Bike would like to ask over there [1], which is a country that has lived for a long time [2].
Zheng Peng went out [3] and returned to the wild goose Hu Tian.
The desert is lonely and straight, and the long river sets the yen.
Every time Xiao Guan rides a horse, he is guarded by Ran Yan.
Make an appreciative comment
In the 25th year of Kaiyuan (737), Wang Wei was ordered to visit our mission in Xihe to express condolences to the soldiers. This poem was written by the poet on his way to Xihe. It's a travelogue, and the poet went to frontier fortress to perform a court mission. This poem describes what he saw and felt on this trip.
The first two sentences explain why and where this poem was written. "I want to ask about the border" is the purpose of the mission. "Bicycle" means that there are few followers and the ceremony specifications are not high. The poem reveals some helplessness in the chronicle description, which is triggered by the word "bicycle". The last sentence says that I have been to Juyan, a special place, which became the basis of the scenery described in the poem.
Three or four sentences contain multiple meanings. According to the sentence of "Returning to the Wild Goose", the time of this frontier is spring. When the grass matures, its branches and leaves dry, and its roots leave the earth and float with the wind, so it is called "Zheng Peng". This sentence is the poet's feeling of drifting by grass. When it comes to grass in ancient poems, most of them lament their own life experience. For example, Cao Zhi's Miscellaneous Poems (moreover, these three words are very emotional in a foreign country, which deepens the feeling of wandering. When you leave your hometown, your feelings are always complicated, whether it is because you have an inseparable home, or because you have a country that is difficult to vote for, or because you have a mission as silently written in this poem. Regarding the poet's trip this time, he has been in a bad mood, which is quite different from the prestige and demeanor when Han won the favor of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and sent it to the Southwest. The poet's frustration is the same.
Poetry is written in pairs. "Zheng Peng" is in direct proportion to the poet, and "Returning to the Wild Goose" is in contrast to the poet. In spring, it is a good place for Yanbei to return to its old nest to raise chicks. Facing the desert wind and sand, the poet drifted to the Great Wall like grass, and the situation was very different.
Five or six sentences describe the scenery, with vast territory and vigorous weather. This couplet consists of two paintings. The first picture is a solitary smoke in the desert. Being in the desert, what is presented to the poet is such a scene: the yellow sand is boundless and boundless. Looking up at the sky, there is not a cloud in the sky. I couldn't see the vegetation, which interrupted my trip. I can see a wisp of solitary smoke rising at the end of the sky. The poet's spirit is as follows. The trip is almost at the destination. The beacon smoke is a typical frontier fortress scene, and it is "solitary and straight", which highlights the atmosphere of frontier fortress. Judging from the composition of the picture, adding a column of white smoke between the blue sky and the yellow sand becomes the center of the whole picture, which is the finishing touch. Kunya: "Ancient fireworks, using wolf smoke, gather straight, although the wind is not oblique."
Another painting is a sunset on a long river. This is a close-up shot. The poet stood on the hill overlooking the winding river. Sometimes in the evening, the sunset hangs over the river and the river is sparkling. What a wonderful moment! The poet only refers to the word "circle", which accurately describes the scenery characteristics of the sunset on the river. As a result of choosing such a perspective, the red sun suddenly enters and exits in the long river, adding to the grandeur of the river, thus making the whole picture more magnificent.
The last two sentences end with something: knowing where you are at this moment, the poet's mission is about to be completed.
Although this poem is a chronicle, it is natural to express feelings or narrate exotic scenery and write it down all the way. The couplets of "Long River" and "Sunset" are excellent and have always been recited as famous sentences about scenery.
To annotate ...
[1] Ask the border guards: Express condolences to the border guards.
[2] Dependent country: the abbreviation of classical country refers to the envoy, here Wang Wei refers to himself. Juyan: There was a dependent country in the Eastern Han Dynasty. According to Yuanhe County Records, Juyanhai is in the northeast of Zhangye County in Ganzhou (now Inner Mongolia).
