Summer quatrains
Li Qingzhao [Song]
Live and be a man among men; Die and become the soul in the soul.
Today, people still miss Xiang Yu because he refused to live and returned to the East.
Vernacular translation:
Be a hero in life and a hero in ghosts in death.
People still miss Xiang Yu because he refused to drag out an ignoble existence back to Jiangdong.
Comment on words and phrases:
Summer quatrains: See Notes on embroidered water poems for this topic. History of Poets and Women/KOOC-0//KOOC-0/Continuation of Tongguan Legacy/KOOC-0/7 Poems of Celebrities/KOOC-0/8 Poems of Celebrities of Past Dynasties/7 Records of Zhangqiu County in Qianlong/KOOC-0/2 is entitled Wujiang River.
Outstanding person: a hero among people and a person with outstanding intelligence. Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang once praised Sean, Xiao He and Han Xin, the founding heroes, as "outstanding figures".
Ghost hero: the hero in the ghost. Qu Yuan's Nine Songs of National Mourning: "When the body dies, God takes the spirit, and the soul is a ghost."
Xiang Yu: The leader of the peasant uprising army at the end of Qin Dynasty, who stood on his own as the overlord of Western Chu and defeated Qin Jun in the Ninth World War. Later, he competed with Liu Bang for the world, was trapped, and broke through to Wujiang (now northeast Anhui County), and died because he had no face to see his elders in Jiangdong.
Jiangdong: Jiangnan. The Yangtze River flows northeast between Wuhu and Nanjing. Before the Sui and Tang Dynasties, this was the main ferry crossing between north and south. It is customary to call the south bank of the Yangtze River Jiangdong. Xiang Yu fought with his uncle Xiang Liang in Wuzhong, Huiji County, which is located in Wuxian County (now Suzhou, Jiangsu Province).
Creative background:
In A.D. 1 127 (the second year of Jingkang), the nomads from the Jin Dynasty invaded the Central Plains and took Hui Di and Emperor Qin, and Zhao and Song were forced to flee south. Zhao Mingcheng, Li Qingzhao's husband, became a health magistrate. After the rebellion broke out in the city, Zhao Mingcheng was not thinking about counterinsurgency, but chickened out. Li Qingzhao is ashamed of her country and her husband. When she passed the Wujiang River, she felt the solemn and stirring of Xiang Yu and wrote this poem.
Appreciation of works:
The first two sentences of this poem are quite shocking. "Outstanding figures" come from Historical Records and Biography of Gaozu, and refer to outstanding ministers and generals such as Sean, Xiao He and Han Xin. "Ghost hero" comes from Qu Yuan's Nine Songs of National Mourning: "When you die, God takes the spirit, and the soul is a ghost hero." The highly concise poem clearly and loudly sings Li Qingzhao's life values: why not be afraid of life and death when you die for your country! Since the pre-Qin period, this patriotic spirit has been the mainstream of China culture, and Li Qingzhao's life values are the embodiment of this cultural spirit in individuals. But if these two poems are placed in the field of women's literature, they will have more profound significance. For women, the cruelty of war is that they can't join the army to defend their country like men, but can only be the bearers of lamentations and groans under the iron hoof. But in Li Qingzhao's works, her self-image is not a weak person waiting to be saved. Although she couldn't go to the battlefield in person, she never stayed out of it. She cares about the current situation, feels aggrieved for the suppressed anti-Jin people, and makes no secret of her contempt and anger at the escape of the monarch and ministers in the Southern Song Dynasty.
The last two sentences of the poem satirize the world by reciting history. Xiang Yu was defeated and retreated to Wujiang River. The pavilion in Wujiang treated him like a boat, and advised him to take refuge in Jiangdong for a period of time and make a comeback. Xiang Yu refused to cross eastward, thinking that he was ashamed to see his elders in Jiangdong and threw himself into the river. In the battle between Chu and Han, Xiang Yu exposed many shortcomings as a military leader, but at the last moment of his life, he showed a heroic fearlessness. In Li Qingzhao's view, he is worthy of the title of "strange man" and "ghost hero". At that time, the nomads from the south, the monarch and his subjects fled in the Song Dynasty, and Xiang Yu's "refusal to cross the river east" was even more dangerous. Judging from the situation at that time, the Yellow River nomads went deep alone. Some counties in the north and south of the Yellow River are still in the hands of Song people, and some are occupied, but the number of nomads from the Yellow River is small and their foothold is unstable. Under the attack of nomads from the Jin Dynasty, anti-Jin rebels rose up in Taihang Mountain, threatening the rear of nomads from the Jin Dynasty. If Zhao Gou can resist gold, there is much to be done in the Central Plains. However, Zhao Gou had no desire to restore his homeland and defend the people from the beginning. He fled to the south with his officials. As soon as he got the chance, he built his capital in Lin 'an. Citing Xiang Yu's refusal to cross to the east is a bitter irony to the monarchs and ministers of the Southern Song Dynasty who are timid and only want to escape. Li Qingzhao, who has always been aboveboard, is disappointed with Zhao Mingcheng's escape. The words of "outstanding person" and "ghost hero" should also include exhortation and encouragement to her husband.
This is an ancient poem that satirizes the present and expresses grief and indignation, and it is also a current political commentary written in the form of poetry. Literally, the whole poem only expresses the feelings of the heroes thousands of years ago, but the condemnation of current events is beyond words. It was in the situation that the imperial court was defeated and fled, and she was ruined and displaced, and she tasted all the hardships in the world. Faced with the current situation, she had to express her resentment that "you are a traitor and I am a ruined family" (Lu Ben's post-war miscellaneous poems). This resentment was also shared by millions of people in distress at that time. Therefore, this poem expresses not only personal grief and indignation, but also the voice of the general public. Such poems were written by women in feudal times, which is very valuable.
About the author:
Li Qingzhao (1March 08413 ~11May 55 12) was born in Zhangqiu, Jinan, Shandong. Song Dynasty (the turn of North and South Song Dynasty) poet, the representative of graceful and restrained words, is known as "the first talented woman through the ages". In the lyrics, he wrote more about his early leisure life, his later life experience and sentimental mood. In form, it makes good use of line drawing, forms its own school and has beautiful language. On the theory of ci, it emphasizes harmony and elegance, puts forward the theory that ci is different from one family, and opposes the method of writing ci into poetry. There are not many who can write poems. Some chapters have a sense of the times, praise history and use generous words, which is different from their style of words. There are Yi 'an Jushi Collection and Yi 'an Ci, which have been lost. Later generations have a collection of Yu Shu's ci. There is a collation of Li Qingzhao's collected works today.