The original text of "Sleepwalking Tianmu Yin Liu Farewell" is omitted
Translation
When guests from overseas talk about Yingzhou, (the sea) is misty and misty, (Yingzhou) is really difficult seek. People in Shaoxing talk about Tianmu Mountain, which can sometimes be seen in the clouds and mist. Tianmu Mountain towers into the clouds, connecting to the sky and stretching across the sky. The mountain is taller than the Five Sacred Mountains and covers Mount Chicheng. Tiantai Mountain is 10,000 feet high (10,000 is the correct version, 40,000 is a misinformation according to research) and 8,000 feet high. Facing Tianmu Mountain, it seems to be leaning toward the southeast and bowing down.
I sleepwalked to Shaoxing based on what the Yue people said. One night, I flew across the Mirror Lake reflected in the bright moon. The moonlight of Jinghu Lake shines on my shadow, sending me all the way to Shanxi River. The place where Xie Lingyun lived is still there, with clear lake water rippling and apes chirping. Wearing the wooden shoes specially made by Mr. Xie on his feet, he climbed the mountain road that went straight to the sky. (Going up) halfway up the mountain, you can see the sun rising from the sea, and the crow of roosters can be heard in the sky. The mountain road is winding and winding, and the direction is uncertain. I am obsessed with flowers and leaning on stones, and I don't realize that it is getting late. The bear is roaring, the dragon is roaring, the spring in the rock is vibrating, making the forest tremble and the mountain peaks tremble. The clouds were dark, as if it was about to rain, and the water ripples stirred up smoke. Lightning flashed, thunder roared, and the mountain seemed to collapse. The stone door of the Immortal Mansion opened from the middle with a clang. It was dark and the bottom of the cave could not be seen. The sun and moon illuminated the palace made of gold and silver. Using rainbows as clothes and winds as horses to ride on, the gods in the clouds came down one after another. The tiger plays the harp and the luan pulls the cart. The immortals were lined up in rows, as numerous as a dense mass. Suddenly he was startled, and he suddenly woke up and let out a long sigh. When I woke up, there was only the pillow beside me, and all the smoke and clouds I had seen in my dream had disappeared.
The same is true for the happiness in the world. Since ancient times, everything has gone away like water flowing in the east. I will tell you when I will come back. I will let the white deer graze among the green cliffs for the time being. When I go sightseeing, I will ride on it to visit the Mingchuan Mountains. How could I grovel and serve the powerful? This made me feel depressed and extremely uncomfortable!
Writing background
Li Bai had the ambition to help the world in his early years, but he disdained to enter the official career through the imperial examination, and hoped to become a prime minister from a commoner. Therefore, he traveled around the country and made friends with celebrities to build his reputation. In the first year of Tianbao (742) of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, Li Bai's friend Taoist Wu Yun recommended Li Bai to Xuanzong, and Xuanzong summoned him to Chang'an. Li Bai had great hopes for this trip to Chang'an. In his farewell poem to his wife, "Farewell to the Expedition," he wrote: "If you wear the golden seal when you return, you will never see Su Qin not getting off the plane." When Li Bai first arrived in Chang'an, There was a brief period of pride, but he was proud and refused to join the ranks of the powerful. He also ordered Xuanzong's favored minister Gao Lishi to take off his boots when he was drunk, which offended the powerful and even Xuanzong was dissatisfied with him. He only lived in Chang'an for more than a year before he was given a reward and released. His dream of being a commoner and becoming a prime minister was completely shattered. After Li Bai left Chang'an, he first went to Luoyang to meet Du Fu and formed a friendship. Later, they traveled to the hometown of Liang and Song Dynasties. At this time, Gao Shi also came to meet him, and the three of them traveled to Shandong together. Not long after arriving in Yanzhou, Du Fu went west to Chang'an, and Li Bai went south to Kuaiji (Shaoxing). This poem was written before he left. Title: "Yin" is a form of ancient poetry. The content is mostly sad and lamentable. The form is free, lively and eclectic. "Dream Traveling to Tianmu Mountain and Leaving Farewell" is to write a poem about the trip to Tianmu Mountain in a dream and leave it to Donglu's friends to say goodbye.
Explanation
This is a poem about dreams and a poem about traveling to immortals. The poem is about a dream trip to the famous mountains of Xianfu, with unique meaning, precise conception and majestic artistic conception. The emotions are deep and intense, and the changes are unpredictable in the ethereal description, which embodies the reality of life. Although bizarre, it is not contrived. The content is rich and tortuous, the image is brilliant and smooth, and it is full of romanticism. In form, it is mixed with mixed words and uses Sao style. It is not bound by laws and is liberated from the system. Written by hand, the pen moves according to the mood, and the poetry is full of talent. It can be called a masterpiece.
