When hard work comes,
There are few stars around.
The mountains and rivers are broken and the clouds are surging.
Life experiences ups and downs.
Fear. The beach says fear,
There is a sigh in the ocean.
People who have never died since ancient times,
Take the heart of Dan and follow history.
Modern translation
Looking back on my early experience of being an official through the imperial examination,
Now the war has subsided for four weeks.
This country is in danger,
How can a person take a bath be described as duckweed?
Fear of the fiasco at the beach still scares me.
It's a pity that I am trapped in the ocean below zero, and I am very lonely.
Who can live forever since ancient times,
I want to leave a patriotic heart to reflect on history.
Brief introduction of the author
Wen Tianxiang (1236- 1283), a patriotic poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, was born in Wenshan and Luling (now Ji 'an, Jiangxi). At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, he tried his best to resist the enemy, was defeated and captured, never succumbed to the intimidation and inducement of the Yuan people, and finally died calmly. In his later poems, he mainly described the difficulties in fighting the Yuan Army.
To annotate ...
① Lingdingyang: In the Pearl River estuary south of Zhongshan, Guangdong Province, Wen Tianxiang was captured by the Yuan Army in December of the first year of Zhao Minxiang's prosperity (1278) at the end of the Song Dynasty and imprisoned in a Lingdingyang warship. In the first month of the following year, Yuan Marshal Zhang Hongfan attacked Cliff Mountain, forcing Wen Tianxiang to hand over Zhang Shijie, the commander-in-chief who stuck to Cliff Mountain. So, Wen Tianxiang wrote this poem. From the beginning, it refers to officials who passed the imperial examination because they are proficient in a certain classic. Wen Tianxiang was the number one scholar in Baodu, Song Lizong for four years (1256). 3 aloof: aloof means being abandoned and sparse. In this case, song and yuan war is coming to an end. The Southern Song Dynasty died in this year (1279), and at this time it was unable to resist. So Zhou Xing is used to refer to twelve years. The four stars are forty-eight years. Wen Tianxiang was forty-four years old when he wrote this poem, and the surrounding stars are used as integers here. The old notes mostly refer to the four years since Wen Tianxiang 1275 wrote to the King of Qin. In fact, the first two sentences of this poem should be understood together, which is the poet's review of his own life experience. (4) The sentence of "mountains and rivers" refers to the irretrievable national situation and personal destiny. As one of the eighteen beaches of Ganjiang River, in the second year of Zong Jingyan of Song Rui (1277), Wen Tianxiang defeated Jiangxi and retreated to Fujian through the beach of fear. ⑥ "Zero Ding" sentence: lamenting the current situation and one's own courage and isolation. After the poet was captured, he was imprisoned on the warship "Dingdingyang". ⑥ History: The history before the invention of paper.
Make an appreciative comment
This poem was written after Wen Tianxiang was captured. The poet recalled his life in a sentence or two, but due to the limitation of space, it was written as two things, one was to be an official and the other was to lose the battle. The four sentences in the middle are closely related to "fighting and death", which clearly expresses the author's understanding of the current situation: the country is in turmoil, the tragedy of national subjugation is inevitable, and personal fate is even more out of the question. However, in the face of such great changes, the poet is not thinking about individuals. However, I deeply regret that I failed to win a military victory in air navigation two years ago, thus turning the situation around. At the same time, I feel particularly sad for my isolation. Reading between the lines, it is not difficult to feel the great pain of the author's ruin and remorse. The last two sentences are a poet's choice of his own destiny without hesitation. This makes the previous feelings and grievances add a tragic and passionate strength and self-confidence, showing uniqueness.