"Yangtze River" I traveled to the North Sea with the wind for a few days and returned to the head of the Yangtze River. My heart is like a magnetic needle, and it will not rest until it points to the other side.

[Song Dynasty] Wen Tianxiang

Notes

When Wen Tianxiang was appointed as the magistrate of Ganzhou, he used his family property to finance the army, raised troops to fight against the Yuan Dynasty, entered Lin'an to defend Lin'an, and soon became the right prime minister. , went to the Yuan army to negotiate and was detained and detained heading north. After escaping danger, he returned south and led his troops to fight against the Yuan army. In the first year of Jingyan (1276), on his way from the south to Fuzhou to support Duanzong in an effort to recover, he wrote a poem "Yangtze River" to describe his aspirations. In the third year of Jingyan's reign (1278), he was captured due to a military defeat. He persisted in fighting in prison for four years and was eventually killed for his unyielding.

2. "Climbing the Stork Tower" The sun sets over the mountains and the Yellow River flows into the sea. If you want to see a thousand miles away, go to the next level.

Rhyme Translation

The setting sun slowly sinks against the Western Mountains,

The mighty Yellow River rushes towards the East China Sea.

If you want to see enough of the thousands of miles of scenery,

you have to climb to a higher tower.

Commentary

This is a poem about climbing high and looking far. In a few words, the scenery is described as vast and majestic, with a powerful vision, looking at the infinity of the universe, and embodying the depth of philosophy. Both couplets of the poem use antithesis, and the antithesis is natural, full of momentum, boundless, and natural. "If you want to see a thousand miles away, reach a higher level" has been regarded as the motto of pursuing the ideal state and has been passed down through the ages.

Stork Tower, also known as Stork and Magpie Tower, according to "Qing Yi Tong Zhi", the old site of the tower is southwest of Puzhou, Shanxi (now Yongji County, Hezhong Prefecture in the Tang Dynasty), at Gaofu in the middle of the Yellow River , sometimes there are storks perching on it, hence its name. Shen Kuo recorded in "Mengxi Bi Tan": "On the third floor of the Stork Tower in Hezhong Mansion, you can look forward to the middle section and look down to the river. Many people in the Tang Dynasty left poems." Wang Zhihuan's five unique poems are one of the immortal poems among the "Poems left by the Tang Dynasty". do.

The first two lines of the poem, "The sun sets over the mountains and the Yellow River flows into the sea," describe the scenery seen from climbing the tower. The scenery is magnificent and powerful. Here, the poet uses extremely simple and superficial language to capture the thousands of miles of rivers and mountains that have entered the broad field of vision in just ten words in a highly vivid and general way; and when we read these ten words in a thousand years, It's like being there, seeing the scenery, and it feels like your mind is opened. The first sentence is about looking at a sunset in the distance, sinking towards the endless rolling mountains in front of the building, and slowly disappearing at the end of the field of vision. This is a sky view, a distant view, and a westward view. The second sentence is about watching the Yellow River flowing under the front of the building roaring and rolling southward, then turning eastward in the distance and flowing back to the sea. This is looking from the ground to the horizon, from near to far, from west to east. When these two lines of poetry are combined, all the scenery above and below, far and near, and east and west are included in the poem, making the picture appear particularly broad and far-reaching. As far as the second line of the poem is concerned, the poet is on the stork tower and cannot see the Yellow River entering the sea. What is written in the line is the poet's intended scene as he watches the Yellow River go away to the horizon. It is a fusion of the current scene and the intended scene. Written as one. Writing this way adds to the breadth and depth of the picture.

Du Fu’s "Song of Landscape Paintings by Wang Zai" contains two sentences: "You are far away and the situation is as great as ancient times, but you should be able to discuss it thousands of miles away." Although it is about painting, it can also be used to discuss poetry. .

Wang Zhihuan's two lines of landscape poems are able to shrink thousands of miles to a close, making what is close to a thousand miles