Appreciation of "Flowers are more and more beautiful, only shallow grass can have no horseshoe"

Bai Juyi

Gushan Temple North Jiating West

The water surface is flat and the cloud feet are low.

Several early songbirds struggled to perch in the warm sunshine trees.

Whose new swallow is holding mud in the nest

The chaotic flowers gradually confused the eyes.

The tender grass has just covered the horseshoe.

I like walking in the east of the lake best, and I will never get tired of it.

In under the greenwood tree, on the white sand embankment.

Qiantang Lake, also known as West Lake, is one of the famous scenic spots in China. When we mention the West Lake, we will naturally think of Su Shi's famous sentence "If you want to compare the West Lake with the West, light makeup is always appropriate." After reading this poem by Bai Juyi, I seem to really see the smiling face of Shi. The poem describes the charming spring scenery of the West Lake in early spring as seen by the poet riding a horse, shows the vitality of everything in the bath of spring scenery, shapes the poet's own image, creates an artistic conception of gratifying spring scenery and abundant business, and expresses his love for the early spring scenery and his quiet and comfortable mood.

[Introduction to the author]

Bai Juyi (772-846), whose name was Lotte, was named Xiangshan layman and drunk. His ancestral home was Taiyuan (now Shaanxi), and his great-grandfather Bai Wen moved to Xiaguan (now Weinan, Shaanxi), so he was a great realistic poet in the middle Tang Dynasty. Bai Juyi's poems are rich in subject matter, profound in content, simple in expression, appropriate and fluent. There are nearly 3,000 existing white poems, the number of which should be the largest among poets in the Tang Dynasty. He once divided his poems into four categories: satire, leisure, sentimentality and heteronomy. What he is most proud of and valuable is his satirical poems. In literature, he advocated that "articles should be written in time, and songs and poems should be written for things", emphasized inheriting the fine tradition of realism in China's classical poetry, and opposed works without other sustenance. He is an advocate of the new Yuefu movement and plays an important role in the history of literature. The long narrative poems "Song of Eternal Sorrow" and "Whispering" represent his highest artistic achievements.

[Background Introduction]

Bai Juyi was appointed as the history of Hangzhou in July of the second year of Changqing (AD 822), and became the history of Suzhou in March of Bao Liyuan (AD 825). Therefore, this "Qiantang Spring Tour" should be written in the spring of the third or fourth year of Changqing.

[Text Notes]

Spring outing: a walk in spring.

Gushan Temple: On Gushan Mountain in Bai Causeway, West Lake.

Jia Ting: Jia Gongting, built by Jia Quan, the secretariat of Hangzhou in the Tang Dynasty, no longer exists today.

Chuping: From a distance, the water surface of the West Lake seems to be just flush with the shore and the scenery on the shore.

Cloud foot: In ancient Chinese, the drooping image was called "foot" and the lower part of the falling rain was called "foot of rain". This refers to the drooping clouds.

Warm tree: a tree facing the sun.

Miscellaneous flowers: refers to a large number of open spring flowers.

Shallow grass: grass in early spring, although abundant, is not very tall.

No (mò): Disappear.

Hudong: Taking Gushan as a reference, Baisha Dike (namely Bai Causeway) is in the northeast of Gushan.

Insufficient travel: insufficient travel, that is, repeated travel.

[hierarchy]

The first couplet focuses on the big picture and writes about the scenery seen by Gushan Temple. The first sentence is position, and the second sentence is vision. "Chuping" refers to spring water, which is slightly flat with the embankment. "Low cloud feet" means that the white clouds are low and connected with the lake, and the outline of early spring is outlined. The calm water at the foot and the low-hanging cloud curtain in the sky constitute a quiet ink painting of the West Lake.

The poems written by Zhuan Xu were seen by poets during their travels. Yingying is a singer in spring, and everyone is competing to fly to the sunny tree to sing; Yan, the messenger of spring, has begun to build nests with mud and is full of vitality. Using "jujube" to describe oriole reflects Bai Juyi's sincere love for these vibrant little lives. The word "struggle" makes people feel that spring is rare and precious. Using a word "peck" to describe the busy and excited appearance of the swallow seems to bring the swallow back to life. These two sentences deliberately describe the dynamics of Yingying Yanyan, thus making the whole poem full of vitality and vitality in spring.

Writing flowers and plants in neck couplets focuses on the poet's feelings. The horse walked briskly on the shallow grass and looked at the flowers for a long time. His eyes were full of colorful flowers, which made people dizzying and puzzled. This pair of couplets and the first pair of couplets are the core of this poem, and they are also the crowning touch to describe the spring scenery in the white poem, especially the spring scenery in the West Lake. This is an emotional and energetic description of the scenery, which fully shows Bai Juyi's careful observation of the object of description and his accurate grasp of its characteristics.

At the end of the poem, the scenery of Baishadi is written, which directly expresses the poet's joy. The "lack of lines" is due to the lack of sight, which shows that the poet lingers.

