This poem is a parody of the old theme of Yuefu, which is intended to send friends to Sichuan. The poet developed a rich imagination in a romantic way, artistically recreating the spectacular, abrupt, tenacious and rugged Sichuan road and the majestic momentum that could not be surpassed, thus singing the magnificent scenery of Sichuan mountains and rivers and showing the magnificent scenery of the motherland.
As for whether this poem has a deeper meaning, there are different opinions in the past dynasties. But as far as poetry is concerned, it is not necessarily meaningful to analyze it. However, from the poem, what if he is not loyal, but a wolf to his companion? I wrote about the beautiful mountains and rivers in Shu, warning the authorities that Shu is dangerous and should be well defended by people.
Poetic prose is mixed, the sentences are uneven, the brushwork is vertical and horizontal, and it is bold and free. The whole poem has strong feelings, three sighs and repeated cycles, which makes people excited to read.
Li Bai's works are most famous for Yuefu and Gexing, and his bold and unrestrained style is particularly distinctive in these works. There is no difference in poetic form between Yuefu and Gexing. If the theme is Yuefu tunes, it belongs to Yuefu poems. If you do your own topic and don't put any tunes in it, it belongs to a ballad poem. Difficult Shu Dao is a long-standing song in Wei and Jin Dynasties, which belongs to a harmonious tune. The content of this song is the hardships of singing Shu Dao and traveling. Li Bai's poem, titled "Difficulties in Shu Dao", describes the dangers of Shu Dao, so it belongs to Yuefu poetry.
Li Bai's poem strongly exaggerates that "it's difficult to get through the Shu Road, but it's difficult to get into the sky." There have been several explanations for why he suddenly thought of this theme and why he wrote this poem.
Wang, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, first recorded the story of this poem. Li Bai first arrived in Chang 'an to visit He. He is a poet valued by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty. He read this poem by Li Bai and enjoyed it very much. He praised Li Baiyou as "a talent who has fallen to the gods". Then, Bai Meng's "Poetry Art" also said: Li Bai went to the capital from Shu County and stayed in a hotel. He Zhangzhi heard his name and went to visit him first. I was surprised to see his appearance and posture. Let him take out his work, and Li Bai took out "Difficult Road to Shu" for advice. After reading it, He Zhangzhi was full of praise and called him "fallen fairy". These two paragraphs are the records of people in the late Tang Dynasty, which are similar. It can be seen that people think that Li Bai wrote this poem to describe the hardships of his journey after he left Shu County, and that Li Bai wrote this poem quite early. Li Bai went to Chang 'an. This poem was written in the last years of Kaiyuan and Tianbao.
"Biography of Yanwu in the New Tang Dynasty" says: In Shu, Ren Jiannan was the ambassador, and Chengdu was Yin, so he was arrogant. At that time, Fang Yi was the secretariat of his subordinates. When Fang Yi was prime minister, he recommended Yanwu. Later, Fang Guan was demoted for offending Yanwu and became his subordinate, but Yanwu was extremely disdainful of him. At that time, Du Fu worked as a staff officer in Yanwu shogunate, and Yanwu almost killed Yanwu because he made a mistake in his father's taboo words. After learning about this, Li Bai wrote "Difficult Road to Shu", which worried Fang and Du. This record in the Book of the New Tang Dynasty is taken from Dai Fan's Book of Friends in Yunxi in the Tang Dynasty, which shows that there is another view on the writing background of Shu Dao Nan in the Tang Dynasty. Song Qi and Ouyang Xiu wrote this story into the official history. It proves its correctness. But our time in Yanwu and Ren Jiannan was in the last years of Su Zong. Du Fu was invited as our envoy in the last years of Su Zong, that is, the first year of Baoying (AD 762). This year 1 1 month, Li Bai died. At that time, Li Baiyuan was in Jiangdong, and it seemed too late to know about Fang Dao and Du Fu under Yanwu. Judging from the poems written by Du Fu to Yanwu, the relationship between them may not be bad. Therefore, it is contradictory in time and history to say that Shu Dao Nan was written for the safety of Gui Fang and Du Fu.
