As a stranger in a foreign land,

Please think twice about your relatives during the festival.

Know where the brothers climb,

There is one person missing from the dogwood.

-Wang Wei

[Edit this paragraph] Author

Wang Wei (70 1-76 1), a famous poet in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, was famous and successful, with a high official and a generous position. He was originally from Qi (now Qixian, Shanxi), moved to Yongji, Shanxi, believed in Buddhism, and lived in Lantian in his later years. He was of Han nationality. He is good at drawing figures, bamboos and landscapes. There are two kinds of landscapes recorded by the Tang people: one is similar to Li's father and son, the other is painted by breaking ink, and the latter is his masterpiece. Unfortunately, no original works have been handed down from generation to generation. The Snow Stream Map and Jinan Mansion handed down to him are not original works. Su Shi commented that "there are paintings in poetry; Look at the picture, there are poems in the picture. " He is a representative of the pastoral poetry school in Tang Dynasty. Kaiyuan Jinshi He served as Da Lecheng and You Shiyi. When An Lushan rebelled, he was forced to assume a false post. He has made great achievements in poetry and painting. Su Dongpo praised him for "painting in poetry and poetry in painting", especially for his achievements in landscape poetry. Together with Meng Haoran, they are called "Wang Meng". In his later years, he was careless about his official career and devoted himself to being a Buddha. Later, he was called "Shi Fo". There is a saying that "Li Bai is a genius, Du Fu is a native talent and Wang Wei is a talent". Wang Wei is not only recognized as Shi Fo, but also a master of Nanshan literati painting (Qian Zhongshu called him "the first painter in the prosperous Tang Dynasty"), and he is proficient in temperament. Is a rare all-rounder

Wang Weishi was famous both before and after his death. History says that "fame is in Kaiyuan and Tianbao, and the nobles and heroes are vain to welcome it, and the kings of Ning and Xue treat it as teachers and friends" (New Tang Book). Tang Daizong once praised him as "the literate sect in the world" (Answer to Wang Weiji, a letter to Wang Jin). Du Fu also called him "the most beautiful sentence in a full picture book" (the eighth of the twelve poems in Jieboredom). Yin Kun said: "Uygur poetry is elegant and refined, with new ideas and ideas. It's a pearl in spring and a picture on the wall. Every word is different. " At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Si Kongtu praised him as "interesting and clear, clear and penetrating" (Comment on Poetry with Wang Jia). In the past, people once praised Wang Wei as "Shi Fo" and compared him with poet Du Fu and poet Li Bai. As far as ideological content is concerned, Wang Wei's poems are far from comparable to those of Li and Du Fu. In terms of art, Wang Wei did have his unique achievements and contributions. In the Tang Dynasty, the poems of Liu Changqing, Ten Talents in Dali, Yao He and Jia Dao were all influenced by Wang Wei to varying degrees. Until the Qing Dynasty, Wang Shi's charm still existed. In fact, his poems were regarded as poems. However, this school of poetry is often sentimental and lacks social content.

translate

When a person is a guest in a foreign country, he misses his family more every holiday. I imagined in a distant foreign land that when my brothers climbed the mountain today, when everyone was planting dogwood, I was gone.

[Edit this paragraph] Interpretation

1, September 9th: refers to the Double Ninth Festival on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. There are also folk customs such as climbing mountains, inserting dogwoods and drinking chrysanthemum wine.

2, memory: nostalgia.

3. Shandong: refers to the east of Huashan (now Shanxi), and Wang Wei's hometown is in this area.

4. A foreign land: a foreign land.

Five times: double, more.

6, remote knowledge: think far.

7. Mountain climbing: On the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, people have the custom of climbing mountains to avoid evil spirits.

8. Cornus officinalis: Also known as Moongum, it is a fragrant plant. According to legend, it is said that the bag of Cornus officinalis is tied in the Double Ninth Festival, and drinking chrysanthemum wine can avoid disaster.

[Edit this paragraph] Translate it into modern poetry

Wandering alone, being a stranger in a strange place,

Think twice about your relatives during the festive season.

Looking back on Chongyang today, my brother is climbing the mountain again.

They were wearing dogwood, but I was missing.

[Edit this paragraph] English translation

On vacation in the mountains

Think of my brothers in Shandong

Wang Wei

Wesley Wang (Poems by Wang Wei 100 (bilingual pictorial), Shanghai World Map, 2005)

Alone in a foreign land,

I am doubly homesick on this day.

When the brothers carried dogwood up the hill,

Each of them is a branch, and my branch is missing.

On the Double Ninth Festival, I thought of my brothers at home.

I am a lonely stranger in a strange land,

Think twice about your relatives during the festive season.

My brothers must have crossed some heights by now,

But the disappearance of a dogwood wearer will affect the performance.