Appreciation
The first few lines of the poem are the reasons for the dream. The poet said: People who came back from the sea talked about Yingzhou, which was separated by the vast sea, and it was really difficult to find it; people from Yue talked about Tianmu Mountain, which sometimes disappeared and appeared in the clouds, and maybe it could still be seen. "Yingzhou" is a sacred mountain. According to ancient Chinese legend, there are three sacred mountains in the East China Sea, one is called Penglai, one is called Fangzhang, and the other is called Yingzhou. Yue, now in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. "Faith" should be spoken of "really" here.
First of all, "Haike talks about Yingzhou, and it is hard to find a letter in the misty waves." This line is a foil, which makes the poem have a magical color from the beginning; The light is extinguished or visible." Let's get to the point. The following is a description of the height of Tianmu Mountain: "The sky extends to the sky, and the five mountains cover Chicheng. The rooftop is 18,000 feet long, and it is about to fall to the southeast." The poet first compared Tianmu Mountain with the sky, and saw only The mountain lies across the clouds in the sky, as if connected with the sky. Comparing Tianmu Mountain with other mountains, it not only surpasses the Five Sacred Mountains, which are famous for their height, but also towers over the nearby Akagi. "Five Mountains" refers to the five famous mountains in my country, Taishan, Huashan, Hengshan, Songshan and Hengshan. "Akagi" is the name of a mountain in what is now Tiantaibei, Zhejiang. Because the mountain is lined with red rocks, it looks like a red city from a distance, so it is called Akagi. Then the poet changed his perspective and focused on Tiantai Mountain. He said that although Tiantai Mountain in the southeast of Laoshan Mountain was very high that day, it was so short that it seemed to collapse in front of Tianmu Mountain. The "Tiantai 18,000 feet" here just means that Tiantai Mountain is very high, not that it is actually 18,000 feet.
Here, the poet did not directly say how high Tianmu Mountain is, but used comparison and foil techniques to describe its towering appearance vividly, as if it was tall and straight, appearing and disappearing in the clouds. The Tianmu Mountain is right in front of our eyes, arousing our fantasies, and we follow the poet step by step towards the dreamy realm.
Starting from the sentence "I want to dream of Wuyue", the poet enters the dream state. The section from here to "The Lost Haze" is all about dreams, which is the main part of the poem.
The poet dreamed that he flew over Jinghu Lake and then to Yanxi River overnight under the light of the lake and moonlight. He saw: The place where Xie Gongtou stayed is still there, with the rippling Lushui River and the crow of apes, and the scenery is very elegant. "Xie Gong" refers to Xie Lingyun, a poet of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Xie Lingyun likes to travel to mountains and is famous for writing landscape poems. He has visited almost all famous mountains in Zhejiang. When Xie Lingyun climbed Tianmu Mountain, he once stayed in Shanxi, and left a poem that "I stayed in Shanzhong in the dark, and climbed to Tianmucen tomorrow".
Then, Li Bai wrote: "Wearing Xie Gong's clogs, we climbed up the Qingyun Ladder. Half of the wall saw the sea and the sun, and we heard roosters in the sky." The "Xie Gong's clogs" here refer to the ones specially made by Xie Lingyun. A type of wooden shoe used for mountaineering. There are wooden teeth on the sole. The front teeth are removed when going up the mountain, and the back teeth are removed when going down the mountain. This saves effort when walking. "Celestial Chicken" is a kind of divine chicken in ancient legends. It is said that it lives in a big tree on the top of Taodu Mountain in the East China Sea. When the Heavenly Chicken crows, all the chickens in the world will crow with it. The poet said: He wore the wooden clogs specially made by Xie Lingyun and climbed up the stone steps leading to Qingyun in Tianmu Mountain. Standing on the top of the mountain, I saw the red sun of the East China Sea emerging from the mountainside and heard the crow of roosters in the sky. In this way, from flying across Jinghu Lake to climbing to the top of Tianmu Mountain, the scenery changes step by step, the dream unfolds step by step, and the color of fantasy intensifies step by step, leading to the climax of fantasy. A mysterious and bizarre fairy world unfolds on the front: "Thousands of rocks and ravines, the road is uncertain, and the lost flowers leaning on the rocks are suddenly dim. Bears roar and dragons sing in Yinyan Spring, and chestnut trees are deep in the forest. The clouds are green and it's like rain, and the water is rippling. Smoke comes from the air." These sentences mean that the road is winding and has no certain direction among the thousands of twists and turns of rocks. Leaning on the rocks, fascinated by the colorful mountain flowers, the sky suddenly became dark. The bears were roaring and the dragons were roaring, making the rocks, springs, deep forests, and mountains tremble. The weather also changed drastically. The sky was green and it looked like it was going to rain, and smoke rose from the misty water. Written vividly and vividly. The syntax of Chu Ci is used here, which not only changes the rhythm, but also reminds readers of the style of Chu Ci, adding a romantic color.