The Yuan Dynasty poet Xiao annotated Li Bai's poems and put forward a new interpretation of Shu Dao Nan. He thought this poem was written in June and July in the 15th year of Tianbao (AD 756), when An Lushan rebels captured Chang 'an, and the emperor was anxious to enjoy Shu. Li Bai was in Jiangnan at that time. When he heard the news, he thought it was not the best policy for the emperor to gloat in Shu. "Don't say it, it does not reach the designated position. Love you if you don't talk, and worry about your country. You can't help yourself. Pretend this poem to express your feelings. "
Hu Zhenheng of Ming Dynasty also talked about this poem in his "Tang Yin Gui Qian". He believes that the above three explanations are "Fu Hui's evidence is insufficient". He thinks "Difficult Travel in Shu" is an ancient song, written by Chen Liang, which is not as dangerous as others. Li Bai's poem is also used in Zhang Zai's Sword Ming Ge, such as "One man holds a halberd, ten thousand people lose their hoofs, the land of victory is close to bandits", so as to warn those who rely on danger to alienate themselves and detain themselves. Only the sea tells things, so it contains great meaning and satirizes the world. If you take a person as a fact, it will be refined and tasteless. "
The above is the exposition of the theme of Shu Dao Nan by the poetry critics of past dynasties. Comparing these opinions with the original poem, Xiao's speech seems to be the most reasonable, which makes this poem contain a high degree of figurative significance. Therefore, most people who talked about Tang poetry in Ming and Qing Dynasties adopted his way of speaking, such as Tang Ruxun, Chen Ling, Shen Deqian, etc., and all affirmed that Difficult Road to Shu was written for Ming Di's happiness in Shu, and the analysis was very detailed.
However, they didn't notice one thing: The Collection of He Yueling, edited by Yin Kun, a Danyang Jinshi, selected 24 works of his contemporaries, including 234 works. In the preface, he explained that these poems began in Jiayin, that is, in the second year of Kaiyuan (AD 7 14); Finally, I was in Tianbao for thirteen years. He chose thirteen poems by Li Bai, including Shu Dao Zhun. This is the ironclad proof that Shu Dao Nan was written before An Shi Rebellion. Then, this is obviously not a poem that satirizes the luck of Ming Chengzu in Shu. If the records of "Yi Yan" and "Skill Poem" are credible, the creation time of this poem can be advanced to the end of Kaiyuan. For this reason, we don't take the above words, but take this poem as a gift from Li Bai to friends in Shu.
Since the early Tang Dynasty, the form of Yuefu songs is generally seven-character ancient poems, but Li Bai has created a new form. He is good at mixing three-character, four-character, five-character and seven-character sentences, which has become a new type of miscellaneous language different from Wei and Jin Dynasties. Even, he sometimes boldly uses prose syntax in his poems. This is a profound inheritance and innovation of the tradition of Chu Ci and Yuefu Ci in Han Dynasty. Just like this song "Difficult Road to Shu", there are less than half of the seven-character quatrains, and most of the rest are eclectic miscellaneous sentences. Reading his poems should follow the author's bold feelings and uneven syntax, and take its rhyme as a paragraph. No matter how a long poem is sung or arranged, the place where it changes rhyme is always the place where the ideological content is segmented. People who read poetry should know this trick. I have said this point above, and now I will mention it again. This poem, I'll write it with rhyme and rhyme as one sentence.
The first paragraph begins with the word "Tian" and rhymes with five rhymes. "Alas xu play! High risk! It is difficult to go to heaven, although I wrote two lines, it is only one sentence. The poem begins with a three-word exclamation "Alas, drama". Qu Yuan once said, "Enough! "There are three words in the songs of Han Yuefu, namely' Hu Feiyi' and' Ina He', which are all magical words. It may have existed in folk songs since then, but it no longer appears in the works of poets in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. However, "Xu Xi" means adding "Xu Xi" under "Xu Xi". So it can't be said that it is a three-character exclamation point, but it should be punctuated as "alas! Call it a play! "'Xu Xi' means' Yu Xi', and' Yu Xi' is the ancient prose of' Alas'." Song "Notes" says: "Shu people are surprised by things and are happy. Li Taibai wrote The Hard Road and used it. It can be seen that it is a derivative. Hu quoted Su Dongpo's article as a witness. Dongpo's "Post-Red Cliff Fu" says: "Oh, I know. Another poem, Ode to Spring in Dongting, said, "Alas, I am boasting." . "That is, Li Bai's" Goose Lake Play ". Li Bai developed "Xixi" into three characters, while Su Dongpo developed into four characters, all in Shu County dialect.
