"Moonlight over the Lotus Pond" by Zhu Ziqing
Moonlight over the Lotus Pond
I have been feeling quite uneasy these days. Tonight, I was sitting in the yard enjoying the cool air, and suddenly I thought of the lotus pond I walked past every day. It must look different under the light of the full moon. The moon was gradually rising, and the laughter of the children on the road outside the wall could no longer be heard; my wife was patting Run'er in the house and humming a lullaby in a daze. I quietly put on my coat, closed the door and went out.
Along the lotus pond, there is a small winding cinder road. This is a secluded road; few people walk it during the day, and it is even more lonely at night. There are many trees growing on all sides of the lotus pond, full of lush green leaves. On one side of the road are some willows and some trees whose names I don’t know. On a moonless night, the road was eerie and a little scary. Tonight is very good, although the moonlight is still faint.
I was alone on the road, walking with my hands behind my back. This world seemed to belong to me; I also seemed to have transcended my ordinary self and entered another world. I love being lively and calm; I love being in groups and being alone. Like tonight, a person can think about anything and think about nothing alone under this vast moonlight, and he feels like a free person. Whatever you must do or say during the day can be ignored now. This is the beauty of being alone. Let me just enjoy the boundless lotus fragrance and moonlight.
On the surface of the winding and twisting lotus pond, one could see fields of leaves. The leaves are high out of the water, like the skirts of a graceful dancer. Among the layers of leaves, white flowers are dotted here and there, some are open in bloom, some are holding their petals shyly; just like individual bright pearls, or like stars in the blue sky, It's like a beauty who just got out of the bath. The breeze passed by, sending wisps of fragrance, like the faint singing from a tall building in the distance. At this time, the leaves and flowers also trembled, like lightning, spreading across the lotus pond. The leaves were densely packed side by side, and there seemed to be a ripple of solid green under the leaves, which was covered by the flowing water. The wind is beautiful.
The moonlight flows quietly over the leaves and flowers, and the thin green mist floats in the lotus pond, as if the leaves and flowers have been washed in milk. It's like a dream covered with gauze. Although it is a full moon, there is a layer of light clouds in the sky, so it cannot shine brightly; but I think this is just the right thing - a sound sleep is essential, and a nap has its own flavor because of the moonlight. As the light shines over, the dense bushes at high places cast jagged and mottled black shadows, as steep as ghosts; the sparse shadows of the curved willows seem to be painted on lotus leaves. The moonlight in the pond It's not uniform; but the light and shadow have a harmonious melody, like the famous music played by the Fan Wuling.
There are trees all around the lotus pond, high and low, and most of them will be willows. The lotus pond is heavily surrounded; only a few gaps are left on the side of the path, as if left specially for the moonlight. The color of the trees is gloomy, and it looks like a cloud of smoke at first glance; but the beauty of the willows is also reflected in the smoke. You can tell. There is a distant mountain faintly visible on the treetops. There are only a few street lights leaking through the gaps in the trees. It is the most lively thing at this time. I heard the cicadas chirping on the trees and the frogs in the water; but the excitement was theirs, and I didn’t hear anything.
Suddenly I remembered that picking lotus is an old custom in Jiangnan. There was, and it was most popular during the Six Dynasties; we can roughly know from the poems that the lotus collectors were young women. They went in small boats and sang erotic songs. Needless to say, there were also lotus collectors. People. It was a lively season, and it was also a romantic season. Emperor Liang Yuan said it well in "Poetry on Picking Lotus":
So the enchanting girl Yuàn is willing to go boating; yì) The head Xu returns, and the feather cup is passed; He wore his clothes and smiled lightly, but he was afraid of capsizing the boat and pulled his skirt back.
This shows how fun it was at that time, but it is a pity that we are no longer happy to enjoy it.
< p> Then I remembered the sentence in "Xizhou Song":In autumn, the lotus flowers are more than people's heads in the South Pond; I lower my head to pick up the lotus seeds, which are as clear as water.
If it is tonight. There are lotus pickers, and the lotus flowers here are considered "outstanding"; just a few shadows of running water are not enough. This makes me miss Jiangnan after all. ——Thinking like this, I suddenly raised my head and found that I was already in front of my own door. I pushed the door gently and went in. There was no sound. My wife had been asleep for a long time.
