The status of Yellow Crane Tower

On the top of the famous Snake Mountain in Wuhan, a quaint and charming five-story cornice pavilion has recently been erected. It is 49 meters high and looks like one in all directions. This is the rebuilt Yellow Crane Tower, which is famous all over the world. The earliest Yellow Crane Tower is said to have been built during the Three Kingdoms period. Later, it went through changes and was repeatedly built and destroyed during wars and natural disasters. The last time it was destroyed by fire was in the seventh year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty (1881). Snake Mountain was called Yellow Crane Mountain in ancient times, hence the name of Yellow Crane Tower. However, the ancients made up many beautiful stories for the name of Yellow Crane Tower. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, it is said that the immortal prince An Chenghe passed by here. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, it was also said that Fei Yi (Hui Hui) of the Shu Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms period often rode a yellow crane to rest here after he became an immortal. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, people connected the Yellow Crane Tower with Lu Dongbin, one of the Eight Immortals. It was said that during the Tang Dynasty, Lu Dongbin often drank here without paying. The shop owner still supplied the food as usual, for which Lu Dongbin was very happy. One time, Lu Dongbin came to the store again. The weather was hot, and the store owner gave him watermelon. Lu Dongbin drew a crane on the wall with a melon peel, and then sang a song, and the crane flew down from the wall. In this way, it attracted many drinkers, more than a thousand people every day. After a few months, the hotel owner made millions. He rewarded Lu Dongbin with money, but Lu Dongbin didn't want it. The shop owner built this building to express his gratitude.

These touching legends about the Yellow Crane Tower have attracted many poets and writers throughout the ages to come here to chant and write paintings. Among them, the poem "Yellow Crane Tower" written by Cui Hao, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, is the most wonderful and has been passed down as an eternal masterpiece.

People in the past have gone there by Yellow Crane, and the Yellow Crane Tower is vacant here.

The yellow crane will never return, and the white clouds will remain empty for thousands of years.

Qingchuan is surrounded by Hanyang trees and luxuriant grasses in Parrot Island.

Where is the country gate at dusk? The misty waves on the river make people sad.

The Tang Dynasty was the golden age of ancient Chinese poetry, with poets emerging in large numbers like stars. They wrote a large number of beautiful poems, and nearly 50,000 of them have been handed down to this day in the book "Complete Poems of the Tang Dynasty" alone. These poems reflect the rich content of social life in the Tang Dynasty and have beautiful artistic forms. Among them, rhythmic poetry was a new genre that appeared in the Tang Dynasty. Cui Hao's "Yellow Crane Tower" is a seven-character rhymed poem. Cui Hao (? - 754) lived in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Not many poems have been handed down, but their quality is relatively high, with "Yellow Crane Tower" as his representative work. This poem uses beautiful myths and legends to describe the origin of the Yellow Crane Tower, what you see when you climb the tower, and the nostalgia caused by the scene. People in the Song Dynasty regarded this poem as the first among the seven rhymes in the Tang Dynasty. Li Bai, the great poet of the Tang Dynasty, passed through Wuchang and was amazed after reading Cui Hao's poems. Legend has it that he blurted out the poem "There is a view in front of me but I can't think of it, Cui Hao wrote a poem on it", and then he stopped writing without writing. The "pen-holding pavilion" next to the Yellow Crane Tower was probably built for this reason.

Li Bai (701-762) was a great romantic poet. He also lived during the prosperous Tang Dynasty and spent most of his life roaming, almost all over the motherland. Influenced by nature during his long wandering life, he wrote a large number of poems describing the beautiful rivers and mountains of his motherland. These poems of his are bold and unrestrained, with sincere emotions, rich imagination, exaggerated techniques, and vivid and brisk language. How could a great poet who is famous for describing the mountains and rivers of his motherland not write about the Yellow Crane Tower? Of course he has written it, and more than a dozen of his poems involve the Yellow Crane Tower. The popular "Yellow Crane Tower Farewell to Meng Haoran in Guangling" is one of them:

The old friend bid farewell to the Yellow Crane Tower in the west, and the fireworks descended from Yangzhou in March.

The shadow of the lone sail in the distance is gone in the blue sky, and only the Yangtze River can be seen flowing in the sky.

In addition, Li Bai also wrote "Yellow Crane in the West Tower, the moon, the Yangtze River thousands of miles away", "A Qingyun guest, three visits to the Yellow Crane Tower", "The jade flute is played in the Yellow Crane Tower, and the plum blossoms fall in May in the river city" , "The immortal is waiting to ride the Yellow Crane, and the sea traveler has no intention of following the white gull" and other poems all reflect the poet's attachment to the Yellow Crane Tower. However, there are indeed no poems written by him specifically about the Yellow Crane Tower. This is probably because Cui Hao's poems are so well written. It is said that Li Bai was influenced by Cui Hao's poem and wrote a poem "Climbing the Phoenix Tower of Jinling" to compete with "Yellow Crane Tower".

