Two orioles singing in the green willows comes from the ancient poem "Queju".
Two orioles sing in the green willows. This "quatrain" was written by the poet when he lived in the Huanhuaxi Thatched Cottage in Chengdu. It describes the bright and beautiful spring scenery around the thatched cottage.
Full text: Two orioles sing in the green willows, and a row of egrets ascends to the blue sky. The window contains the snow of Qianqiu in the Xiling Mountains, and the door is docked with ships thousands of miles away from Dongwu.
Translation: Two oriole birds sang among the green willow trees, and a group of egrets flew in the blue sky. The window faces the thousand-year-old snow on Minshan Mountain, and various ships from Soochow that have traveled thousands of miles are parked outside the door. Sitting in front of the window, I can see the snow that never melts all year round on the west ridge, and the ships that have traveled thousands of miles away from Soochow are moored in front of the door.
Atmosphere
The poem starts with a vibrant natural beauty, creating a fresh and relaxing atmosphere. This quatrain seems to be one scene per sentence, four independent pictures, but the poet's inner emotion makes its content consistent. The fresh and light scenery expresses the poet's inner complex emotions, forming a unified artistic conception, among which it is the connecting factor that plays a connecting role. The inner mood of the poet.
On the surface, it shows a lively scene, but within the cheerful and bright scene, it embodies the poet's sense of loss about the passage of time, loneliness and boredom, and also writes about the poet's longing for the future. The complex emotions of hope. Beyond that hope, there is more of the poet's sentimentality towards disappointment, and the uncertainty and hesitation about whether the hope can come true. The purpose of this poem is to express the poet's complex emotions with fresh and light scenery.
Meaning
When the term "quatrain" came into being in the early Six Dynasties, it only referred to short poems of five characters and four sentences. It was extended to seven characters in the Tang Dynasty and later. Due to the changes in music tunes in the Tang Dynasty, old Yuefu poems often could not be set to music, so musicians often sang quatrains composed by literati to music. This was an important reason why quatrains became popular in the Tang Dynasty.
In terms of development, the five-character quatrain grew first. The four heroes of the early Tang Dynasty, as well as Shen Quanqi, Song Zhiwen, Li Qiao, Cui Shi and others, have written a large number of beautiful poems that blend scenes, have gentle syllables and have a certain personality. In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, a large number of famous people appeared. Li Bai, Wang Wei, and Cui Guofu formed the three tripods of the Five Wonders of the Tang Dynasty, so the future development of this poetic style rarely exceeded its scope.