Suddenly the scene changed again: in front of us, there were thunderbolts and lightning, the mountains cracked, and with a roar, the stone door leading to the Immortal Cave opened, revealing in the boundless blue and transparent sky. The gold and silver pavilion illuminated by the sun and moon. Let's take a look: "Lieqi was struck by thunderbolts, and the hills collapsed. The stone door of the cave suddenly opened in the middle. The blue sky was vast and bottomless, and the sun and moon shone on the gold and silver platform." Here the author uses four four-character sentences in succession: "Lieqi" "Thunderbolt, the mountains collapsed. The stone door of the cave suddenly opened." The rhythm is uneven and sonorous, fully describing the majestic momentum of the opening of the heavenly gate. "Liequ" is lightning.
Before the Heavenly Gate opened, the poet tried his best to describe the dim and trance-like colors and earth-shattering sounds. But after the Heavenly Gate opened, the scene became glorious and magnificent. In this way, the former plays a foil role in the latter, forming a wave from low to high in the momentum of the poem. A magical background is rendered for the appearance of the gods.
Then, the gods appeared: "Ni is the clothes, the wind is the horse, the kings of the clouds are coming and going one after another. The tigers and drums are playing, the luan is returning to the carriage, and the immortals are lined up like hemp." Many gods and immortals One after another came out, wearing clothes made of rainbows, riding on the wind as horses, tigers were playing music, and phoenixes were pulling carts. When the dream is written here, it has reached its highest point. The poet's fantasy is really like "a horse in the sky", running freely and freely.
Reading these charming poems is like watching a colorful and unpredictable fairy tale film, which is so charming and fascinating. It makes people fascinated after reading it, as if they are in a fairy world.
However, good dreams do not last long: "Suddenly, my soul palpitates with my soul, and I suddenly wake up and sigh. I only feel that the pillow mat of time has lost the usual haze." I woke up from the dream with a frightened heart, and with a long sigh, I pillowed the mat. Still, where did the smoke and clouds just now go? The poem suddenly stops at the highest point of the dream, and turns sharply, from fantasy to reality, as if the music suddenly switches from high notes resounding in the sky to low notes, making the listener's mood calm down. . When reading poetry, especially ancient poetry, you should pay attention to the ups and downs of the whole poem.
The poet's despair after waking up from the dream leads to the last paragraph. This paragraph switches from dream writing to realism, revealing the central meaning of the whole poem. This poem is used to leave something else, to tell the friends who stay in Ludong why they want to go to Tianmu Mountain to seek immortality and Taoism. This section is the main theme of the whole poem. In just a few lines, it expresses the poet's inner contradictions and bursts out the poet's strong emotions. He believed that, just like this sleepwalking, enjoying life in the world always brings great joy and sorrow. All things in the past are always fleeting like flowing water. It is better to ride a white deer to famous mountains to find immortals and visit Taoism. This sentimental mood and escapist attitude toward life reflects the negative side of Li Bai's thoughts. It is understandable that intellectuals belonging to the feudal ruling class in feudal society have a negative attitude towards life when they suffer political setbacks.
However, when we evaluate Li Bai's thoughts expressed in this poem, we must not only see this side, but also the other, stronger side. In Li Bai's thoughts, what accompanies "the impermanence of life" is not surrender to life or collaborating with powerful ministers and nobles, but contempt and resistance to the upper-class rulers. His visit to immortals was not to satisfy his endless greed like the First Emperor of Qin and Emperor Wu of Han, but to express his disdain and uncompromising attitude towards powerful officials and nobles in a way far away from reality. Just as the conclusion of the poem says: "I can bow my head and bend down to serve the powerful, which makes me unhappy!" How can I bow my head and bend down to serve those powerful people, making me unhappy all day long? From here, we can see that the poet's thoughts are tortuous and complicated. But its main aspect is positive and rebellious.
Let’s briefly talk about the artistic style of this poem.