[3] Qian Peng: Pengcao flies with the wind.
[4] Xiao Guan: In today's southeast of Guyuan, Gansu Province, a patrolman on horseback is waiting to ride (reading Ji Ji).
[5] Duhu: the highest official of Duhu, the poem refers to our mission to Hexi. Ran Yan: The name of the mountain. Dou Xian, a chariot-riding general in the later Han Dynasty, defeated the Huns and made contributions by carving stones on Mount Yanran. The poem mentioned the victory of Hexi Army.
Translation:
Where does the light bus go? The mission is on the northwest border. It leaves the frontier like a grass drifting with the wind, and enters the frontier like a wild goose flying north. In the vast desert, the striking beacon smoke rises tall and straight, and the sun is round up and down the long Yellow River. When I arrived at the frontier, I only met the left-behind troops. It turns out that the defenders are at the front.
Comment and analysis
As a representative writer of the pastoral school in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei is also a frontier poet, and To the Frontier is one of his representative works of frontier poems.
The first couplet: "Bike wants to ask the side and return to China." It's a long journey to write that you will be ordered to patrol the border jam. "Bicycle", which is used here, has a sense of pride. "ask": ask and send an envoy; "Asking about the frontier" means sending envoys to patrol the frontier fortress. "Returning to China" is based on Hanshu: "In the autumn of the second year of Yuanshou, Kuntu, the evil king of Xiongnu, killed King Xiutu, and more than 40,000 soldiers were reduced, which was divided into five vassal states." Yan Shigu's note: "It belongs to Han by title". In Hanshu, it is similar to today's vassal state "Juyan": the county name set by the Han Dynasty is located in the southeast of Ejina Banner in Inner Mongolia today; Juyan County belonged to Zhangye County of Liangzhou, which was a vassal state at that time. (See "National History of Houhan County". ) this sentence is the first sentence, saying that the vassal state that you want to "win the border" will surpass Juyan in the Han dynasty. The implication is that there is a long way to go. The word "Guo" should be interpreted as "beyond". Zhu Dongrun's "Selected Works of Past Dynasties" notes this sentence as an inverted sentence: "Living in one country later", which is really wrong. Living in a country not far from Inner Mongolia today, and far from Liangzhou (Wuwei County, Gansu Province, when our envoys were stationed in Hexi), is too real and unreasonable. Interpreted as "beyond", it is closely related to the word "desire" in the previous sentence, but it is only a virtual reference before departure. It is only a long way to go to show the prestige of the Tang Dynasty empire through the allusions of the Han Dynasty. What's more, the couplet at the end of this poem only says that it went to Xiaoguan (now southeast of Guyuan County, Ningxia) and did not go through Juyan. Some people interpret "vassal state" as "classical state" (official name in Qin and Han dynasties, referring to diplomatic envoys), such as Selected Poems of Tang Dynasty compiled by China Academy of Social Sciences and Selected Poems of Tang Dynasty compiled by Zhang Yanjin. However, the contexts of the two poems are completely different. The first sentence of Wang's poem already has the words "riding" and "asking the side", which fully shows his status as an envoy. Wouldn't it be superfluous if the next sentence specifically stated that he was a "typical country"? Therefore, looking at the next sentence alone, the syntax is solid, but looking at the article of the first sentence is not appropriate.
