During the Qingming Festival, there are many rains, and pedestrians on the road want to die.
Excuse me, where is the restaurant? The shepherd boy points to Xinghua Village.
The word "Qingming Festival" reminds people of "Tomb-Sweeping Day" who visited the grave to worship his ancestors on April 5th or 6th in the solar calendar. However, in the first line of this poem, the word "Qingming" is followed by the word "season", which shows that this poem is about the season of "Qingming" and is not limited to the day of "Tomb-Sweeping Day". In addition, the "pedestrians" in the second sentence of the poem are sad because of the continuous drizzle, and their sorrow seems to have nothing to do with their deceased relatives. So we can probably be sure that the "Qingming Festival" in this poem is not about Tomb-Sweeping Day's grave-sweeping activities on this day, but about the weather during the Qingming Festival-the rainy season comes around Tomb-Sweeping Day.
However, even if this poem is concerned with the weather, we still have some questions. For example, why did the word "restaurant" appear in the third sentence? What does "restaurant" have to do with the weather? Besides, what role does the word "Xinghua Village" in the fourth sentence play in this poem? In order to understand this poem thoroughly, we must answer these questions first.
In terms of phonology, this poem also has some special features. According to the pronunciation of the Tang Dynasty, this poem can be marked as follows (first, find out the initial consonants and vowels of the middle ancient sounds of each word according to the Comparative Table of the Middle Ancient Sounds of Guoyin published by Guangwen Compilation Institute, and then rewrite them into international phonetic symbols with the onomatopoeia in Dong Tonghe's Phonetic History of China):
The vowels of the first and second words in the first sentence are similar (-j ε η,-j) In addition, the first word, the second word, the sixth word and the seventh word all have nasal endings (-η or-n). This pattern is repeated in the second sentence, only slightly different: the second and third words have similar vowels (-ja η,-η); The vowels of the sixth and seventh characters are similar (—uan,—un); Moreover, the endings of the second, third, fourth, sixth and seventh words all have nasal sounds (-η or-n). In addition, the fifth word of the first sentence and the second sentence have similar vowels (-—juo,-—juok). In these two sentences, these similar or repeated rhymes make the rhythm of the poem have a sense of quickness and continuity. In contrast, the third sentence and the fourth sentence, because there is no such phenomenon, the speed is relatively slow. What effect will this difference between quickness and slowness have on the theme of this poem?
in order to answer the above questions, let's read this poem carefully again. This time, we go beyond the literal meaning of the poem to find the relationship between "restaurant" and "Qingming" weather. As a result, we found that there seems to be a hint between the different functions of "rain" and "wine": the continuous plum "rain" in the first poem has a depressing effect; Contrary to Meiyu, the "wine" in the third poem has an exciting or warm effect. So the hero in the poem (we can assume that he is also one of the pedestrians) asks where there is a hotel in the third sentence in order to dispel the depression caused by Meiyu, so as to sell wine to keep warm and cheer up. This clue shows that although this poem describes vivid scenes of nature and human beings on the surface, it implicitly expresses two opposite themes: the frustration given by Meiyu to pedestrians and the attempt of frustrated pedestrians to seek relief.
According to this clue, not only the problems we encountered before can be solved, but also other components of the poem have become very meaningful: the first sentence shows a continuous rain scene; The second sentence shows the pedestrian's depressed mood caused by the continuous plum rain; In the third sentence, we see that the protagonist in the poem is eager to ask people if there is a hotel nearby in order to buy wine to refresh himself; However, in the fourth sentence, we realize how disappointed he is with the shepherd boy's answer-because the hotel is not only in a distant place, but also in a "apricot blossom village". The word "Xinghua Village" here is very special and of great significance to the expression of the theme. It may not be a proper place name, but it may just be a village with apricot blossoms. Because apricot flowers usually bloom in the rainy season around Qingming Festival, it is reminiscent of the continuous rainy season. Especially when it comes to a village full of apricot blossoms, the image of Meiyu is even more obvious. Therefore, "Xinghua Village" helps to express the theme in this poem: the protagonist in the poem can't help but look for shelter from the troubles of Meiyu, but what he encounters is more and more annoying Meiyu-as a result, Meiyu is everywhere, which makes him unable to escape.
this fidgety and depressed consciousness can explain the singularity of phonology that we pointed out earlier. The rapid rhythm caused by similar or identical sounds in some words in the first half of this poem indicates the continuous plum rains and the oppressive feeling that the plum rains continue to give people. On the contrary, in the second half of this poem, due to the lack of repetitive words or similar rhymes in the first half, the rhythm slows down, which vaguely indicates the frustration that pedestrians who ask for directions are difficult to get rid of. Therefore, the phonological problems that we thought were strange when we first read the poem now seem very reasonable.
Xie Zhen said in "Four Poems": "Excuse me, where is the restaurant? The shepherd boy points to Xinghua Village." This painting is picturesque, but it is not high in style. Or easy to say:' where is the restaurant, Xinghua village on the river.' There is a prosperous Tang tune here. Yu proposed:' When the sun sets, people ride horses, and the wine shops blossom in the west.' There is no need to ask questions, and the situation is self-evident. "Professor Huang Yongwu also thinks that there are too many empty word in Du Mu's original poems, and the sentence is weak. He praised Xie Zhen's rewritten sentence for its concise words and doubled strength, so it was more powerful than the original poem. Professor Huang also criticized the first half of this poem, "It rains in succession during the Qingming Festival, and pedestrians on the road want to kill their souls". Echoing the opinions of predecessors, he thought: "It's clear that it's raining all the time, and pedestrians want to die. Of course, it's on the road. It's enough to reduce it to five words, but it's procrastination and lack of spirit." Obviously, Xie and Huang are concerned about the number of "real words", and the goal of their poem revision is to increase the real words in the poem and improve the "strength" of the poem. However, the concern of poetry critics should not be limited to the reality of words or the strength of poems. That is to say, the beauty of poetry is not determined by one factor alone. Because Xie and Huang only pay attention to one aspect without considering other important factors, their criticism is trivial, and their understanding of the original poem is not helpful.
This poem describes the scene of the Qingming Festival. More importantly, it also shows the depression and frustration in the hearts of pedestrians. From this point of view, every element in the poem is necessary and cannot be deleted. In the first half, all the original words should be kept (not "Qingming" and "On the Road" as proposed by Xie Zhen and Huang Yongwu) in order to show the continuous annoying plum rains and the depressing mood of pedestrians, so as to create a rapid and continuous rhythm. In the second half, in order to express the frustration of pedestrians, oral inquiry and gesture answer of the original poem are also indispensable. Because in this question and answer, the questioner tried to find a nearby hotel to cheer up, but the respondent said that the hotel was in the distant apricot blossom village, which symbolizes misty rain. This question and answer shows the questioner's anxiety and disappointment with the answer. If we remove the words "Qingming", "Road" and the whole question and answer according to the opinions of Xie and Huang, the special effects we mentioned earlier will all disappear, and the original theme will not be expressed. On the other hand, if we accept the sentences changed by Xie and Huang ("The Sun is setting on horseback", etc.), this poem may become a string of barely piled words, which has nothing to do with the original theme of Du Mu.