The Yuefu poem "Long Song Xing" exhorts you to cherish time: "If young people don't work hard, old people will be sad."

1. Original text

Long Song Xing

Han Dynasty: Anonymous

The sunflowers in the green garden are waiting for the sun to set in the morning dew.

Budze in spring brings brilliance to all things.

I am often afraid that when the autumn festival comes, the yellow flowers and leaves will wither.

From the east to the sea, when will the rivers return to the west?

If a young man does not work hard, the old man will be miserable!

2. Translation

The sunflowers in the garden are all lush and green, rising under the crystal dew in the sun.

Spring spreads hope all over the earth, and everything appears prosperous.

I am often afraid that the chilling autumn will come, and the leaves will turn yellow and the grass will wither.

The rivers are rushing eastward to the sea. When can they return to the west again?

If a young person does not work hard in time, he will only regret his life when he grows old.

3. Annotation

⑴ Chang Ge Xing: Title of Han Yuefu. This poem is selected from Volume 30 of "Collection of Yuefu Poems", "Ping Tune" in Zodiac Signs and Songs.

⑵Kui: "Kui" as a vegetable name refers to one of the important vegetables in ancient China. "The Book of Songs·Binfeng·July": "In July, Kui and Shu are harvested." Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" says that "Sunflower is a common food in ancient times, but it is quite rare today. There are two types of purple stems and white stems. The white stem is the winner. The flowers are purple and yellow, and the smallest one is as big as the top of a finger. The skin is thin and flat, and the inner seeds are as light as elm seeds. "This poem is "Sunflower in the Green Garden". That means this.

⑶Morning dew: dew in the early morning. Xi: Dawn, extended to the sun shining.

⑷"Yangchun" sentence: Yang means gentleness. Yangchun is a time when dew and sunshine are sufficient. Both dew and sunshine are needed by plants and are the blessings of nature, which is the so-called "deze". Bu: Giving, giving. Deze: Favor.

⑸Autumn Festival: Autumn.

⑹焜黄: Describes the appearance of withered and yellow vegetation. Hua: Same as "flower". Bad: One is to read "cuī", because there was no "shuāi" sound in ancient times; the other is to read shuāi, according to "Ancient Chinese" published by Chinese Language Press, in addition to the standard pronunciation of Mandarin, any other reading method is Not advisable.

⑺ Baichuan: big river.

⑻ Shaozhuang: Young and strong, referring to the teenage years.

⑼Boss: Refers to old age. Disciple: In vain.

4. Appreciation

This poem starts with "Sunflower in the Garden" and then uses the metaphor of water flowing to the sea and never coming back to illustrate that time is like flowing water, which will never return once it is gone. Finally, I advise people to cherish their youth, work hard, and not regret it when they grow old. This poem uses physical reasoning, first using sunflowers in the garden as a metaphor. "Qingqing" refers to its lush growth. In fact, under the sunshine and rain throughout the spring, everything is striving to grow. Because they are all afraid that autumn will come soon, and they know the reason why the autumn wind withers all the grass. The rhythm of life in nature is like this, and so is life. If a person does not take advantage of the good times and work hard, his youth will be wasted in vain, and it will be too late to regret it when he is old. This poem reminds young people of the perishable life from the beauty of youth in front of them, and encourages young people to cherish time, give warnings, and encourage people to get up.

This is a song that sings about life. Singing about people naturally starts from the sunflower in the garden. This is called "supporting things to rise" in writing, that is, "preface other things to trigger the words to be chanted." The sunflower in the garden stands gracefully in the spring morning, with dewdrops rolling on its green leaves, shining brightly in the morning sun, like a young man full of youthful vitality. The poet extended it from the vigorous growth of sunflower in the garden and wrote about the entire nature. Due to the sunshine, rain and dew in spring, everything is shining with the glory of life, and there are vibrant and prosperous scenes everywhere. These four sentences are literally a tribute to spring. In fact, they are borrowing things to compare with people. They are a hymn to the most precious thing in life - youth. An era when life is full of youthful vitality is as beautiful as spring in all four seasons of the year. In this way, in terms of writing, it also has a metaphorical meaning, which is the so-called "Xingerbi".

The time sequence of nature is constantly changing. In the blink of an eye, spring passes and autumn comes. The sunflowers and everything else in the garden experience spring growth and summer growth. In autumn, they mature, and the formerly brilliant leaves turn yellow and wither. Loss of vitality. The same is true in life. We grow up from youth and old age, and we also have to go through a metabolic process. This is an immovable law of nature. The poet expresses his cherishment of the fleeting "youth" with "I am always afraid of the coming of autumn". One of the words "fear" shows people's powerlessness against the laws of nature and the inevitable withering of youth. Then from the change of time sequence to the endless time and boundless space of the universe, time is like a river passing eastward, never to return. Measured by the time scale, human life cannot be resurrected after death. In the face of this eternal nature, life is like the morning dew on the leaves that is dried when it sees the sun, like the green sunflower leaves that wither and wither when they encounter the autumn wind. The poem shifts from the exploration of the universe to thinking about the value of life, and finally comes to the deafening conclusion of "If a young man does not work hard, an old man will be sad", and ends the poem. This reasoning process is not written literally, but readers can follow the poet's thinking track and supplement it with their own life experiences: all things in nature have a process of spring and autumn, and life also has a process of young people working hard and getting older. . All things in nature can bear fruit in autumn as long as there is sunshine, rain and dew, but people are different; they cannot succeed without their own efforts. All things decay through autumn, but they have realized the value of life, so there is no need to be sad; this is not the case for people. Because they are "young and don't work hard" and become old and achieve nothing, it is equivalent to walking through the world in vain. It is undoubtedly better to mobilize readers to think than to think for them. Because of this, this poem avoids life preaching that is easily annoying, and makes the final aphorism appear powerful, deep and implicit, like the long tolling of a bell, deeply touching the hearts of readers. The word "tu" at the end of the sentence has a profound meaning: first, it means that the boss has no success, and life is wasted; second, it means that when you wake up in old age, you will not be able to help, and you can only sigh, which is intended to emphasize that you must work hard in time.