Zhuan Xu: "Expropriate Peng, return the wild goose to the lake field". Write about the long journey from the mainland to the Great Wall and the mood of running around. "Peng": the name of grass, the stem is many feet high, the leaves are like willow leaves, and the flowers are small; Autumn is uprooted and the wind blows away, so it is also called the flying canopy. "Sign the canopy" describes the journey rushing like the wind blowing across the grass. Return to the Wild Goose; Wild geese that go in winter and return to the north in spring; The poet went to Ji Chun in March, so he used it as a metaphor. "Hutian": that is, the world of Hu people refers to ethnic minority areas outside the Great Wall. This couplet uses two metaphors together, and the momentum flies. Both of them are very appropriate: "Zheng Peng", followed by the first sentence "Bicycle", is light and simple, and naturally sick like Fei Peng; The wheels are rolling and the wind is speeding, and it is like a loose grass riding on the wind, rolling and flying. Between ontology and metaphor, there are both lightness and tumbling similarities. "Returning to Wild Goose" is not only a poet's spring outing, but also the next word "returning" (just as winter goes and spring comes, wild geese temporarily living in southern anxious to return fly to the north. He painted the poet vividly, because he was ordered by the king to go to the border, which can be described as "it is difficult for today's people to write" (in Mei, see Poems on June 1). "Going out of the Han Dynasty" and "Going into the lake field" are closely related to the "asking for the border" and "staying for a long time" of the first couplet, and they also show strict rules and regulations; Moreover, there is a line running through the Wanli trip, so the road between Han and Hu is long, the weather is vast, the difference between heaven and earth and so on. , are between the lines, thus revealing the profound meaning. The two sentences seem to be repetitive, but each has its own emphasis: the first sentence uses comparison alone, but highlights the speed of travel and focuses on the description of appearance; The next sentence contains a metaphor, but it highlights the morbid mood and focuses on the connection of the essence of God. The last sentence is about the earth, which makes people want to see Shan Ye. Writing the sky in the next sentence makes people like Wen Tianyu and geese sound long. Looking down and up, the plane is three-dimensional. As for words and sentences, there is no need to repeat them.
Necklace couplet: "The desert is lonely and straight, and the long river falls in yen". It is dedicated to the magnificent night outside the Great Wall. "Solitary smoke" refers to the wolf smoke rising from the beacon tower in the frontier fortress. In the Song Dynasty, Lu Dian's "Northern Cliff" said: "The ancient bonfire used wolf dung, and its smoke gathered straight, although the wind was not oblique." The above sentence "the desert is lonely and straight" refers to the vast desert. The next sentence, "The long river sets the yen", is written on the horizon, above the Yellow River, running thousands of miles, and the red sun is particularly round. This is a famous sentence through the ages. First of all, because the poet is good at capturing typical scenery and endowing it with distinctive personality, it makes people feel as if they are there and feel the unique scenery of the frontier fortress desert. Try to see the unexpected combination of desert, wolf smoke, long river and sunset. The wilderness beyond the Great Wall is desolate and lonely, without trees and gullies, but the warning is eye-catching, and the word "lonely" is not enough to describe its monotony and loneliness; The characteristic of shows that the wind is not inclined, so the word "straight" is naturally the most appropriate. If you are lonely and straight, the smoke is strong and straight. Although the Yellow River has nine bends, it can be seen in the desert, and the next word "long" feels the most real across the distance; The setting sun is round, but on the flat desert horizon, it looks bigger and rounder against the linear scenery. No wonder Xiangling once said in A Dream of Red Mansions: "How can smoke be straight?" The sun is naturally round. The word' straight' seems unreasonable, while the word' round' seems too vulgar. When you closed the book, you seemed to see this scene. You have to look for two more words of these two, but you can't find two words. "This passage is not only the most in-depth explanation of Yan Yu's poetic theory that' poetry is not interesting but unreasonable' in Canglang Poetry Talk." The long river falls in the yen. " From a distance, the long river looks like a belt, but just above it, it is a red sun that will not fall. The angle between them is that the line segment is tangent to the circle. The combination of plane and cylinder, line segment and circle constitutes a three-dimensional picture with clear lines and bright colors, which not only embodies the symmetrical beauty of geometric aesthetics; It also shows great strength and charm. It left a big blank, highlighting the characteristics of desert sky and vast land. Thirdly, it also has unique skills in color matching and dynamic and static interlacing. Plumes of black smoke rose from the yellow sand, and the long white river reflected the red sunset. The harmonious tone highlights the vastness, remoteness, grandeur and grandeur of the frontier fortress, while the solitary smoke rises in Ran Ran in the silent desert; Under the sky reflected by the setting sun, the long river rushes. Alternating motion and static make the whole picture slightly angry in desolation and magnificent in sparseness. The above three points may be regarded as the embodiment of "painting in poetry" in this poem.
