Inscribed on Yueyang Tower
Bai Juyi
There is a lot of water under Yueyang City.
I climbed up to the dangerous building alone by the winding.
When the spring bank is green, the dream lake is connected,
The evening waves are red near Chang'an.
How hard is it for an ape to climb a tree and cry?
It is also difficult for geese to fly across Yandian Lake.
This place is worthy of painting,
The magnificent hall is open to the nobles.
Appreciation of Bai Juyi's Poems
This is a poem written by Bai Juyi when he passed through Yueyang from Jiangzhou to Zhongzhou to serve as governor in the spring of the fourteenth year of Yuanhe (819). The poet was demoted several times and could not bear the pain of wandering. Therefore, in his landscape poems describing the scenery of lakes and mountains, he also revealed a touch of sadness and nostalgia for the capital.
Three of the first four lines of the poem describe the majesty of Dongting Lake.
The word "manman" in the first sentence "The water under Yueyang City is long" is full of imagery. The poet "New Yuefu·Hai Man Man": "The sea is long, straight down, bottomless and boundless." Therefore, the word "man Man" gives people a feeling of vast and boundless water. The third and fourth sentences, "The green shore in spring is connected to the Dream Lake, and the red waves in the evening are close to Chang'an" further describe the vastness of Dongting Lake in detail. Yunmengze is one of the seven major swamps in the ancient Chu region, with a radius of eight to nine hundred miles. When the water in Dongting Lake rises in spring, it is as far away as Yunmeng, where the sunset shines on the water in the evening, and not far from Chang'an. Such exaggeration of the magnificent evening scenery of Dongting Lake gives readers a concrete and tangible understanding of the grandeur of Dongting Lake. At the same time, this sentence also implicitly uses the allusion of Emperor Ming of Jin Dynasty (Sima Shao) that "the sun is far away and Chang'an is close". When the poet saw the setting sun shining back, he couldn't help but think of Chang'an. He thought that he rushed from Jiangzhou to Yuezhou and was much closer to Chang'an. Therefore, the surface meaning of this poem is to use exaggeration to describe the grandeur of the Dongting evening scene, but the deeper meaning is the poet's attachment to the capital.
In the fifth and sixth sentences, "It's hard for an ape to climb a tree and cry, and it's difficult for a wild goose to fly across the lake." The words "ape cry" and "wild goose crossing" are used to express the feeling of being reduced to the end of the world, which is consistent with the "near Chang'an" above. Anaphora. Just imagine that the water is so vast and the sky is so long that wild geese cannot fly across it and have to fall into the water to rest frequently. How can people cross it easily? At this time, we turn to the second sentence of the poem, "Alone on the dangerous building by the Qulan." "Alone" is not only a literal description, indicating that he climbed the tower alone and looked far away, but also a fictional description that he has been demoted from the official position all year round, far away from the capital, and suffered from loneliness. feel. Therefore, when he saw the place where the setting sun was shining, he naturally thought of Chang'an. When he heard the crow of apes and saw the flying geese, he felt that the world was difficult. These lines are all inspired by the scene, embedded in the scene, and echoing the scene before and after. They not only express the vastness and extraordinaryness of Dongting, but also express the poet's pain of wandering around the world and missing the capital.
The last two lines of the poem describe the majestic and beautiful scenery of Dongting. It can be painted into a picture barrier and hung in a luxurious hall for the nobles to enjoy. Perhaps it can make them understand a little about the cries of apes and the flight of wild geese. The pain of travel troubles. This implicitly expresses the poet's feeling of wandering and his resentment towards the nobles for their indifference to the people's sentiments.