5. Comments

This is a song that sings about life. Singing about people naturally starts from the sunflower in the garden. This is called "supporting things to rise" in writing, that is, "preface other things to trigger the words to be chanted." The sunflower in the garden stands gracefully in the spring morning, with dewdrops rolling on its green leaves, shining brightly in the morning sun, like a young man full of youthful vitality. The poet extended it from the vigorous growth of sunflower in the garden and wrote about the entire nature. Due to the sunshine, rain and dew in spring, everything is shining with the glory of life, and there are vibrant and prosperous scenes everywhere. These four sentences are literally a tribute to spring. In fact, they are borrowing things to compare with people. They are a hymn to the most precious thing in life - youth. An era when life is full of youthful vitality is as beautiful as spring in all four seasons of the year. In this way, in terms of writing, it also has a metaphorical meaning, which is the so-called "Xingerbi".

The time sequence of nature is constantly changing. In the blink of an eye, spring passes and autumn comes. The sunflowers and everything else in the garden experience spring growth and summer growth. In autumn, they mature, and the formerly brilliant leaves turn yellow and wither. Loss of vitality. The same is true in life. We grow up from youth and age, and we also have to go through a metabolic process when we age and die. This is an immovable law of nature. The poet expresses his cherishment of the fleeting "youth" with "I am always afraid of the coming of autumn". One of the words "fear" shows people's powerlessness against the laws of nature and the inevitable withering of youth. Then from the change of time sequence to the endless time and boundless space of the universe, time is like a river passing eastward, never to return. Measured by the time scale, human life cannot be resurrected after death. In the face of this eternal nature, isn't life just like the dew on the leaves that is dried as soon as it sees the sun? Aren't they just like the green sunflower leaves that wither and wither at the sound of autumn wind? The poem shifts from the exploration of the universe to thinking about the value of life, and finally comes to the deafening conclusion of "If a young man does not work hard, an old man will be sad", and ends the poem.

This reasoning process is not written literally, but readers can follow the path of the poet's thinking and use their own life experiences to supplement it: all things in nature have a process of spring and autumn, and life also has a process of young people working hard and getting older. ; All things in nature can bear fruit in autumn as long as there is sunshine and rain, but people are different. They cannot succeed without their own efforts. All things decay in autumn, but they realize the value of life, so they are not sad. This is not the case for people, because "Young people don't work hard" and old people achieve nothing, isn't it the same as walking through the world in vain? It is undoubtedly better to mobilize readers to think than to think for them. Because of this, this poem avoids life preaching that is easily annoying, and makes the final aphorism appear powerful, deep and implicit, like the long tolling of a bell, deeply touching the hearts of readers. The word "tu" at the end of the sentence has a profound meaning: first, it means that the boss has no success, and life is wasted; second, it means that when you wake up in old age, you will not be able to help, and you can only sigh, which is intended to emphasize that you must work hard in time.

When reading this poem, we will naturally think of the famous saying in "How Steel Was Tempered" about how human life should be spent. "The most precious thing for a person is life. Everyone has only one life. Therefore, a person's life should be spent in this way: when he looks back on the past years, he will not regret for wasting time, nor be ashamed of having accomplished nothing; this way , when he is about to pass away, he can say frankly: I have dedicated my entire life and all my energy to the most magnificent cause in the world - fighting for the liberation of mankind." Guide readers to work hard in time. Don't waste your time, this attitude towards life is undoubtedly positive.

This is a masterpiece among the ancient Yuefu poems of the Han Dynasty. The poem uses a series of metaphors to illustrate that we should cherish time and work hard early. The first four lines of the poem describe to us a bright spring scene. The green sunflowers in the garden are still covered with dew. After the sun rises, the dew dries up, and the sunflowers are bathed in the sunshine again. Everything in the world is blessed by the rain and dew of nature in spring, and glows with incomparable brilliance. However, when autumn comes, they all lose their bright luster and become withered and yellow. All things undergo ups and downs, and people also undergo a process from youth to old age. Time is like water in a big river, flowing eastward into the sea and never to return. If we don’t cherish time and work hard when we are young and strong, we will only be sad in vain when we grow old!

6. Introduction to Yuefu

Yuefu was first established in the Qin Dynasty. It was an institution under the "Shaofu" at that time that specialized in the management of music, dance and singing teaching. In the early Han Dynasty, Yuefu was not preserved. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty Liu Che, the Yuefu was rebuilt during the ceremonial music ceremony in Dingjiao. Its duty was to collect folk songs or poems by literati to set the music for performance at court sacrifices or banquets. The poems it collected and compiled were later called "Yuefu Poems", or simply "Yuefu Poems". It is a new poetry style following "The Book of Songs" and "Chu Ci". Later, those who did not enter Yue were also called Yuefu or pseudo-Yuefu.