Tail couplet: "Xiao Guan waits for the bus, while Yanran is guarded". Only when we got to Xiaoguan did we learn the news of the victory of the master ahead. "Xiaoguan": in the southeast of Guyuan County, Ningxia, it is the main traffic artery from Guanzhong to Saibei in Tang Dynasty. Waiting for the bus: Hou is a scout, a scout; "To Ride" is a scout riding a horse. "Duhu" is the supreme commander of the border town, in charge of border defense, administration and ethnic affairs. In the Tang Dynasty, there were six capital protection places: Anton, Annan, Anxi, Anbei, Shan Yu and Beiting. This is Cui, the envoy of Hexi. "Ran Yan" refers to Hangzhou-Ai Shan, which is within the territory of today's Mongols. Here you are. Knowing that Cui, the commander-in-chief, has won many battles in the front, the prestige of the Tang Empire has far exceeded the territory, just like Dou Xian, a general riding chariots in the Eastern Han Dynasty, defeated the Xiongnu and made meritorious deeds in the mountains. The end still uses Han Dynasty allusions, which are not true quotations, only to implicitly express the author's joy, pride and praise for the imperial power and military power, and to take care of the lyric borrowed by the first couplet.
The whole poem describes the whole process of "going to the frontier" and what I saw and heard on the way, but it doesn't seem to directly express the author's feelings, and its theme needs further discussion and research.
In the past, when people evaluated Wang Wei's frontier poems, they often listed this poem as "patriotic enthusiasm" and affirmed its ideological significance with great fanfare. For example, Chen Yixin's "Wang Wei" quoted this poem and commented: "Here, the poet's political and spiritual shadows have been swept away by the majestic and rough nature and passionate patriotic enthusiasm. Here, his youth shines again. This shows the positive side of his character. " (See Biography of Famous Writers in China, Volume II, published by Shandong Education Press, 1984, p. 172). As for some special works appreciation articles, the praise is even more vivid. For example, Zhang Yanjin's Selected Poems of Tang Dynasty (published by Tianjin People's Publishing House, 1979) summarizes the theme of this poem on page 46, saying: "This poem outlines the magnificent scenery of the frontier of the motherland by describing what the ambassador saw and heard, and expresses the reverence for the Tang Jun soldiers who guarded the frontier and served the country, and is full of passionate patriotic enthusiasm of the poet."
Is this conclusion correct? It is best to make clear the specific historical background before drawing a conclusion.
This time, Wang Wei was ordered to go to the frontier fortress as a monitoring station. The time is March of the 25th year of Kaiyuan. His task was to comfort Cui on behalf of the imperial court, and our envoy defeated Tubo in Hexi. This is no different from what critics say. The question is how did Cui achieve this "feat"? Does the essence of war belong to justice? However, critics seem to have not conducted a thorough study.
The Book of the Old Tang Dynasty, Xuanzong Ji, records that in the 25th year of Kaiyuan, my Hexi envoy Cui led people into the Tubo world from more than 2,000 miles south of Liangzhou, hoping to escape to Xilang Zuosu, Qinghai, where they met thieves and were beheaded by more than 2,000 people. Although Liu Xu has national prejudice and called Tubo a "thief", he still respects the facts. People have to ask: what is the reason for this invasion?
