In late spring, Chang 'an city is full of songs and dances, and countless flowers fall. The east wind of the Cold Food Festival blows on the willow trees in the royal garden.
As night fell, the palace was busy lighting candles, and smoke drifted to the house of the prince and the marquis.
Author background
Han Yi (the year of birth and death is unknown), whose name is Junping, was a poet in the Tang Dynasty. Nanyang (now Nanyang, Henan) people. He has been doing paperwork in the army and is good at writing farewell poems. He is as famous as Qian Qi and other poets, and is called "Ten Talents in Dali". Later, the emperor chose him as the calligrapher of China who drafted the imperial edict. At that time, there were two Han Han, and the minister asked who to choose. The emperor said that he would write about Han Han, whose spring city is full of flowers, which shows how famous this poem was at that time.
Annotation explanation
Spring City: Chang 'an City in late spring.
Cold food: In ancient Tomb-Sweeping Day, two days before the festival and three days after the fire, only cold food was eaten, so it was called cold food.
Willow in Imperial City: Willow in Imperial City.
Oblique rhyme: if it rhymes, it can be pronounced as xi according to the ancient sound here.
Han Palace: This refers to the officials of the Tang Dynasty.
Chuan: Here.
Five marquises: When the Han Dynasty became emperor, Wang Tan, Wang Li, Wang Ji and Wang Wu were made marques and received special treatment. Here generally refers to the close minister of the son of heaven.
Modern Translation of Ancient Poetry
In Chang 'an in late spring, Huayang flies all over the sky, and the east wind of the Cold Food Festival inclines the willow trees of the official department. At dusk, the palace began to give new candles, and the faint smoke first rose in the emperor's home.
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This is a satirical poem, and its meaning is very euphemistic. Before the Tang Dynasty, the Han Dynasty was the most powerful, so people in the Tang Dynasty liked to write poems in Korean. Here, the story of the Han Dynasty is also used to satirize the dynasty. Cold food should be burned for three days and should not be used on the fourth day. But at dusk on the third day, the palace gave candles to the emperor and his relatives. This incident shows the emperor's special love for nobles, but the poet wrote euphemistically, starting with the wonders of flying flowers in the spring city, and the description of the east wind blowing willows naturally led to the emperor's official, as if praising the emperor's favor, so even the emperor liked it. This way of writing achieves the ironic effect of not criticizing every word, which is called implication. If you think about it carefully, you can taste the implied irony.