Translated by Tang Yihe (Tianjin People's Publishing House, 2005 edition, 300 English versions of Tang poems)

Think of my brother in Zhou Pu east of Huashan Mountain.

On the double ninth festival

As a stranger in a strange land,

I miss my relatives twice during the festive season, and I feel heavy.

I know the height my brothers climbed from a distance.

Wearing dogwood on his head but without my company.

Translated by Chen (Shanghai University Press, 2005, 150 English version of Tang poetry)

Think of my brothers in Shandong

On the double ninth festival

Every holiday is a stranger in a strange land.

I care more about my relatives.

I know that when my brothers wear medicine bags,

Up high, they'll find a spare one.

[Edit this paragraph] Comment on the whole poem

? Write poems about wandering people missing their loved ones. As soon as the poet started, he eagerly went straight to the subject and wrote about the loneliness and sadness of life in a foreign land. Therefore, he always misses his hometown and people, and when he meets a festive occasion, he misses him doubly. Then the poem jumps to writing a brother who is far away from home. When they climbed the mountain according to the custom of Chongyang, they also missed themselves. Poetry jumps repeatedly, implicative and deep, simple and natural, tortuous and changeable. For thousands of years, "I miss my family twice during the festive season" has become a famous saying of homesickness for wanderers, which has touched the hearts of many wanderers.

[Edit this paragraph] The author's poetic attainments

There are less than 400 poems by Wang Wei. Among them, the most representative of his creative characteristics is the description of natural scenery such as mountains, rivers and pastoral areas, and poems that recite seclusion. Wang Wei's high achievements in describing natural scenery made him unique in the poetry circle in the prosperous Tang Dynasty and became the representative of the pastoral poetry school. He inherited and developed the tradition of writing landscape poems initiated by Xie Lingyun, and absorbed the freshness and naturalness of Tao Yuanming's landscape pastoral poems, which made the achievements of landscape pastoral poems reach a peak, thus occupying an important position in the history of China's poetry. Together with Meng Haoran, he is a representative figure of the pastoral poetry school in Tang Dynasty. Wang Jin collected more than 400 poems of Wang Wei in Biography of Wang Wei in Old Tang Dynasty. In addition, Wang Jin's "Entering Wang Youcheng Collection Table" was compiled as 10 volume. Shu Gu Tang originally contained the Collected Works of Wang Youcheng by Masha in the Southern Song Dynasty 10, and then it was returned to Lu Xinyuan □ Song Lou. The Beijing Library has 10 volume of Wang Mo's Song Shu Engraving Collection, which was photocopied and published by Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House on 1982. In the Yuan Dynasty, there were six volumes of The Collection of Wang Youcheng, which were reviewed by Liu, and four copies were copied by You Qian, Lv Xiang and Cui Xingzong. In the Ming Dynasty, there were 10 volumes of Wang Youcheng's poems in the Tang Dynasty, among which 4 volumes of Selected Poems were the earliest extant annotations of Wang Wei's poems. Zhao Diancheng's Notes on Wang Youcheng in Qing Dynasty is a good one so far. In addition to explaining all the poems, there are also notes to explain the author's suspicious poems, and occasionally textual research; Wang Wei's life information and poetry and painting comments were also collected as appendices. 196 1 year, Zhao Zhu was revised by Shanghai Editorial Institute of Zhonghua Book Company and printed and published. In addition, Zheng Zhenduo collated the four series with Zhao Diancheng's notes and other four versions, and included them in the World Library. For the deeds, see Biography of Old and New Books of Tang Dynasty. Both Gu's annotation and Zhao Diancheng's annotation are accompanied by Wang Wei's chronicle written by the annotator. There is a paper on Wang Wei's life story in Chen Yi today, and a chronology of Wang Wei is attached (on Tang poetry).

[Edit this paragraph] Writing background

The poet left his hometown on the Double Ninth Festival, went to another place and missed his relatives in his hometown. Wang Wei lives in Zhou Pu (now Yongji, Shanxi Province), to the east of Huashan Mountain, so he is called "Recalling Shandong Brothers". When he wrote this poem, he was probably seeking fame in Chang 'an. Although the bustling imperial capital was very attractive to young literati who were keen on official career at that time, it was a "foreign land" for a young wanderer after all. The more bustling and lively, the more lonely and helpless the wanderer is in the vast sea of people.