[Significance of Poetry Translation]

From the north of Gushan Temple to Jiating West, the spring water on the lake just overlaps with the dike and white clouds and is connected with the waves on the lake.

Several early orioles scrambled to fly to the sunny tree, and the new swallows were nesting with spring mud in their mouths.

Countless colorful spring flowers gradually fascinated people's eyes, and the shallow spring grass just covered the horseshoe.

I like the beautiful scenery on the east side of the West Lake best. I haven't visited it enough, especially the white sand embankment under the green shade.

[Appreciation of Poetry]

From the northern foot of Gushan Mountain to the present Pinghu and Bai Causeway Autumn Moon, the poet reported the information of spring to people all the way: the lake is full of spring water, the trees are full of spring warblers, Chun Yan is in the air, the spring flowers are blooming on the shore, and the spring grass is just green. The poet's keen and delicate brushwork makes people realize that the West Lake is wearing spring clothes in a stretch. The poet praised the spring scenery of the West Lake and pointed out that he loved walking on the white sand embankment. There is water on both sides of Bai Causeway, and willows and peach trees are planted on both sides of the embankment. Walking on the Bai Causeway in spring, the lake is at your feet, and you seem to be walking on the water; Willow branches in early spring, like smoke and fog, like silk, come to your face and make your heart swell with infinite tenderness and infinite love. You are like in a dream and a fairyland. When you walk on the Bai Causeway in spring, you can better appreciate the poet's feelings and moods when he wrote this poem.

The theme of the whole poem is mainly on the word "travel", closely following the word "spring outing" to describe the scenery. But the West Lake is too big and the journey is too long, so the poet only intercepts a paragraph to write-from the north of Gushan Temple to Baisha Land. After reading this poem, we naturally have the feeling of enjoying the early spring scenery of the West Lake with the poet.

[poetic features]

The whole poem has tight structure, strict meter, neat antithesis, fluent language and vivid and natural tone, which embodies the characteristics of popularity and fluency. Generally speaking, the poet describes the spring on the lake and is good at describing the scenery on the way. He chose the combination of typical and classified arrangement: he wrote four most beautiful spring scenes in the middle and chose the combination of animals and plants, which was unique. He is also good at grasping the characteristics of the scenery and using the most expressive words to describe and render it.

[Innovative reading]

Idle pen is not idle (text /Tom Chang)

Poetry is precious and exquisite, and there is no room for idle writing. It's a idle pen and should be deleted. However, some words seem to be idle, but they are not idle. If you read them carefully, there will be another rhythm in the idle pen. That kind of deep poetry is often not read, but tasted.

Bai Juyi's "Qiantang Spring Tour", the middle four sentences are: "A few early warblers compete for warm trees, whose new swallow pecks at spring mud. Flowers are more and more attractive, and shallow grass can be without horseshoes. " Some poetry critics have pointed out that there are too many idle pens in the four sentences. By free writing, he means "a few places", "whose youth is young", "gradual desire" and "talent". After the deletion, the poem is "the early warbler fights for the warm tree, and the new swallow pecks the spring mud." The flowers are charming, and the shallow grass has no hooves. " As far as the chanting scene is concerned, all the images and pictures of the original poem come out. But the poet wrote "spring outing", not "spring scenery". He wanted the spring scenery of the West Lake to flow with his "trip". Without these eight words, spring scenery remains the same; With these eight words, the still picture will flow.

"Several places" is a quantifier. "The early warbler fights for the warm tree" is a beautiful picture. If it is crowned with "several places", this beautiful picture is not one place, but many places. There are some here, some there and some in the distance. "Liu Lang Wen Ying" is a scene of the West Lake. In fact, in spring, warblers can be heard everywhere around the West Lake. "Whose home" is a question word. The poet did not deliberately describe "Chun Yan pecking at mud", but deliberately asked: "Who is Chun Yan pecking at mud?" With this question, perhaps the poet will speed up his pace and set his eyes on Chun Yan to see which spring mud will nest. It's much more interesting to think like this than just depicting "Chun Yan pecking at mud". For example, Several Places, Whose Home, Desire, Talent, etc., do not provide images and form pictures, but add them to poetry, expand the images and extend the pictures, and natural things will flow with the poet's "behavior".

Reading aloud is reading poetry, pondering carefully is tasting poetry, and good poetry can be read and tasted. Some poems are not wonderful to read for the first time, but they are wonderful to read slowly. The poetry of direct reading mostly comes from intuitive images; The indirect taste of poetry is mostly hidden in the "idle pen" outside the image.

That poetry critic should be a poetry critic, not an editor, not an editor-in-chief Otherwise, Bai Juyi's poem was thrown into his hand, and with a stroke of a pen, it was said that the "idle pen" was cut off, but in fact it hurt the bones and the fate of the poem was miserable. (Excerpted from PLA Daily, 7th edition, 2000165438+1October 24th)