Notes
1. Arbor: tall trees.
2. Rest: rest. It means that there is no shade on a tall tree and one cannot rest. Thinking: language helps.
3. Han: Han River, one of the tributaries of the Yangtze River. Wandering Girl: The god of the Han River, or a wandering woman.
4. Jiang: Jiangshui, the Yangtze River. Yong: The water flow is long.
5. Fang: 桴, raft. Used here as a verb, it means to cross a river on a raft.
6. Qiaoqiao (qiáoqiao): This originally refers to the long feathers on the bird's tail, which is a metaphor for overgrown weeds; or it is thought to refer to high appearance. Wrong salary: clumps of firewood. In ancient times, marriages must use burning torches as candles. Therefore, in the Book of Songs, marriages were mostly based on cutting off salary and plowing the Chu.
7. 刈 (yì meaning): cut. Chu: The name of the shrub, vitex.
8. Return: marry.
9. 秣 (mòmo): feed the horse.
10. Wormwood (lóulou): Wormwood, also called white wormwood, is edible when young and used as fuel when old.
11. Foal: pony.
Translation
There are large branches with tall leaves in the south.
Pedestrians rarely rest under the trees.
There is a wandering girl on the Han River,
It is in vain to pursue her.
The mighty Han River is so wide,
It feels melancholy to be unable to swim across the sky.
The rolling Han River is so long,
It is so sad to be unable to ferry it across.
The miscellaneous trees grow taller.
To cut firewood, you need to cut wattle.
If that woman marries me,
she will feed the horse quickly.
The mighty Han River is so wide,
It feels melancholy to be unable to swim across the sky.
The rolling Han River is so long,
It is so sad to be unable to ferry it across.
The weeds are overgrown,
The wormwood is cut for firewood.
That woman is like marrying me,
Hurry up and drive to meet her.
The mighty Han River is so wide,
It feels melancholy to be unable to swim across the sky.
The rolling Han River is so long,
It is so sad to be unable to ferry it across.
Appreciation
This is a love poem. The lyrical protagonist is a young woodcutter. He fell in love with a beautiful girl, but he never got what he wanted. Tangled with emotions and unable to escape, facing the vast river, he sang this moving poem and poured out his melancholy.
As for the purpose of this article, the statement in the "Preface to Mao's Poems" that he praised King Wen as "extremely virtuous" is not sufficient. The "Selected Works" annotated the "Preface to Han Poems" as saying: ""Han Guang", "Speaking of (joying) people." The Qing Dynasty Chen Qiyuan's "Mao Shi Ji Gu Bian" further elaborates: "If you say (joy), you must seek it, but you can't ask for it only if you can meet it. Yue Mu said it is the best explanation of the poem's purpose." And the grasp of the poetic environment is concise and precise. "There are wandering women in the Han Dynasty, it is impossible to think about them", which is the central verse that embodies the purpose of the poem; "The Han Dynasty is so vast that it is impossible to think about it; the river is eternal, it is impossible to think about it", repeated three times, repeatedly expressing the lyrical protagonist's love for the water. The "wandering girl" on the other side looks beyond the horizon and yearns for the hard-to-find sentimentality. Lu Qi and Han Sanjia's poem interpreted "Wandering Girl" as the goddess of the Han River, and she later had many followers. This gives the poem a layer of love between humans and gods. However, the "Book of Songs" is generally implemented in real life. The "Fifteen Kingdoms" are all folk songs that sing secular emotions. Therefore, there seems to be no need to connect this poem with myths and legends.