July 1927, Tsinghua University, Beijing.
Appreciation:
The title of the article "Moonlight over the Lotus Pond" clearly states that the article mainly writes about "Lotus Pond" and "Moonlight". There are many poems about the lotus pond in the past dynasties, and even more about the moonlight. But the "lotus pond" and "moonlight" in this article are definitely different from other "lotus ponds" and "moonlight". The lotus pond here will not be like "the lotus leaves touching the sky are infinitely green, and the lotus flowers reflecting the sun will be uniquely red"; the moonlight here cannot be like "the jade curtain cannot be rolled out, and the clothes can be smashed and brushed on the anvil." The lotus pond here is "the lotus pond under the moon", and the moonlight here is "the moonlight of the lotus pond". Precisely because the work clearly highlights the characteristics of the scenery and vividly and truly reproduces the specific scenery in a specific environment, the sincere feelings to be expressed in the article have reliable sustenance and make readers feel real and cordial.
Let’s first look at the description of the lotus leaf: “The leaves are out of the water very high, like the skirts of a graceful dancer.” If we put aside the specific environment, would it be okay to use “green jade plate” as a metaphor for the lotus leaf? ? Of course it works, and it’s quite expressive. This description not only depicts the color of the lotus leaf, but also expresses the quality of the lotus leaf, and also imitates the shape of the lotus leaf. However, this metaphor can only be used in the morning glow, sunset, or drizzle, never in the light moonlight. It is difficult to distinguish color at night, and it is even more difficult to distinguish quality. The lotus leaves seen in the moonlight are mainly due to their naturally stretched shape, which is very similar to the skirt, and gives the leaves a dynamic beauty.
When writing about lotus, the original text uses three metaphors: "Among the layers of leaves, there are scattered white flowers, some blooming gracefully, some shyly blooming; just like a flower. A pearl is like a star in a blue sky, or like a beauty just out of the bath. "The lotus is delicate and luxurious, and can be compared to beauty." In the poem "Lotus" by Song Dynasty poet Yang Chengli, there is a sentence that "just like the three thousand women in the Han Dynasty, half with heavy makeup and half with light makeup". In the hazy moonlight, the lotus is regarded as a beauty, and it is just out of the bath. The hazy feeling is quite good. On the contrary, if it were not for the hazy moonlight, it would be a bit far-fetched to compare lotus flowers to "pearls" and "stars".
The article describes the fragrance of lotus like this: "The breeze passed by, sending wisps of fragrance, like the faint singing from a tall building in the distance." This kind of intermittent, seemingly absent feeling will never occur in The early morning with the blaring sound of books does not come from the dazzling sunshine at noon, but can only come from the silent moonlit night when "the laughter of the children on the road outside the wall can no longer be heard." Let's look at another sentence about floral fragrance: "In addition to the brilliance, there is also a faint fragrance here. The fragrance seems to be lavender, and it envelopes me gently like a dream." ("Wisteria Waterfall") This is under the bright sunshine. The floral fragrance, the purple flowers are "tanking with the sun", and the dazzling purple stimulates the author to have the feeling that "the fragrance is also lavender", which is very natural.
There is only one sentence that directly describes the moonlight. This article mostly uses shadows to describe the moon. This is also an expression technique praised by literati of the past dynasties. "The thick shrubs at high places cast jagged and mottled black shadows; the graceful shadows of the curved willows seemed to be painted on lotus leaves. The moonlight in the pond was uneven; but the light and shadow had a harmonious melody, like the Sanskrit The famous song played by Aling. "The black shadows here are jagged and mottled, giving people a sense of undulating movement. Why? Just because it fell into the lotus pond. In the lotus pond, "where the breeze passed... the leaves and flowers also trembled a little, like lightning, which spread across the lotus pond in an instant. The leaves were densely packed side by side, and it seemed like there was a wave of solid blue. Traces." The black shadow falls on this ripple mark, and of course it becomes more jagged and mottled. It is precisely because the lotus pond is in this dynamic state that the beautiful shadows of the willows are like "painting" rather than "printing" on the lotus leaves. It is precisely because of the ripples of solid green that the light and shadow appear like curves like a staff, which is reminiscent of "the famous music played on the Van Aling".