As an old man, he has ambitions for thousands of miles; as a martyr, his ambition is endless in his old age.
Although the tortoise has a long life
Cao Cao in the late Eastern Han Dynasty
Although the tortoise has a long life, it still has its time; a soaring snake rides on the mist and eventually becomes ashes. An old man has ambitions for thousands of miles; martyrs have great ambitions in their old age. The period of profit and shrinkage is not only in heaven; the blessing of nourishing happiness can lead to eternal life. Fortunately, even singing praises one's aspirations.
Translation
Although the turtle can live a long life, there is a time when it will die.
Although the Soaring Snake can fly in the mist, it will eventually die and turn into ashes.
Although the old thousand-mile horse lies beside the manger, its ambition is still to gallop a thousand miles.
When people with lofty ideals reach their old age, their ambition to make progress will not stop.
The length of human life is not just determined by God.
As long as you take good care of your body and mind, you can also live longer.
Ah, I am so lucky! Just use poetry to express your inner aspirations!
The poem begins with "Although the tortoise has a long life, it still has its time. The snake rides on the mist, but eventually becomes ashes." The author uses the metaphors of these two images to illustrate that nothing in the world exists forever. Metabolism is the fundamental law of nature. This is tantamount to telling people that although people have different life spans, they are all destined to die in the end. It reflects the author's simple materialist dialectical thinking and atheistic concepts, which was commendable at the time. Since people are always going to die, is it okay to adopt a negative and pessimistic attitude towards life? The poet thinks this is not possible. Acknowledging that life is limited is precisely to make full use of this limited life, to make contributions and to make a difference.
Then the poet followed up and wrote, "I am an old man with ambitions for thousands of miles, and a martyr is still ambitious in his old age." The writing is powerful and the rhythm is majestic. It contains a heroic spirit of continuous self-improvement, which profoundly expresses Cao Cao always had a strong and enterprising spirit. "Endless ambition" expresses the need to have an unending pursuit of ideals and a positive and enterprising spirit, to be always optimistic and energetic, to strive for self-improvement, and to maintain ideological youth. Cao Cao revealed the importance of human spiritual factors to health through personal experience.
"The period of growth and contraction is not only in heaven; the blessing of nourishing happiness can lead to eternal life." It shows a deep and euphemistic style, giving people a kind and warm feeling. Ying means fullness, which can be extended to longevity; shrinkage means full-time, which can be extended to longevity. This means that whether a person's life span is long or short is not completely determined by fate. As long as you take good care of yourself, you can maintain physical and mental health and prolong your life.
The length of human life is not entirely determined by heaven. As long as you maintain physical and mental health, you can prolong your life. What Cao Cao said about "the blessing of nourishing happiness" does not mean doing nothing and sitting quietly, but it means that a person's mental state is the most important and should not be depressed due to old age. It can be seen here that the poet has a negative attitude towards destiny and has an optimistic spirit of confidence that things will depend on man-made things. It expresses the poet's ambition and pride that he is unwilling to age, does not believe in destiny, strives endlessly, and never stops pursuing great ideals.
The more valuable value of "Gui Sui Shou" is that it is a real poem. It opened up a new era of poetry. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty deposed hundreds of schools of thought, only respected Confucianism, and transformed the thoughts of the Han Dynasty people into After being imprisoned for three to four hundred years, the literati of the Han Dynasty could not write poetry. They could only write big poems praising the merits of the emperors and endless annotations of Confucian classics. Literature with real emotion and personality could not develop. It was not until the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty that the world fell apart, the situation was turbulent, and the political, ideological and cultural changes underwent major changes. Cao Cao, who was a great man and loved poetry, took the lead in rebelling against the Tao, bringing an air of freedom and liveliness to the literary world. He "established martial arts externally and literature internally", and gathered around him a large number of literati such as the "Seven Sons of Jian'an". They were all talented people in the world. They lived in an era that had experienced many wars, and their thoughts and feelings were often impassioned.