Wang Wei's Ancient Poems in Frontier Missions
Riding a bike to visit the border and passing through Juyan County.
Pengpeng also floated out of Korea, and the geese heading north also flew into the sky.
The vast desert is lonely, and the Yellow River sets the yen.
Xiao Guan rides it every time, and it is protected in Yanran.
Translation of Ancient Poems in Wang Wei's "Going to the Frontier"
(1) Don't arrive without pomp. The place I want to go is far away from Juyan.
I floated out of Hansel like a loose grass and flew into the northern sky like a wild goose.
Lonely smoke rises in the desert, and the setting sun is round by the Yellow River.
When I walked to Xiaoguan, I happened to meet a scout on horseback. The former enemy commander-in-chief is at the front.
Appreciation of Wang Wei's ancient poems;
"The desert is lonely and smoke is straight, and the long river sets the yen" is a necklace in Wang Wei's poem "To make the frontier fortress", which has always been respected. Wang Guowei, a close friend, called it "the wonders of the ages".
But what is the beauty and beauty of these two poems? Scholars have always had different views. Mr. Zhang Yanjin, an expert on ancient literature in China, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, and a former doctoral supervisor of the Chinese Department of Capital Normal University, interpreted this in the Dictionary of Appreciation of Tang Poetry: in particular, the couplet "Lonely smoke in the desert, the long river setting the yen" describes the strange and magnificent scenery beyond the frontier fortress, with an open picture and magnificent artistic conception. The frontier desert is boundless, so the word "big" of "desert" is used. The frontier fortress is desolate and wonders. The smoke lit by the beacon tower is particularly eye-catching, so it is called "solitary smoke". A word "solitary" describes the monotony of the landscape, and a word "straight" behind it also shows its strength and perseverance. There are no mountains and trees in the desert, and the Yellow River flowing through it cannot express the poet's feelings unless a word "long" is used. Sunset, originally easy to give people a sentimental impression, uses the word "round" here, but it gives people a feeling of warmth and boundless. The word "circle" and "straight" not only accurately describes the desert scene, but also shows the author's deep affection. The poet skillfully blends his loneliness into the description of the vast natural scenery.
The above expressions are quoted by Baidu entries, which are almost authoritative interpretations of these two poems.
But the author is still at a loss, and always feels that the above annotations are not thorough and clear enough.
Zhu Guangqian said that "readers' reading is a kind of aesthetic filling in the blanks and a kind of creation". It is normal for a famous poem to have many explanations. Everyone's life experience and knowledge literacy are different, and the conclusions are often different, just like "there are 1000 readers, there are 1000 Hamlets".
The author consulted a lot of materials and found that scholars have different views on the interpretation of this poem. It can be roughly divided into two categories. The first category is interpreted from the aesthetic point of view. Some scholars have pointed out that Wang Wei, as the ancestor of the Southern School of Painting in China, is good at applying painting techniques to poetry creation, forming an artistic feature of painting with poetry. Chinese painting is different from western painting in two most remarkable features: first, Chinese painting is good at lines, that is, the technique of drawing lines. "In the endless desert, it criss-crosses, the smoke curls vertically, the river flows horizontally, and the sunset is slowly round." With only a few strokes, the author outlined the basic form of the landscape with simple lines. Second, Chinese painting makes good use of scattered perspective composition method. In China's ancient poems, the beauty of composition is first manifested in the reasonable arrangement of images. According to the needs of performance and expression, poets combine scattered natural images into an artistic whole in a harmonious and orderly way, thus forming the aesthetic realm of poetry. There are many similar poems by Wang Wei, such as "Thousands of trees reach the sky, thousands of peaks cuckoo crow" and "The rivers and lakes are white at sunset, and the sky is blue at high tide".
The second category is interpreted from the perspective of textual research. According to the literature, this paper studies the historical and geographical information involved in the poem and explores the original intention of the restored poem. This kind of argument is particularly fierce. One of the arguments focuses on "long rivers", including the Yellow River, Tarim River and Shiyang River in Wuwei, Gansu. Secondly, the poem describes the locations, including Zhongwei in Ningxia, Wuwei in Gansu and Ejina Banner in Inner Mongolia. The third is what the smoke in the poem refers to, such as cooking smoke, beacon smoke, whirlwind and so on.
The author believes that the correct interpretation of a poem can not be interpreted from the literal level in isolation, but should go back to the time and space background of the poem itself to find the answer.
This poem was written in the spring of 737, the 25th year of Tang Kaiyuan. Our envoy Cui defeated Tubo in Hexi, and Wang Wei sent an envoy to comfort him. This background is very important for understanding this poem, and it is also ignored by many people. )
The poem actually describes Wang Wei's experience and feelings from Chang 'an to the border after accepting the emperor's mission. So where is the specific scene described in the poem?
Two reliable clues can be found in the whole poem, one is "Long River" and the other is "Xiao Guan". According to Notes on Ancient Chinese (Wang Li Edition), "Rivers refer to the ancient Yangtze River and Yellow River". The long river in the poem is undoubtedly the Yellow River, so it is not suitable to hold Shiyang River and Tarim River.
