Sitting in the rain on the night of May 15th, I wrote this poem
Jing'an has been frail and sick since he was a child, and his heart is always filled with uneasiness and pain that are difficult for people to understand. In the spring of the 28th year of Guangxu's reign, he was introduced by Toyohachi Fujita, a Japanese, and went to Tokyo to study. He fell ill and returned home in April or May. He said in his "Automatic Preface": "My body was weak, my nature was melancholy, and the problems of life kept coming back to my mind day by day, so I decided to engage in the study of philosophy." In the autumn, he wrote a letter to his father, Wang Naiyu, about the recent past. The body is thin and weak, which is due to a chronic disease and cannot be cured suddenly by medical treatment. The poet has been living in the shadow of illness, and this poem expresses his state of mind at this time. In terms of artistic techniques, there are still traces of imitating Lu You. Written in the 29th year of Guangxu's reign.
The lake has been filled with rain and smoke for ten days, and my husband’s minor illness has not fully recovered. ①
The sound of the water is as rough as a proud general, and the sky is as desolate as a sick man. ②
The crazy clouds on the river are still easy to disperse, and the delusional thoughts in the chest are easy to get rid of. ③
Why should we go straight to the top of a thousand peaks to see the golden waves surging into the sky? ④
Notes ① Two sentences of "accumulating rain": The bitter rain that lasted for more than 20 days has just begun to collect, and the desolate smoke envelopes the lake. My husband has not fully recovered from his ailment. Jiuyu: Jiuyu. Jiexun: twenty days. Su: Rest, recover.
② Two sentences of "Sound of Water": The sound of running water after the rain is as strong and strong as an arrogant general, while the gloomy sky is as bleak and desolate as a sick person. Two sentences use metaphors of a fierce general and a sick man. Qian Zhongshu's "Tan Yi Lu" criticized him as "particularly similar to what Zhu Zhu criticized in his "Shu Jian Nan Ji Hou". "Xiao Jian" states that in the second language, "celestial phenomena and human feelings are intertwined into texts".
③ Two sentences of "On the River": The stagnant clouds on the river are easy to disperse, but the various delusions in people's minds are difficult to eliminate. Chiyun: a stagnant cloud. Lu You's poem "After the Ear Grain Sutra, it rains every day for ten days and sometimes there is a long sentence": "The stupid clouds do not disperse but still cover the guests, and the wild water enters the pond silently." Delusion: Buddhist language. False thoughts. Shi Zhi's "Essentials for Practicing Samatha and Meditation": "If the mind does not take it, the mind will cease to have false thoughts." Lu You's poem "There is a small garden of the Shen family in the south of Yuji Temple forty years ago. I tried to inscribe a small wall between the walls": "The false thoughts have been eliminated over the years. When it’s over, return the stick of incense to the Zen niche.”
④ Two sentences of “He Dang”: When can I go straight to the top of the thousand peaks and see the bright moon emerging from the blue sky? When: When. Jin Bo: It means moonlight. Point to the moon. Bai Juyi's poem "Waiting for the Moon on the Qin": "The jade tree has been in the wind for a long time, and the golden waves have been late in the mist." Taixu: a state of emptiness and silence. Point to the sky. "Xiao Jian" says: "When I wrote this poem, I was in my prime and full of imagination.
"Why go straight to the top of a thousand peaks and see the golden waves surging into the sky?" Why can't it be regarded as yearning for the highest ideal state in life? ”