Meng Haoran? Tang dynasty

Don't write to the North Yard again, let me go back to the old hut in the old Nanshan.

I have no reason to decide to give up my point of view. My old and many sick friends have stopped practicing.

The frequency of white hair is that people are getting more and more every day, and spring is coming to force them to die.

Full of sadness, tossing and turning, the pine forest is empty under the moon.

Translation and annotation

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I will not state what I saw in front of the Forbidden City, but go back to my humble hut in Zhong Nanshan.

I have no talent to make the monarch dislike me, and my friends are gradually alienated because of illness.

The gradual increase of white hair makes people old, and the new year is coming.

I can't sleep at night, because my mind is full of melancholy, the window is empty, and the moonlight is reflected in the pine shadow.

To annotate ...

Year end: year end. Nanshan: In Tang poetry, Nanshan is often used to refer to seclusion. This refers to the fairy mountain in the author's hometown. I'm talking about Zhong Nanshan.

Beique: The gatehouse, located in the north of the imperial palace, was a place for ministers of the Han Dynasty to play and court audiences, and was later used as another name for the imperial court. "Han Gao Di Ji" notes: "Anyone who wants to see it feels north." Hugh wrote: Stop entering the newspaper.

My home: Call yourself a broken home.

Incompetence: The author laughs at himself for his incompetence and lack of talent. A wise monarch.

Sick: one is "sick". Old friend: Old friend. Sparse: alienated.

Old: a "walk".

Qingyang: refers to spring. Force: to urge. Except year: year-end.

Yonghuai: Think long. Insomnia: I can't sleep because of sadness. Sleep: a "sleep".

Virtual: empty. A "hall"

Make an appreciative comment

This poem was written by the poet when he lived in seclusion, expressing a feeling of resentment. The two notes in the first couplet show that he no longer pursues official career and retreats to Nanshan; Turn around and say a few words, expressing the feeling of incompetence; Write two sentences about scenery, sighing for wasting your time, and your ambition is hard to pay; The last two sentences illustrate the feelings of sadness, loneliness and emptiness. The poem is rich in language, layered, profound in style and full of charm.

Meng Haoran, who ranked last, was full of complaints, so he expressed his frustration in his official career in the form of self-pity. On the surface, this poem is a series of self-reproaches, but there are endless complaints in the bones; I said that I have nothing to recommend myself, but I complain that I don't want to be used by the world.

Literally, "I won't petition at the North Palace Gate" actually expresses the feeling that "Wei Que's heart will always be there, but he won't forget the letter from Kinmen". Only then did I realize that my previous thoughts were too naive; I thought that with the precedent of Ma Zhou's "direct crime and seeking kindness", the emperors of the Tang Dynasty would do the same from generation to generation; Only to find that the reality is so disappointing. So a cavity bitter water, from this sentence "I am not petitioning at the North Palace Gate" self-love words. Obviously, "going to this crumbling hut on Zhongnanshan" has no choice but to do so. All kinds of contradictory feelings are expressed in one word, with endless aftertaste.

Three or four sentences specifically describe the reasons for the frustration. "I was exiled by a wise ruler because of my mistake", with complex feelings, is ironic, but not all ironic. The poet has great ambitions since he was a child. "Hold the whip and respect the teacher, hold Mao Gong, be grateful to play the crown, and be safe!" He also boasted that "ci fu is also quite clever." That's it, that's it. Not "incompetent". Therefore, "no talent" is not only a modest word, but also contains the feeling that the talent is unknown and the good horse has not met Bole. And this person who doesn't know "talent" must be "knowing the Lord". Visible "Ming" is also "unknown", which means complaining. In addition, the word "Ming Zhu" does contain the meaning of flattery, reflecting that his desire for official positions has not disappeared, and I hope the emperor can see it. This sentence is about resentment, self-pity, sadness and pleading, and the feelings are quite complicated.

And "I haven't seen a friend for so long" is more euphemistic than the previous sentence, full of twists and turns; This is because the "old friend" is not recommended or effectively recommended, and the poet said that he alienated the old friend because of "illness", which is a layer; In ancient times, "poverty" and "illness" were interlinked, and saying "poverty" with "many diseases" was another layer of resentment against the indifference of the world; It is said that because "the old friend is sparse", the wise master can't see himself clearly, which is another layer. Of these three meanings, the last one is the theme.

It is impossible for a poet not to be anxious because he is eager to be an official, his career is slim, his temples are gray and his reputation is bad. Five or six sentences are a portrayal of this mentality. White-haired, green day (spring day), originally a heartless thing, is decorated with the words "urging" and "forcing", which just shows the poet's complex feelings of helplessness and unwillingness to die in vain.

It is precisely because of the poet's unbearable anguish that it became "so I lay awake and meditated" and wrote a haunting, anxious and embarrassing modality. "Moonlit Window Empty" is even more ingenious. It puts down the previous meaning, but only reflects the difficulty of resentment. It seems that writing a scene is actually lyrical: one complements the "insomnia" in the previous sentence, and the scene is confusing and memorable. The misty and empty night scene is very similar to the lonely and melancholy mood inside. The word "virtual" is a pun, which contains the emptiness of the courtyard, the emptiness of the quiet night, the emptiness of the official career and the emptiness of the mood.

Creation background

Around 728 AD (the 16th year of Tang Kaiyuan), 40-year-old Meng Haoran came to Chang 'an to be the first scholar. Failure in the exam made him very depressed. He wanted to write directly to the emperor, but he hesitated. This poem was written in such an extremely complicated mood.

Brief introduction of the author

Meng Haoran (689-740), whose real name is Haoran, was born in Xiangyang, Xiangzhou (now Xiangyang, Hubei), a famous pastoral poet in the Tang Dynasty, and was known as "Meng Xiangyang" in the world. Because he has never been an official, he is also called Monsanto. Haoran is not very virtuous. He likes to help people in trouble and takes poetry as his career. At the age of forty, when I visited the capital, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty recited his poems, reaching the language of "I was exiled by a wise ruler because of my mistakes". Xuanzong said, "Since Qing didn't ask for an official position and I never abandoned her, why did you falsely accuse me?" After his release, he lived in seclusion in Lumen Mountain and wrote more than 200 poems.