The creative method of poetry is completely fu style. The whole poem exaggerates the danger of Shu Dao and the pain of traveling. The first sentence is an outline: because the mountain road is high and dangerous, it is more difficult to get through the Shu Road than to ascend to heaven. The following four sentences are from the ancient history of Shu. According to Yang Xiong's Biography of the King of Shu, in ancient times, the kings of Shu were Can Cong, Guan Bai, Yufu, Pu Ze and Ming Kai. At that time, the people were ignorant. From Can Cong to the Enlightenment, * * * 34,000 years. Li Bai Festival takes the names of two kings of Shu, saying how long the history of the founding of Shu is. "At a loss" is a long-standing unknown meaning, which is slightly different from the current usage. Yang Xiong said that the ancient history of Shu is 34,000 years, which is already exaggerated; Li Bai added another 14,000 years, saying that he had not traveled with Sanqin people for 48,000 years. Taibai Mountain, or Taiyi Peak, is the main peak of Qinling Mountain, and Emei is the mountain in the middle of Sichuan. There is only a narrow and dangerous path from Taibai to Emei. So there has been no contact between Qin and Shu.
The Book of King Shu records another myth about Shu Dao. It is said that when King Hui of Qin was alive, King Shu had five Hercules, who were called "Five Ding Lishi". They can move mountains. King Hui of Qin gave a beautiful woman to Wu, the king of Shu, who ordered five Ding Lishi to move mountains to open the way and marry the beautiful woman. One day, I saw a big snake enter the cave, and five Ding Lishi went to pull the snake together. Suddenly, the mountain collapsed and killed five Ding Lishi. The five beauties of Qin all ran up the mountain and became stone men. This myth reflects that in ancient times, many working people cut mountains to open the way, sacrificing many people, and finally opened the Qin-Shu passage. Li Bai wrote the second sentence of the fifth rhyme with the motif of this myth: "It was once broken by an earthquake, but the brave were lost", which can also be said to refer to the five Ding Lishi, or the working people who sacrificed their lives to pave the way. They died, and then entered Shu from Qin to connect the mountain road with the plank road. The poem ends here, describing the origin of Shu Dao with four rhymes and eight sentences.
The second paragraph * * * describes the Shu road of the ladder stone stack with nine rhymes. "Six Dragons Return to Japan" is also a fairy tale. It is said that the sun god He drives six dragons every morning from Fusang to Xichi to Ruomu. There are two sentences in Zuo Si's "Shu Du Fu" that describe the mountains in the middle of Shu: "He Xu Dao is in Junban, and Wu Yang Yi Gao." He and Wu Yang are synonymous with the sun. It means: the sun wants to borrow from the mountain. And the highest mountain also lets the sun fly back to escape. "As high as the Gao Qi, six dragons drive the sun." This sentence means that there are peaks on it that even the sun can't cross. "High standard" means holding high and towering, but it can be interpreted as a peak because it is used as a noun. Xiao quoted the cloud in the classic painting: high standard is the name of the mountain. This is because later generations misread Li Bai's poems, or attached them intentionally, and insisted on naming a mountain Gaobiao. In the original poem, "Gao Biao" and "Hui Chuan" are compared, which shows that it is by no means a proper noun.
These two poems have different versions. There are two anthologies in the Tang Dynasty, one is Yue Ying Ling He Ji and Ji Xuan Ji, the other is Tang Dynasty manuscripts found in Dunhuang stone chambers, and Tang Cui Wen in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty. These two sentences are not "high above, six dragons drive the sun, and thousands of valleys are difficult to fill", but "there are clouds on the river that break the sea, and there are rapids under the river." From the dual point of view, the latter is more neat, while the former is more stable if the sentence is bold and unconstrained. Perhaps the latter was the first draft circulated at that time, while the former was the author's final draft. Therefore, the anthology at that time was Crossing the River and Breaking the Sea, while the anthology compiled by Li was Six Dragons Returning to Japan. Now let's copy according to the album.
The following paragraph also describes the height and danger of Shushan. Yellow cranes can't fly, and apes are afraid to climb. Qingniling, in Lueyang County, Shaanxi Province, is the only way for Qin to reach Shu. This mountain road twists and turns, winding back and forth on the rocks, and the road is extremely difficult. Shenhejing is one of the 28 lodgings. Shu belongs to the dividing line of Betelgeuse and Qin belongs to the dividing line. On a high-risk mountain road, going from Qin to Shu is like lying on your back, holding your breath and touching the starry sky. During such a difficult journey, pedestrians put their hands on their chests and sighed. The word "sit" is not sitting on your feet, it should be called "therefore".