Regarding Xiao Guan, we have to say a famous ancient Silk Road named after it-Xiao Guan Ancient Road. According to the article chinese national geography Liupanshan Poetry and the Mountain of the Emperor (2065 438+00. 2), "Xiaoguan" is located near Guyuan City, Ningxia. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty once built an ancient expressway-Zhonghui Road, which has since become the traffic trunk line from Chang 'an to the western regions. Han's "Preaching Song" wrote: "There are many risks on the way home, and there are many winds in the small view." It is a relatively safe shortcut from Xiaoguan to Hexi Corridor through Tengger Desert in Tang Dynasty, and the crossing place of this road is Zhongning or Zhongwei in Ningxia. Near these two places is the endless Tengger Desert.
Because the three conditions of Xiao Guan, Yellow River and desert are met at the same time, it can be roughly determined that the scene described in the poem is in Zhongning or Zhongwei in Ningxia today. Wang Wei went to the border to pay his respects, probably starting from Chang 'an, first going to Guyuan, then going north via Haiyuan County in Ningxia to Zhongwei or Zhongning in Ningxia, and crossing the Yellow River to Wuwei and Zhangye in Gansu.
The ancient people often used the word "poetic eye" when commenting on poetry. The so-called "poetic eye" often refers to the most refined and vivid word in a poem. Lonely Smoke is the key to this couplet and the key to understanding this poem.
There have always been three views on "solitary smoke".
As for solitary smoke, Zhao Diancheng, a Qing Dynasty man, has two explanations in his annotation of Wang Youcheng Collection: one is the cloud burning wolf dung when the ancient border police called the police, "The smoke is straight and gathered together, although the wind blew it away." The second cloud is a whirlwind beyond the Great Wall, "curling smoke and sand". According to future generations' field visits to Gansu and Xinjiang, there is indeed a whirlwind of "solitary smoke going straight up". The cyclone (tornado) in the desert, its appearance is also turbulent and oblique, and its time is short, which is not in line with the common scene of "solitary smoke" rising continuously and slowly (Chen Zengjie's words).
Some later generations also used cigarettes to say. Some people say it's the smoke from the foot soldiers on the beacon tower, while others say it's the smoke from the countryside. It can be seen that Wang Wei's own poem "Sunset lingers at the ferry, and smoke rises at midnight". The fireworks on the beacon tower have a specific military meaning, and it is hard to imagine that someone can light a cigarette and cook at will. As for the small scene of smoke curling in the countryside, after all, it is different from the heroic "lonely smoke in the desert" and the realm is different, so it is not appropriate to compare it.
People who insist on cooking cigarettes have a plausible reason. The beacon smoke is only lit in an emergency of the enemy police. Since Tubo was defeated, the border crossing should be a peaceful scene. How can there be a bonfire?
In this regard, scholar Chen Zengjie put forward a new explanation that solitary smoke was a safe fire used in border defense in Tang Dynasty.
In fact, there are answers in contemporary Tang poetry. Beacon is not only a warning signal, but also a safety signal at a specific time.
Yao He of the Tang Dynasty wrote in "The Poor Side" that "the arrow is good and the bow is good, and the soldiers are transferred to four towns, but the barbarians dare not go to the Near East.
The defense line is safe within a thousand miles, and the beacon tower is safe to the city. "It means that there is nothing on the defense line thousands of miles away. See the bonfire of peace every day and introduce Beijing one stop at a time. Tang Yuan Zhen's poem "Farewell": "There should be fewer people waiting for you, so don't be surprised by peace and fire. "
Zi Tongzhi Tang Jian Su Zongzhi Yuan De Zai: "At dusk, peace will not come." Yuan Hu Sansheng's note: "Six Classics": "Tang Zhen waited for the bonfire, which was three miles away. On the first night of every day, a torch is lit, which is called the fire of safety. " When the defenders were defeated, no one raised the fire again. "It refers to June 8th, the 15th year of Tianbao (756). Because Tongguan fell, all the officers and men of the beacon were defeated, and" no one raised the fire again ",so at dusk," the Taiping fire didn't arrive "and Chang 'an people were in chaos. Yang advised Tang to leave Chang 'an and escape.
Careful readers will question? When was your first night? Smoke when it's dark. Can you see it?
The author checked the information, and there is such a passage in Yan Jiaxun's documentary evidence: "Or ask why you work five shifts a night, and what kind of training are you receiving?" A: Since the Han and Wei Dynasties, it has been called Night A, Night B, Night C, Night D and Night E; Another kind of cloud drum, one drum, two drums, three drums, four drums and five drums; Some people also say that the first table, the second table, the third table, the fourth table, the fifth table ... more, the calendar is also, the classics are also, so it is called the five tables. "The first night" is also a synonym for "one night" in Five Nights. In other words, "first night", "first night", "one drum" and "one watch" refer to the same time period. This period is roughly equivalent to modern time 17 ~ 19. At this time, it is the "evening" when the sun sets and the night begins to fall.
Back in the poem, in the evening, a red sun slowly sets at the end of the Yellow River, and the eyes are full of desolate and vast deserts. A safe fire rises straight from the beacon tower, conveying the message that there is no problem at the border.
To sum up, it is precisely because the solitary smoke in the previous sentence conveys the message of peace (rather than the meaning of loneliness) that the meaning of sunset yuan in the latter sentence can be reasonably interpreted-this poem actually expresses the artistic conception of "peace and tranquility" in the border area. This is also consistent with the historical background of the author's trip to declare a great victory in customs clearance.
China's classical poems are implicit and euphemistic, and the historical information attached to many poems has been erased at any time after thousands of years. Nowadays, people often make various interpretations from the text level, and it is inevitable to see flowers in the fog. Only by digging three feet can we truly appreciate the fun of reading.