Meng Haoran sent many poems to Zhang Jiuling, including a famous poem "Prime Minister Zhang is in Jingmen", which is very direct at the beginning, saying, "* * * Divide the state of Jing, recruit talents and be ashamed of scholars", which means to give me an official position quickly.
However, Meng Haoran had no official career in his life, and the closest to being an official offended the emperor. We often say that Meng Haoran is an idyllic poet and praise him as a hermit, indifferent to fame and fortune. Who really wants to be a hermit? It's not that he doesn't want to be famous, but that he can't get fame. This can be seen from these two poems by Meng Haoran.
Message from Dongting Lake to Premier Zhang.
The autumn water rises and almost blends with the shore, mixing water and sky with the sky.
Ozawa's water vapor transpiration on the cloud soil is white, and the waves seem to shake the whole Yueyang.
I'm going to cross the water to find a boat and paddle. It's a shame to return home in the sacred age.
When I sit here and watch a fisherman throw a hook, I envy his catch in vain.
Ji Yun in Qing Dynasty commented on this poem. He said, "This Xiangyang work is recommended ... The first half looks at Dongting Lake, and the second half adds Zhang Xianggong. I only look at Dongting Lake to show my heart, and I don't show any signs of begging."
Then, according to Ji Yun, we divide this poem into two parts to see what Meng Haoran wrote.
Qianbei
The autumn water rises and almost blends with the shore, mixing water and sky with the sky. Ozawa's water vapor transpiration on the cloud soil is white, and the waves seem to shake the whole Yueyang.
These four sentences mainly talk about the scene of Dongting Lake. The sky of the lake is high, the clouds are light and boundless, the water is bright and magnificent, and it is a steaming and breathtaking spectacle. The most famous words in these four poems are "steaming" and "shaking". On the surface, as Ji Yun said, it's just a distant view of Dongting Lake, but these two words are magnificent, magnificent, and magnificent scene is Meng Haoran. He is talented, he reads sage books, and he is ambitious!
The second half
I'm going to cross the water to find a boat and paddle. It's a shame to return home in the sacred age. When I sit here and watch a fisherman throw a hook, I envy his catch in vain.
Meng Haoran expressed his feelings about the scenery and uttered a sigh of "I want to cross, but I can't find a boat". I want to cross the river without a boat. Isn't that why Meng Haoran wanted to be an official but no one introduced him? It is self-evident that he wrote this poem to Zhang Jiuling. The last sentence "I'm ashamed to be more idle than you politicians" is Meng Haoran's inner complaint. Why did he stay here? Because it was the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, the country was rich and the people were safe. Why shame? Because I was born in peace and prosperity, I am ashamed to live at home.
Then, Meng Haoran used an angler to compare people in power. Here, of course, refers to Zhang Jiuling, using the classic of Huainanzi:
It's better to retreat and form a net.
Yulin, and you, Premier Zhang, are my only hopes. Borrow this old saying to mean that I want to do something, but no one has introduced me, so it is "nothing", and it is also to further express my hope for help.
summary
For a long time, people's comments on this poem, just like Ji Yun's, said that the beauty of this poem lies in "showing no traces of begging", but in the Qing Dynasty, Shen Deqian put forward a more interesting point of view. He said: "Reading this poem tells us that Xiangyang is not willing to be a hermit." As I said before, Meng Haoran didn't become a hermit voluntarily, but failed to gain fame and can only be a hermit. If you know Meng Haoran better, you will know that Shen Deqian's view is the most.