Ma Zhiyuan

Famous sentence: the old vine is faint, and the small bridge is flowing.

Guide reading

Ma Zhiyuan (about 1250— about 132 1),No. Dongli, a Beijinger. About the same time as Guan Hanqing and Wang Shifu. He was a provincial official in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. He was dissatisfied with the reality at that time and retired in his later years. He was a famous writer of zaju Sanqu in the early Yuan Dynasty. Together with Guan Hanqing, Bai Pu and Zheng Guangzu, they are also called "the four masters of Yuan Qu" and are known as "the first person to bend". His Sanqu has a wide range of contents and refined words, which are deeply loved by later scholars. Most of his Sanqu were written after retiring, expressing his dissatisfaction with reality, and at the same time revealing his thoughts of escaping from reality with negative emotions. There is a volume of Dongli Yuefu in the Sanqu Collection. His plays include Autumn in the Han Palace, Sleeping in Chen Tuan, The Story of Yueyang Tower, etc.

Tianjingsha is a well-known tune in Yuediao.

Original song

Old vines are faint crows, small bridges are flowing, and old roads are thin horses. When the sun sets, heartbroken people are at the end of the world.

To annotate ...

(1) This is a famous song by Ma Zhiyuan, which describes the feeling of travelers wandering around the world. ② Black crow: the crow that returns to the nest at dusk. 3 heartbroken person: a person who is heartbroken when he is extremely sad. This refers to travelers who are worried about homesickness. Tianya: refers to the horizon

Translate poetry

Crows fly back to their nests on old vines,

There are several families living sporadically by the bridge beside the stream.

Wanderers on the lonely ancient road lead thin horses to meet the autumn wind.

Look at the sunset on the horizon, which has fallen behind the mountain.

This is because homesick and heartbroken people are still wandering around the world.

Make an appreciative comment

Tianjingsha Qiu Si is the most famous work of Sanqu in Yuan Dynasty. This poem is very short, with only five sentences and 28 words in total, but it is ingenious in conception and harmonious in artistic conception. It is a masterpiece and swan song describing natural scenery in Sanqu, and is called "the ancestor of Qiu Si". The author does not focus on depicting the thoughts and feelings of homesick and bored wanderers, but shows a bleak and desolate picture of late autumn with concise brushstrokes: crows return to trees in late autumn, pedestrians return home, and wanderers are still at the end of the world. This picture seems unremarkable, but it is very poetic, which can give people a strong infection and let readers naturally feel the bleak mood of wandering wanderers.

The first four sentences of the tune are dominated by scenery, and the last sentence is a bit emotional. In the first four sentences, the poet used a technique similar to "montage" to skillfully connect ten inconspicuous objective scenes one by one to form a set of shots. Through the six words with strong sadness, such as "withered", "old", "faint", "ancient", "western" and "thin", the picture naturally contains the poet's infinite sadness. In particular, the landscaping of "small bridges and flowing water" in the second sentence is in sharp contrast with the landscaping in the previous sentence. On the one hand, it is comfortable, leisurely and warm, and on the other hand, it is restless and homeless. In this strong contrast, the bitterness and loneliness of travelers are strongly contrasted. The last sentence is the finishing touch. In the bleak autumn scenery carefully sketched in front, the image of a heartbroken man is highlighted, which strongly expresses the poet's sad feelings of talent, loneliness and sadness.

This poem is elegant in style and concise in brushwork. Coupled with some special things, it constitutes a bleak mood and has achieved high artistic achievements. It is a bright pearl in the classical literary heritage of Yuanqu and even China.