The above is the first half of the second paragraph, with four rhymes and eight sentences, which renders the difficulty of Shu Dao. Suddenly, the next sentence was followed by "Ask Jun how much he paid for his trip to the west", which revealed the theme of the gift. The author didn't say something like a farewell poem, but inserted "When will you come back?" This reflects that it is not easy to come and go. This sentence itself has also become a description of the difficulty of Shu Dao.
The following four rhymes and seven sentences are still written immediately after the above four rhymes, but the object of description has changed. Now don't write high mountains and high roads, write birds in the mountains. The poet said: these towering rocks that cannot be climbed are really roads that travelers dare not take. On this road, all you can see is the birds moaning on the ancient trees, and the female birds are flying around with the male birds in the secluded forest. There is also the famous Zigui bird in Sichuan, which often cries under the moon. It is said that in ancient times there was a Shu king named Du Yu, nicknamed Wang Di. He died of national subjugation and became a bird, whining in the mountains every night, as if crying. There are always different opinions on the interpretation of this poem. The Selected Works published in recent years all have the punctuation of "jathyapple, we heard the melancholy voice of the cuckoo and worried about the empty mountain". Into seven words and one sentence, three words and one sentence. I don't think it's right to read it like this. It should be two five words. There are no punctuation marks in ancient books, so it is difficult to know how the ancients read this poem. However, Wu Changqi's Annotations on Tang Poetry and Qian's Poems on Tang Yin Shen are both block prints in the early Qing Dynasty, and both of them have broken sentences. They named this sentence "On the empty mountain and under the lonely moon, we heard the melancholy voice of the cuckoo". I think it is more appropriate to break sentences like this. It's two five-sentence sentences, not seven or three-sentence sentences. The reason is that the word "empty mountain" is not a word. Three sentences in a lyric are often used together with two sentences and rarely used alone. Many examples can be found in Li Bai's poems. It is precisely because "Zigui cries for the moon" and "Ye Mi cries for the moon" can often be seen in Tang poems that many people dare not separate the word "jathyapple" from the word "crow", so they read it as the syntax of "going up seven times and going down three times". As for the meaning of the sentence "out on an empty mountain, under the lonely moon", it means that in an empty mountain, under the bright moon, pedestrians are concerned. Li Baiyou's quatrains of "I heard that Wang Changling moved to the left and Long Biao sent this" also used the same artistic conception:
After the easy autumn, cuckoo clock, I heard you pass five streams.
I sent a bright moon to my heart, and the wind went straight to langxi for the night.
Taking the first sentence and the third sentence of this poem as evidence, we can see that Li Bai wrote two five-character sentences, rather than the syntax of going up seven times and down three times. Xu Zeng, who wrote Two Tang Poems, read this cross as a sentence and explained: "The empty mountain is deserted, and the lonely moon is deserted, only the cuckoo cries. Among the ancient trees in the empty mountains, the sun can see them, but sad birds fly in groups; I heard it at night, but the blood in Zigui is the most bitter under the moon. " This explanation is most prominent for those who have been speaking Tang poetry. He made an evasive speech, but we can't see how he analyzed cross syntax.
There are one or two rhymes below, which are the conclusion of the second paragraph. Repeat "this kind of trip is more difficult than climbing the blue sky" first, and then say: people will turn pale with fear after hearing these things. The "fading face" here can only be said to be "discolored" because of fright, although it should be said to be "aging" elsewhere.
Below the second paragraph, the rhyme and composition seem a little uneven. Now I write according to rhyme, which is divided into three paragraphs. But judging from the structure of ideological content, it can only be said to be two paragraphs. From "breaking up with heaven" to "fooling around" is a paragraph, which is the third paragraph of the whole poem. From "although the dagger-tower passage is firm and stern" to the last sentence is another paragraph, that is, the fourth paragraph of the whole poem. The first four sentences of the third paragraph still describe the danger of mountains and rivers in Shu, but the author uses two rhymes. The rhyme of "ruler" and "wall" is only two sentences, and then the rhyme changes immediately, making readers feel that there is a lack of atmosphere here. Suddenly inserting such a short rhyme syntax into a long line is usually considered as a disadvantage. Although Li Bai is brilliant, free in rhyme and unconstrained style, these two rhymes are urgent and incoherent, which is not desirable in the eyes of people who pay attention to poetry.