[Edit this paragraph] Poetry appreciation

The first sentence uses a word "unique" and two words "different", which is sufficient. My thoughts about my loved ones and my feelings about my lonely situation are all condensed in the word "independence". "Being a stranger in a foreign land" only refers to being a guest in another country, but the artistic effect caused by the word "different" is much stronger than that caused by the general description of being a guest in another country. In the feudal era dominated by natural economy, there were great differences in customs, languages and living habits in different regions. When you leave your hometown where you have lived for many years and go to a strange place, you will feel that everything is strange and unaccustomed, and you will feel like duckweed floating in a strange place. "Foreign land" and "stranger" are the simple and true expressions of this feeling. A stranger's homesickness naturally exists on weekdays, but sometimes it doesn't necessarily show up, but once it encounters some kind of catalyst-the most common one is "festival"-it is easy to explode and even uncontrollable. This is the so-called "I miss my relatives twice during the festive season". Festivals are often a time for family reunion, and many fond memories of hometown scenery are often associated, so it is natural to "miss your family more during festivals". This kind of experience can be said that everyone has it, but before Wang Wei, no poet has successfully expressed it with such plain and highly summarized poems. Once the poet speaks it, it becomes an epigram that can best express the homesickness of the guests.

The first two sentences can be said to be the direct method of artistic creation. There is almost no detour, but directly into the core, quickly forming a climax, with epigrams. However, this kind of writing often makes the last two sentences unsustainable, resulting in insufficient stamina. If the last two sentences of this poem extend in a straight line along the line of "I miss my relatives more during the festive season", it must be a snake's foot; It is also difficult to find new ideas and form a new climax. The author takes another approach: with the torrent of emotion, a rippling lake appears, which seems calm, but it is actually deeper.

There is a custom of climbing mountains on the Double Ninth Festival. It is said that wearing a dogwood bag when climbing a mountain can avoid disaster. Cornus officinalis, a kind of pepper, is an aromatic plant. In three or four sentences, if you just think about how brothers climb mountains and wear dogwood in the Double Ninth Festival, but they are alone in a foreign land and can't participate, although they also write about homesickness in the festival, it will appear straightforward and lack freshness and intimacy. The poet thought in the distance: "There is one person missing from the dogwood." Brothers who are far away from home are wearing dogwood when climbing the mountain today, only to find that one brother is missing-he is not among them. It seems that it is not a pity that I failed to spend the holidays with my brothers in my hometown, but that my brothers failed to reunite completely during the holidays; It seems that it is not worth saying that a person is a stranger in a foreign land, but the shortcomings of brothers need to be understood. This is tortuous and unnatural. And this unusual place is precisely its deep place, where the new police world lies. Du Fu's Moonlit Night: "For our boys and girls, poor little babies, it's too young to know where the capital is" is similar to these two sentences, but Wang Shi doesn't seem to be so focused.

[Edit this paragraph] Appreciate

Poetry begins with a direct expression of homesickness. "Alone in a foreign land" implies a lonely environment, which is especially sensitive for teenagers who leave home for the first time. "Stranger" emphasizes the feeling of stranger. The combination of "uniqueness" and "two differences" in a poem greatly deepens the degree of subjective feelings. The second sentence, "I miss my relatives more often during the festive season", is a reasonable development of my previous emotions, which shows that I usually have the pain of missing my loved ones, and this kind of missing will get deeper and stronger during the festive season. The clever use of the word "time" is the key to connect the upper and lower emotions. These two sentences constitute a level of the whole poem, expressing homesickness from the subjective feelings of the lyric hero.

A Qing poet Shen Deqian thinks that the last two sentences of this poem are "poetic" (Collection of Tang Poems, Volume 19). Indeed, there are quite similarities in expression between the two. In the last chapter of The Book of Songs, Feng Wei said, "I look forward to Gorkon and him. Brothers go to work for their brothers and get together at night. " Dreaming of relatives, not letting them miss themselves. This expression method is also used in Wang Wei's poems, which makes the development of poetry take a sharp turn from "knowing each other from a distance" and deepens the expression of love between the two places from the perspective of relatives. "Knowing from a distance" is all imagination. I imagine that when the Double Ninth Festival comes, relatives will get up and drink as usual. This closely follows the theme of the poem and points out the specific meaning of the "festival" mentioned in the second sentence. The author expects that when relatives get together to celebrate the Double Ninth Festival, they will remember him as a wanderer in a foreign land. At the end of the sentence, the emotion of the whole poem is pushed to a climax, not to say out loud what you miss your loved ones, but to leave room for imagination.

Summary: When the author is a guest outside, he misses his relatives even more when he is alone on holidays. The author knew that his brothers were climbing the mountain far away, and they all planted dogwood, only to know that the author was not there.

[Edit this paragraph] Shandong brother's answer

Who is "Brother Shandong" in the title? I searched the internet and enjoyed different versions of Tang poetry, but I didn't have a definite answer and a clear explanation, just interpreted it as a "friend" of the author Wang Wei.

Taking the whole poem as a whole and combining the appreciation articles of different scholars, it is not difficult to draw the conclusion that the Shandong brothers are friends of Wang Wei.

The first two sentences of the poem are written in the first person, and the last two sentences are about relatives in their hometown climbing mountains, except for their "brother" in Shandong, Wang Wei's friend.