on the mountain holiday thinking of my brothers in shandong
Author: Wang Wei
Original text:
Being a stranger in a foreign land, I miss my family twice every festive season.
I know from a distance where my brother climbs, and there is one less person in the dogwood.
Note
① September 9th: refers to the Double Ninth Festival on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. There are folk customs such as climbing mountains, inserting dogwoods and drinking chrysanthemum wine.
② memory: miss.
③ Shandong: refers to the east of Huashan (now Shanxi), and Wang Wei's hometown is in this area.
④ foreign land: foreign land.
⑤ times: double and more.
⑥ knowing from afar: thinking from a distance.
⑦ Climbing: On the ninth day of September in the lunar calendar, there is a folk custom of climbing to avoid evil spirits.
⑧ cornus (zhū yú): Also known as Yuejiao, a plant with strong fragrance, it is said that it is safe to avoid disasters by tying cornus bags and drinking chrysanthemum wine on the Double Ninth Festival.
writing background
The poem on the mountain holiday thinking of my brothers in shandong was written by Wang Wei when he was seventeen. When Wang Wei was a teenager, he left his hometown of Puzhou with his younger brother Wang Jin to visit Chang 'an in Xijing and Luoyang in the east. His long-standing reputation in poetry creation made him the seat of hanger-on, a prince, a son-in-law and a dignitary, which gave him a great opportunity to get in touch with the life of the upper class, and he had a deep understanding of the world and the decadent life of the ruling class, and he was deeply bored. Over time, the feeling of homesickness and nostalgia kept harassing him. Especially on the "September 9th" Double Ninth Festival when he was 17 years old, the dignitaries entertained themselves with family dinners, and his younger brother Wang Jin also went back to Puzhou. A sense of loneliness and homesickness that was hard to get rid of suddenly broke out in the hearts of unaccompanied poets, so he wrote on the mountain holiday thinking of my brothers in shandong.
translation
translation 1 (turn): "I" wander alone in a foreign land. Every time I arrive at a good festival, my deep yearning for my hometown, my relatives and my old friends deepens. Imagine that the brothers must be climbing the mountain! Cornus must be plugged in, but the only pity is that I am missing.
translation 2 (turn): I am a guest in a foreign country alone, and I miss my loved ones more every beautiful holiday. In the distance, I knew that my brothers climbed high, wearing cornus grass, but I was missing.
Rhyme translation:
Being a stranger in a foreign land alone,
I miss my loved ones more every time I meet a traditional festival.
In the distance, I know that my brothers climb high mountains.
They all wear cornus on their heads, but I don't.
Appreciation
This poem was written by Wang Wei at the age of 17 because he missed his relatives in his hometown on the Double Ninth Festival. It expresses the deep feelings of the wanderer in a foreign land for his relatives in his hometown during the festive season, reflecting people's voices and arousing people's * * *. The whole poem is simple and unpretentious, with profound implications, concise words and twists and turns, which can be called a swan song through the ages.
"Being a stranger in a foreign land, I miss my relatives twice every festive season." The first sentence is written by a poet in a foreign land, who misses his brothers and relatives in his hometown every festive season.
Starting with the word "independence", the situation is abrupt, which not only depicts the image of the poet without friends and loneliness, but also conveys the lonely and desolate mood of the lyric hero. The overlapping use of the two "different" words further strengthens the poet's sense of loneliness and adds a sad color to the picture of the poem. The second sentence is the poetic eye and emotional main line of the whole poem. The word "whenever" here breaks through the limitation of the specific time of "September 9th", which makes the human body realize that the love in the poem has been brewing for a long time. The outbreak of September 9th this year just touched the fuse of the Double Ninth Festival. The word "times" not only exaggerates the intensity of homesickness today, but also shows the frequent homesickness on weekdays. These two poems focus on the poet's feelings about the festival. Because the title of the poem has already pointed out that it is the Double Ninth Festival, which has laid the groundwork for a lively and happy festival scene, the image of a lonely wanderer who is "a stranger in a foreign land" is more vivid.
the first two sentences can be said to be the "direct method" of artistic creation. Almost without any detour, but directly into the core, quickly forming a climax, there are epigrams. However, this writing often makes the last two sentences unsustainable, resulting in insufficient stamina. If the last two sentences of this poem are extended in a straight line along the line of "I miss my relatives more during the festive season", it will inevitably be a snake's foot; It is also difficult to turn out new ideas and form a new climax. The author takes another approach: following the torrent of emotion, a rippling lake appears, seemingly calm, but actually deeper.
"I know from a distance where my brother climbs, and there is one less person in the dogwood. Thinking of one's relatives by oneself, thinking of family holidays is bound to miss oneself, thus deepening the poet's feelings of cherishing brothers and sisters and missing relatives in his hometown. In ancient times, there was a saying that cornus climbed high to drink chrysanthemum wine on the Double Ninth Festival to eliminate disasters and ward off evil spirits. Here, the poet skillfully embodies and visualizes his brother's feeling of thinking about himself through the typical life detail of climbing the mountain with cornus's capsule on the Double Ninth Festival, and reflects the poet's heart song of thinking about his family with his brother's regret about missing one person in the climbing ranks, which makes people feel poetic and sincere: euphemistic and moving.
This poem pays attention to the typicality of feelings and details. The feeling of "missing my relatives twice during the festive season" is not only the sublimation of the poet's daily feelings, but also the generalization and summary of the holiday feelings of wanderers who have lived in a foreign land for a long time, which is quite universal and representative. The details of climbing the mountain to insert dogwood reflect the joy of brothers gathering in festivals, and also have strong times and local colors. It is precisely because this poem pays attention to the typical choice of feelings, details, time and environment that it vividly expresses the poet's typical feelings. Therefore, it has been repeated for thousands of years.
a famous sentence throughout the ages: being alone in a foreign land is a stranger, and you miss your family more often during the festive season.
The first sentence of the poem uses the words "independence" and "difference", which is full of weight. The poet's yearning for his loved ones and his feelings about his own lonely situation are all condensed in this word "independence" "Being a stranger in a foreign land" just means being a guest in a foreign land, but the artistic effect caused by the word "different" is much stronger than that caused by general narration of being a guest in a foreign land. In the feudal era, where the natural economy dominated, the customs, customs, languages and living habits of different regions were very different. When the poet left his hometown where he had lived for many years and went to a different place, he felt that everything was strange and unaccustomed, and he felt that he was a duckweed floating in a different place. "Foreign land" and "stranger" are just plain and true expressions of this feeling.
The homesickness of strangers in other countries also exists on weekdays, but sometimes it is not necessarily revealed, but once it encounters some kind of catalyst-the most common one is the "festive season"-it is easy to explode, or even it can't be stopped. This is the so-called "I miss my relatives twice during the festive season". Festivals are often a time for family reunion, and they are often associated with many beautiful memories of hometown scenery, so the description of "thinking of relatives twice during festivals" is very natural.
Everyone has this kind of experience, but before Wang Wei, no poet has successfully expressed it with such plain and highly summarized poems. Once the poet tells it, it becomes an aphorism that can best express the homesickness of the guests.
Related famous sentences: "But the festival will be rewarded as drunk as a fiddler", "Chongyang drinks a glass of wine alone".