According to Zi Jian, in March of the 25th year of Kaiyuan, Hexi made Cui attack Tubo and break the Haixi of Qinghai. At the beginning, Yi Xi sent messengers to say that Tubo was asking for help. Xu said, "Since the two countries are friends, we are one family, so there is no need to deploy more troops to guard against the people plowing and grazing! Please stop. Xu said, "I will always be loyal, and I won't cheat you." . However, the court may not specialize in border affairs. If there are traitors fighting in the meantime, I will be caught off guard. There's nothing to regret! "I hope to escape and ask for it, but I punish the white dog for the alliance and go to the garrison; So Tibetan animal husbandry was abandoned. Tubo attacked Bolu in the west, and Bolu came to help and ordered Tubo to stop fighting. Tubo refused to obey the imperial edict and broke Bolu. He was very angry. He hoped to escape, asked Sun to teach him to play the imperial edict, and claimed that Tubo was unprepared. Please cover up and attack him, he will gain a lot. Zhao Huiqi was ordered to investigate the matter with him.
It turns out that as early as the eighteenth year of Kaiyuan, Tang and Tubo set up a boundary pillar in Chiling, agreeing not to invade each other. Since then, the two sides have lived in peace for six or seven years. Cui Yuan was a general who insisted on guarding the frontier and was unwilling to break his agreement with the Tibetan garrison commander. But his adjutant Sun Gui wanted to be greedy, so he encouraged Xuanzong to make a surprise attack. Although Xuanzong was overjoyed, he didn't want to break the alliance of Chiling, only letting eunuchs. However, Zhao lied about the imperial edict and let the soldiers. Cui was forced by your orders and could not disobey, so he went deep into the enemy country for more than two thousand miles and cut more than two thousand ranks. This war of aggression not only caused great disasters to the Tubo people, but also caused serious losses to the Tang Dynasty: both Xiao Bolu and Tubo were attached to it. (naturally, it is mainly the military pressure of Tubo. ) Tang's more than 20 vassals in the western regions, because of the diplomatic break-up of the Tang Dynasty, Tang became hostile to Tubo and turned to pay tribute to Tubo.
Wang Wei also wrote a poem entitled "Building a Fortress". The original note is: "It's time to make a suggestion and supervise the building of a fortress". The instructions were written at the same time as "building a fortress" Among them, Cui was praised as saying, "Hunting the pride of heaven outside Juyan, burning the wild grass in the sky ..... protecting a Qiang captain from obstacles, breaking the generals and crossing the Liao Dynasty at night. The Han family wants to give it a gift. Dare not find a kiss. " (Send Straight to Anxi) In the eighth year of Tianbao, Ge captured the insignificant battle of Shichengbao in Tubo at the expense of tens of thousands of soldiers. Poets such as Li Bai and Du Fu complained about this, while Wang Wei wrote How to Help Take the Stone Castle City Table, praising Xuanzong and Ge's "meritorious military service". This shows that.
We must study the background of the work, the writer's consistent position on such issues, and then analyze the theme of the work in detail, so as to draw a more realistic conclusion.
Therefore, it is obviously inappropriate to say that this poem shows the poet's "patriotic enthusiasm" on the whole. We can only say: "This poem describes the author's sense of responsibility and pride in being ordered to go to the frontier fortress, as well as the spectacular scenery of the desert outside the Great Wall, and praises the frontier defense work of the Tang Empire with vast territory, strong national strength and high prestige, but the author lacks a correct understanding of the nature of this war.
This poem has three artistic features: first, China couplets are quite skillful in describing the scenery, with Wan Li scale, large outline, vivid and natural artistic conception, which embodies the characteristics of "painting in poetry", as mentioned earlier. Second, although the narrative time and space span is large, it writes five laws, which are very hierarchical and have no sense of running accounts. Before the first couplet was written (starting from Beijing), after the neck couplet was written (in the desert at dusk), the tail couplet arrived at Xiaoguan. It's a bit comprehensive, echoing from beginning to end, and it's natural to follow closely. Third, the first and last couplets are all described with historical allusions of the Han Dynasty, and the theme is very implicit. Chinese and English couplets are rich in scenery, but only metaphors are used to imply feelings, which is also implicit and not explicit; The conclusion is only written in Xiaoguan, but it does not comfort the front line, leaving room for full imagination, which is the so-called "words are endless."