Appreciation of Tang Dynasty's capital poem "Meet the Messenger"

Meeting the Capital is one of the famous works of Cen Can, a poet in the Tang Dynasty. This poem describes a typical scene in which the poet traveled far from the frontier fortress and met an envoy who returned to Beijing on the way, bringing a message of peace to comfort his family, which has a strong human touch. The language of poetry and prose is unpretentious, but it contains two feelings: homesickness and yearning for fame, affection and pride, interweaving and blending, sincerity and nature, and touching.

original text

The distance from the east home is very long, and the tears are wet and the sleeves are still flowing.

I'll meet you immediately, without paper and pen. Please tell my family that I'm safe.

To annotate ...

1, hometown: refers to Chang 'an, where the author has a villa.

2. Dragon Bell: This means getting wet.

3. Dependence: trust.

translate

Looking back at the East, my hometown is thousands of miles away, and the road is long and Xiu Yuan is awkward; With a dragon bell on his face and dripping sleeves, tears still don't work.

On the way, I met you at once, but there was no pen and paper to repair the book; I can only ask you to take a message and go home to report peace.

Creation background

According to Liu Kaiyang's Notes on the Chronology of Cen Can Poems and Chronology of Cen Can, this poem was written in 749 AD (Tianbao eight years) when the poet went to Anxi (now Kuche County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region) to serve. This is Cen Can's first trip to the Western Regions as the secretary of the Gao Xianzhi shogunate. At this time, the poet was 34 years old, and he gained fame and fortune in the first half of his life, which was not satisfactory. In desperation, he went out to work. He said goodbye to his wife in Chang 'an, went on a long journey, went out of Yangguan in the west and went to Anxi.

I don't know how many days later, on the way to the western regions, he suddenly met an old acquaintance. Immediately, we talked about each other's feelings, and we were a little sad to know that the other party was going back to Beijing to report their work. At the same time, we want him to send a letter from home to Chang 'an to comfort his family and report peace. This poem describes the scene.

Make an appreciative comment

This poem describes how a tourist meets a special envoy from Beijing and asks him to take a message home. Poetry comes from life, reflects life, is handwritten, uncut, cordial and tasteless, sincere and touching. "Don't use paper and pencil immediately when you meet, and leave a message to report peace" is a common thing in life. Once refined and summarized by art, it is so elegant, touching and full of life!

Distinguish and appreciate

This poem was written by a poet who happened to meet an eastern practitioner who went to Chang 'an on his way to the west, which aroused the poet's infinite homesickness and expressed the poet's open, heroic and optimistic mind. The wandering journey and homesickness are fully revealed in the poem.

"Far East of Hometown" is about the actual feelings in front of us. The poet has left his hometown for many days and is on his way to the western regions. Looking back at Chang' an, the hometown of the East, it is of course a long way, and the feeling of missing can't help but attack my heart, and the feeling of homesickness is hard to recover. "Hometown" refers to my home in Chang 'an. "Looking east" means pointing out the location of Chang 'an.

"The tears of the two sleeves are dry" means that the tears of homesickness can't be wiped away, so that both sleeves are wet, but the tears just can't stop. This sentence expresses the feelings of missing relatives with exaggerated rhetoric, and also lays a high foundation for the following writing to bring a book home to "report peace".

"There is no pen and paper when we meet, and there is news from you when we report peace." These two sentences are about the situation that you met an emissary in Beijing and wanted to take a book home to report peace, but there was no pen and paper. They were completely anxious to see the traveler at once, and they behaved very vividly. The word "meet" points out the topic. On the way to Anxi, I met an old friend, who was the messenger to Beijing. They all rode on horseback and passed each other by. One went west, and the other returned to Chang 'an in the East. His wife was in Chang 'an, and she just wanted her old friend to take a letter home safely. But she had no pen and paper and had no time to write, so she had to ask her old friend to take a message. This last poem is very concise and neat, but it contains the poet's deep affection, faint taste and charm in simplicity. Cen Can came here with the ambition of "fame and fortune". At this time, the mood is complicated. On the one hand, he has tenderness and homesickness for the imperial city, on the other hand, he also shows the poet's heroic mind eager to make contributions. Tenderness and pride are intertwined and touching.

The language of this poem is simple and natural, full of rich frontier life flavor, with both life interest and human touch, fresh and lively, profound aftertaste, sincere and sincere. Poets are good at refining and summarizing the thoughts and words of many people by artistic means, making them typical. It shows rich charm among the people and can be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people for a long time. This is the characteristic of Cen Can's poems.