Translation
In all the mountains, the birds are all cut off; in all the roads, there is no trace of human beings. In a lonely boat on the river, the fisherman wears a raincoat and a hat; fishing alone, he is not afraid of ice and snow.
The original poem is as follows
Jiang Xue
Tang Dynasty: Liu Zongyuan
Thousands of birds have disappeared, and thousands of people have disappeared.
A lone man with a coir raincoat fishing in a boat, fishing alone in the snow in the cold river. Extended information
Creative background
In the first year of Yongzhen reign of Emperor Shunzong of Tang Dynasty, Liu Zongyuan participated in the political reform movement led by Wang Shuwen. Due to the joint counterattack of conservative forces and eunuchs, the reform failed. Therefore, Liu Zongyuan was demoted to Yongzhou, known as the "Southern Wasteland". So, with deep anger, he wrote this famous poem that is widely praised.
Appreciation
"Thousands of mountains and birds have disappeared, and thousands of people have disappeared." These two sentences use contrasting techniques to move in the middle of stillness, and contain stillness in the middle of movement. From movement to stillness, birds flying and people walking, everything returned to calm, except for an old man fishing alone in a boat, which perfectly set off the proud, independent and solitary image of the fisherman.
It is a common technique in poetry to use scenes to express emotions, but the person writing here is not only a self-portrait of the poet's situation, mentality, etc., but also the same as Goethe's "Faust". It shows a kind of "Faustian spirit", and here is the persistence of silence and Zen mentality, the pursuit of transcending life and being independent from the world.
The birds have disappeared and the traces of people have disappeared, presenting a large emptiness. Thousands of mountains and thousands of paths are there, and the vastness of the emptiness is highlighted by the abundance. "The emptiness leads to all the realms", and this ethereal realm is not only the ethereal realm of things, but also refers to the ethereal heart of the poet. As a result, it "gets rid of the fetters of objective conditions and subjective factors, and presents an indescribable Zen joy."
The poem "Jiang Snow" has a secluded realm, far-reaching meaning, and a cold and lonely intention. It is a landscape poem, but it is not a landscape poem in the ordinary sense, but a Zen poem that uses Buddhist metaphors of flying birds into the poem and has a unique meaning. "Snow on the River" is an outstanding Zen poem that "does not rely on words" but conveys the poetic and Zen state it contains in plain and easy-to-understand language.