day, she looked up at the Cowherd and Weaver Girl on both sides of the Tianhe River. She fanned the fireflies from time to time to relieve her loneliness. It reflected the misfortune of the palace women. Destiny expresses the depressed mood of an official girl who has no friends and is bored.
The first sentence describes autumn scenery, using the word "cold" to hint at the cold autumn atmosphere and bring out the protagonist's inner loneliness. The second sentence is about using fireflies to pass the time and relieve sadness. Three sentences are written about being unable to sleep late at night, waiting for luck to come. The sky and streets are like water, which is a metaphor for your love as ice. The last sentence expresses the sadness in my heart by admiring the Morning Glory and the Weaver Girl.
The original text of "Autumn Evening" by Du Mu in the Tang Dynasty:
The cold autumn light of silver candles paints the screen, and the small light fan flutters at the flowing fireflies.
The night sky is as cool as water, and I sit and watch Altair and Vega.
Translation:
On the autumn night, the white candlelight reflected the deserted painting screen. I held a small silk fan in my hand and lightly beat the flowing fireflies. The night on the sky street is as cool as well water. I lie on the couch and look up at the stars. Altair is facing Vega.
Extended information
In China's feudal society, the palace marriage system was quite deformed and unreasonable. The emperor had hundreds of spouses, the so-called "three thousand beauties in the harem", but the number of maids who were lucky enough to be favored by the emperor was pitiful. The vast majority of the maids could only waste their time in the deep palace, wasting their youth and wasting their time. To express resentment, there were numerous palace resentment poems.
"Song of Resentment" written by Ban Jieyu of the Han Dynasty is the earliest extant palace complaint poem, as Sun Yuefeng said, "the ancestor of palace poetry in later generations." The Tang and Song Dynasties were the heyday of palace resentment poems. There were many poets who wrote palace resentment poems and wrote more poems. Many great poets, such as Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Lu You, etc., all wrote palace resentment poems.
The palace resentment poems written by poets in the Tang Dynasty are different from those palace style poems in the Six Dynasties and the early Tang Dynasty that specifically describe the luxurious life in the palace. Instead, they focus on describing the resentment of palace ladies. Bai Juyi's "The White-haired Man in Shangyang" and "The Concubine of the Cemetery", Liu Fangping's "Spring Resentment", Wang Wei's "Autumn Night Song", Du Mu's "Autumn Evening", Li Bai's "The Jade Steps", Xie Tiao's "The Jade Steps" "Resentment" and so on, too numerous to mention. Wang Changling, a master of quatrains, even wrote the famous "Spring Resentment of the West Palace" and "Chang Xin Qiu Ci".
Most of these palace resentment poems describe the miserable life and mental pain of the palace ladies (or concubines) from different angles. However, they have one thing in common. They all attribute the resentment of the palace concubines to the resentment born of falling out of favor or not being favored. Moreover, they only reveal a corner of the palace ladies' lives, or they say it very implicitly.
About the author
Du Mu (AD 803-about 852), courtesy name Muzhi, also known as Fanchuan Jushi, was an outstanding poet and essayist in the Tang Dynasty. He was the grandson of Prime Minister Du You. Congyu's son. In the second year of Emperor Wenzong of the Tang Dynasty, at the age of 26, he became a Jinshi and was awarded the title of Secretary of the Hongwen Academy. He later went to Jiangxi to observe the envoys, transferred to the Huainan Jiedu envoys, and then joined the observers. Xun Yuan Wai Lang, governor of Huangzhou, Chizhou and Muzhou, etc.
Because he lived in the Fanchuan Villa in South Chang'an in his later years, he was later called "Du Fanchuan" and wrote "Collected Works of Fanchuan". Du Mu's poems are famous for their seven-character quatrains. The content is mainly about chanting history and expressing feelings. His poems are handsome and full of historical things. He achieved great success in the late Tang Dynasty. Du Mu was called "Little Du" to distinguish him from Du Fu, "Big Du". Together with Li Shangyin, he is known as "Little Li Du".
Baidu Encyclopedia--Qiu Xi