The first two sentences of this paragraph describe the withered pine hanging upside down on the cliff, and the last two sentences describe the violent trend of the mountain spring rushing to the cliff, such as the thunder of thousands of valleys. Finally, end with a sentence "This is at stake". This "so" not only refers to the above two sentences, but also summarizes all the following descriptions: "high, just like on a high banner, six dragons drive the sun." The danger of Shu Dao in the landscape situation has passed. Here comes another question: Why do you want to be a long-distance guest here? This is another unexpected remark. From the standpoint of people in Shu, it means that our place is difficult to walk, so why did you come? If you stand in the sender's position, that is, why do you have to go there to embark on such a dangerous journey?
Then I turned to the fourth paragraph and suddenly talked about the military situation in Sichuan. "One man is better than ten thousand men" is easier to defend than to attack. It's very dangerous for a place like this to be guarded by someone you can trust. These poems are entirely based on four sentences in Zhang Zai's Ming of Jiange in the Jin Dynasty: "One person holds a halberd, ten thousand people stumble, the ground wins, and bandits are close." Li Bai's description of the difficulty of Shu Dao is related to the political significance of the situation in Shu, which has actually gone beyond the scope of the old Yuefu title "The difficulty of Shu Dao". Bashu is rich in products, which is very important for the economic supply of Sanqin. Therefore, the first sentence of the poem "Farewell to Du DuDu's appointment in Shu" said that Sichuan "this wall surrounds Sanqin" and also pointed out this point. Although Li Bai's Yuefu poems all use old topics, they often inject new ideas and have practical significance. This poem reflects that since the early Tang Dynasty, Shu, because of its non-blood relationship, caused many invasions by Tubo and Naman, which led to a devastating war and made Sanqin shake.
This poem is a part mentioned by Li Bai in passing when describing the difficulty of Shu Dao. But it made later readers mistakenly think that this is the theme of the whole poem. Some people satirize Zhangqiu and Joan of Arc for this poem, some people think it's satirizing Yanwu, and some people think it's satirizing officials who usually take risks. They are all confused by this poem and come to these conclusions. However, these poems do destroy the unity of the whole poem, and they are written in poems for friends in Sichuan, which really make people feel the feeling of two different themes. In the Ming Dynasty, Li Yulin once commented on Li Bai's poems: "Too white is vertical and horizontal, and it is often a spent force. There are long articles in between, and heroes deceive others." For this poem, I also think it is "a spent force" (superfluous words) and "a long speech".
Now let's focus on the key sentences of the whole poem:
The difficulty of Shu Dao is difficult to get to the sky,
We want to know whether this road to the west will never end.
The difficulty of Shu Dao is difficult to get to the sky,
Why do people from afar come here?
Although the Silk City is beautiful, I'd rather go home soon.
The difficulty of Shu Dao is difficult to get to the sky,
Look sideways to the west and ask for advice!
This is the whole ideological content of Shu Dao Nan. Many other sentences, though grotesque and heroic, are actually decorations of these backbone sentences. When reading Li Bai's unconstrained Yuefu songs, don't be confused by a lot of descriptive sentences, but first find out the skeleton of the whole poem. This kind of reading, I call it skinning cramp.
Li Bai's Yuefu poems directly inherited Chuci and Han Yuefu in syntax and composition. He used all the old poems of Yuefu, most of which followed the traditional meaning. From these three aspects, his Yuefu poems are indeed retro to Yuefu poems since Qi and Liang Dynasties. However, he has a realistic theme, his rhetoric shows a rich spirit of the times, and the form of poetry boldly gets rid of all classical constraints. From these three aspects, his Yuefu poems are all newly created Tang poems. He injected new life into ancient Yuefu poetry and influenced many poets in later generations, making Yuefu poetry an important tradition of Tang poetry.
I have been evaluating Li Bai's Yuefu poems. I think this passage by Hu Zhenheng is the best. Now I copy it here instead of the conclusion:
Taibai is the deepest in Yuefu, and there is no ancient name. Or use its original intention, or reverse the verdict to create new ideas, and leave each other, and enjoy it. It is said that people who read Taibai Yuefu have three difficulties: first, they don't know the meaning of ancient inscriptions, and second, they don't know how to keep them for themselves. I don't know what Bai's life experience is like or what he is doing. Without reading all the ancient books and being proficient in Lisao, it is impossible to get the materials he cut and the traces of ingenious casting in poetry selection and poetry of past dynasties. Today, however, Li Bai is called a genius. I didn't know he cared about Yuefu and had such skill. If he wants to be a pen-hanger, he must choose it. ("Tang Yin Gui Qian" Volume 9)
1July 20, 978