The Phoenix travels on the Phoenix platform, and the wind flows away from the platform.

The flowers and plants of Wu Palace are buried in the secluded path, and the clothes of Jin Dynasty are transformed into ancient hills.

Beyond the sunny sky, the three mountains are half-set, and the two waters are divided into Baiyuanzhou.

The floating clouds can always cover the sun, and the absence of Chang'an makes people sad.

These two poems are indeed comparable to each other among the poems describing scenery in the Tang Dynasty, and both are excellent works.

Meng Haoran, Wang Wei, Jia Dao and others who were contemporaries of Cui Hao and Li Bai all recited poems about the Yellow Crane Tower. For example, Meng Haoran's "Farewell to Wang Jiu at Ying'e Island on the Left Side of the River" is a poem about standing on the Yellow Crane Tower and looking at the scenery of Ying'e Island.

Poets of the Mid-Tang Dynasty, such as Han Yu, Liu Yuxi and Bai Juyi, also wrote poems praising the Yellow Crane Tower. Bai Juyi's "Lu Shiyu and Cui Pingshi looked together after hosting a banquet at the Yellow Crane Tower" is a good poem about the Yellow Crane Tower.

The ancient Yellow Crane Tower by the river is waiting for me to visit.

Chu Simiao is surrounded by vast clouds and cold water, and the sound of business is clear and orchestral in autumn.

White flowers splash in Toutuo Temple, and Parrot Island is caged in red leaves.

There is always no place to go in life. When you get drunk, you will be rewarded and woke up, but you will be sad.

Bai Juyi (772-846) was a great realist poet. The era in which he lived. The Tang Dynasty had gradually declined, suffered from political corruption, and suffered from wars for many years. Witnessing the reality of corruption and turmoil, he advocated using poetry to describe the sufferings of people's livelihood and reflect the true situation of society. This brought new development to Tang poetry. Throughout his life, he wrote many allegorical poems that made the rich and powerful change their minds, such as the famous "Charcoal Seller", "Xinfeng Broken Arm Man", etc., which are the representative works of Bai Juyi's allegorical poems. He also wrote many poems depicting scenery. The poem about the Yellow Crane Tower cited above is one of them. Although this poem is a poem to express gratitude to the host, it is not as vulgar as ordinary social poems. The poem not only describes the charming scenery seen when climbing the Yellow Crane Tower, but also reflects the poet's worries about reality.

Among the great poets of the Tang Dynasty, there seems to be only one Du Fu who did not write about the Yellow Crane Tower. Du Fu (712-770) lived earlier than Bai Juyi and later than Li Bai. It was the transitional period from prosperity to decline of the Tang Dynasty. He is also a great poet of realism. His poems are full of the lofty spirit of loving the motherland and loving the people. They have rich social content and truly reflect the history of the Tang Dynasty from prosperity to decline. Therefore, later generations call his poems "the history of poetry". His poetry is also very artistic. He himself said, "I am obsessed with human nature and I will never stop writing good sentences if my words are not surprising." The poems he wrote in praise of historical sites are quite outstanding. For example, in the poem "Ming Fei Village", the first sentence is "all the mountains and valleys are going to Jingmen", and the word "going" in it depicts the scene of the winding mountains flowing with the water. It is conceivable that if Du Fu left a poem about the Yellow Crane Tower, it would definitely complement Cui Hao's poem.

Du Mu, known as "Little Du" among poets of the late Tang Dynasty, wrote poems involving the Yellow Crane Tower. Why is Du Mu called "Xiao Du"? Du Mu (803-852) lived in the troubled times of the late Tang Dynasty, when the rule became increasingly corrupt and people's lives became more difficult. The poet was concerned about the sufferings of the people's livelihood and was deeply dissatisfied with the corrupt politics. Like Du Fu, he used his poems to reflect the history of that declining era. At the same time, his poetry is also very artistic and has his own original style. All of these are probably the reasons why he is called "Xiao Du". The highest achievement of his poetry is the lyrical Qilu and Qijue. He expresses his bold emotions through scenes. For example, the famous "Mountain Journey", "Porting Qinhuai", "Jiangnan Spring", etc. are this kind of works, which make people feel endless aftertaste after reading them. The last two sentences of his poem about the Yellow Crane Tower are: "The spring water in front of the Yellow Crane Tower is vast, can you still remember your old friends after a cup of it?" This was written by the poet to send his friends off to Xiakou (today's Wuchang). He reminded his friends not to forget his old friend when they arrived at Xiakou, climbed the Yellow Crane Tower, and drank from the river full of spring water.

Many poets wrote about the Yellow Crane Tower in Tang Dynasty poems. Moreover, not only the Tang Dynasty, but also the Song Dynasty and even today, many poets wrote about the Yellow Crane Tower. Readers who are interested can go to Wuchang to visit the rebuilt Yellow Crane Tower, and then they can appreciate which of the poems describing the Yellow Crane Tower is the best.