Moon in the Xijiang River·Walking on the yellow sand at night ① in the middle of the road
Xin Qiji
The bright moon leaves the branches frightened by magpies ②, and the breeze sings the cicadas in the middle of the night. The fragrance of rice flowers tells of a good harvest, and the sound of frogs sounds.
Seven or eight stars are outside the sky, and two or three points of rain are in front of the mountain. In the old days, by the woods of Maodian Society, I suddenly saw a bridge over a stream when the road turned.
Notes
Notes
Notes
①: Huangsha: Huangsha Ridge, in the west of Shangrao, Jiangxi.
②: "Mingyue" sentence: Su Shi's poem "Second Rhyme Jiang Yingshu": "The bright moon frightens the magpies but has not settled on the branches." Other branches: slanting branches.
③: Society: Earth Temple. In ancient times, there was a community tree in the village, which was used as a place for worshiping gods, so it was called community forest.
Appreciation
Appreciation
[Appreciation]
This poem was written by Xin Qiji when he was demoted and lived in Jiangxi. Deliberately describe the night view of Huangshaling. The moon is bright, the breeze is clear, the stars are sparse and the rain is sparse, the magpies are frightened, the cicadas are chirping, the rice flowers are fragrant, and the frogs are singing. The words describe the mountain village scenery on a summer night from three aspects: vision, hearing and smell. The scenes blend together beautifully and picturesquely. Quiet, natural, vivid and lifelike. It is a masterpiece of Song poetry with the theme of rural life.
The writer writes about the scenery he saw and the emotions he felt while walking in the countryside late at night. After reading the first half of the film, you must feel the excitement in the silence. The word "farewell" in the sentence "The bright moon leaves the branches and scares the magpies" is a verb, which means that when the moon sets, it bids farewell to the branches and stirs up the magpies on the branches. This sentence is a kind of very detailed realism. Only those who have seen this scene late at night will understand the beauty of this poem. Black magpies are extremely sensitive to light. They start to stir up during the solar eclipse, fly around and cry, and they do the same when the moon sets. This sentence actually means "the moon falls and the crows cry" ("Mooring at the Maple Bridge" by Zhang Ji of the Tang Dynasty), but it is more vivid than "the moon falls and the crows cry". The key lies in the word "bie", which implies that the magpie Hezhi means reluctant to leave the bright moon. Magpies often cry, so here we don't say "crow" but "crow itself". In the literal sense, it can also avoid the dull result of stacking up with "singing cicada". The two sentences "rice flower" indicate that the season is summer. Among the whole poem, these two sentences have the most vivid and profound impression. They vividly describe the lively atmosphere and joyful mood in the rural summer nights. This can be said to be a typical environment. Each of these four sentences has a sound (magpie, cicada, human voice, frog), but each sentence also contains the silence of the middle of the night. Both flavors are reflected in the night traveler's feelings, and his mood is very happy. The situation changed a bit in the second half of the film. The few stars in the sky indicated that time had progressed. It was clearly the middle of the night and almost dawn. The drizzle in front of the mountain is a threat to night travelers. It is a wave on the plain, and one can imagine the anxiety of night travelers. With this twist, the closing two sentences are made more powerful. "In the old days, by the woods of Maodian Society, when I turned around and suddenly saw you at the head of the stream," is an inverted sentence. Inversion expresses the surprise of "suddenly seeing". While I was worrying about the rain, I walked past the head of the creek, and when the road turned around, I suddenly saw the thatched cottage where I had rested by the forest. The happiness at this time can be compared with the two lines of the poem "Mountains and rivers are full of doubts and there is no way out, and there is a village with dark willows and bright flowers" (Lu You's "Visiting Shanxi Village"). The title of the poem was originally "Walking on the Yellow Sand Road at Night". The first six of the first eight sentences are all about scenery, and only the last two sentences show people walking at night. These two sentences serve as a reflection on the whole poem, so each sentence is about a night walk. Hiding the edge first, hitting the nail on the head at the end, and the finishing touch is there. This technique is worth learning.
This poem has a vivid and concrete atmosphere (usually called scene) and expresses a kind of intimately felt interest (usually called emotion). The whole of this blend of scenes is an artistic image. The power of an artistic image does not lie in the number of plots used, but in whether those plots are typical and can serve as a base for drawing parallels, extending in all directions and penetrating into the deepest and most subtle aspects of real life. If it could do this, it would be both full of words and infinite of meaning. When we say that Chinese poetry uses refined language, we refer to this broad representation and rich suggestiveness.