Li Bai is an outstanding representative of the romantic school among ancient Chinese poets. This poem is full of romanticism in terms of conception and expression techniques. It completely breaks through the cliché of farewell and farewell poems in general, and instead uses farewell to express one's political attitude of not being interested in the powerful. When narrating, it did not adopt a straightforward approach, but was conceived around a dream about immortality, and it was not until the end that it came to the main theme of not caring about the powerful. This kind of conception opens up a broad field for the poet's fantasy. In line with this idea, he boldly uses exaggerated techniques to describe the fantasy world and create fantasy images. In this regard, the poet showed extraordinary talent. He wrote about roaring bears and dragons, thunder and lightning, castles in the air, and colorful horses... He wrote the fantasy scenes vividly, which is really dazzling and thrilling. Du Fu said that Li Bai's "writing was shocked by the storm, and his poems became weeping ghosts and gods", which was a very appropriate comment. It should also be noted that the author does not write fantasy for the sake of writing fantasy, but to serve the purpose of "not being a favor to the powerful". When he wrote about the beauty of the fairy world, it was a reflection of the ugliness of the real world; when he wrote about himself wanting to travel to fairyland, he expressed his hatred of the real world and his unwillingness to join the ranks of powerful officials and nobles. The theme of not being a powerful person is like a spotlight, illuminating the whole poem, and fantasy becomes vivid in this light. Otherwise, even if it is extravagant a hundred times, it will not emit a moving brilliance.
This poem is an ancient poem with seven characters. Seven-character ancient poetry is a type of old-style poetry that was formed before the Tang Dynasty. By the Tang Dynasty, both ideological content and artistic form had been fully developed. This style of poetry is mainly composed of seven words, but it can also use long or short sentences. Use rhyme, you can rhyme to the end, or you can change rhyme in the middle. There is no limit to the number of sentences, and the length can be long or short. Among old-style poems, it is less constrained by meter. Li Bai was very good at writing seven-character ancient poems. This is probably due to the smooth and natural characteristics of this poetry style, which is more suitable for expressing his heroic and unrestrained thoughts and feelings. As far as this poem is concerned, the changes in syntax are extremely creative. Although seven-character sentences are used as the basic tone, four-character, five-character, six-character, and nine-character sentences are also used alternately. Such flexible and diverse syntax is used in a poem, but it does not feel forced and cohesive, but integrated and very coordinated. This is because the whole poem is run through by a thread of emotional development. As the emotions rise and fall, the verses may be longer or shorter, and the beat may be rapid or slow. Some people say that Li Bai's poems "are ever-changing, like beads on a disk, but they never go beyond the rules." This is very appropriate. (Liu Guozheng)
This poem is extremely romantic in conception and expression. In order to show his attitude of not being interested in the powerful by saying farewell, the poet conceived a sleepwalking scene and created vivid images in dreams. This can easily remind people of the style of Chu Ci and increase the romance of the poem. ism color. Comparing these with the ugly reality at that time, I returned to the main purpose of not caring about the powerful, and it was almost seamless. This unique idea uses metaphor, contrast, foil, exaggeration, association and other techniques to make the fantasy things vivid and thrilling. No wonder Du Fu commented on this poem that "when the pen falls, the wind and rain startle, the poem becomes the weeping ghosts and gods."
Mapping
Tianmu Mountain actually reflects the imperial court. The second paragraph starts from mountain climbing and describes the beauty and magnificence of Tianmu Mountain to express his dependence and favor on the imperial court when he was promoted in the early days after entering the imperial court. The three characters "Suddenly Dark" indicate that one is deeply involved. Have been deceived from seeing the real facts. Then suddenly "the bears roared and the dragons sang in the Yinyan Spring, and the chestnuts in the deep woods shocked the tops of the mountains." It means that he has begun to offend the powerful. Later, "thunderbolts struck the ranks, and the mountains collapsed" reflected his fall from grace. And I have been struggling with this kind of "gain" and "loss". After reaching the state of enlightenment, "suddenly my soul palpitated and my soul moved, and I suddenly started to sigh." - Only then did I realize that all of this was just a dream.
The last paragraph expresses his disdain for the dark court and his free and easy character. The first sentence expresses the slightly negative thought that things in the world are unpredictable. The second sentence expresses the poet's desire to hide away from the dark and dirty real world. And "An Neng can bend his eyebrows and bend his waist to serve the powerful, which makes me unhappy!" He vented the depression of Chang'an for three years. The pen that flew from the sky illuminates the theme of the whole poem.
Theme: contempt for the powerful, dissatisfied with reality, and unyielding rebellion against the world. He is eager to help the people, stabilize the country, and assist the wise king in governing the world