Full-text Translation of Bai Juyi's Poem Night in the Country (Bai Juyi)

Bai Juyi's Selected Poems at Night in Bai Juyi Village Series: Selected Poems of Bai Juyi | Selected Poems at Night in Bai Juyi Village

The original frost grass and gray insect chop 1, the people in the village south village are definitely 2. Look at Noda 3 before going out alone. The moon is in the sky and buckwheat is like snow.

Note 1 frost grass: grass beaten by frost. Cangshan: grayish white. Qiqi: The sound of insects. 2 Unique: Extinction. 3 Noda: the field.

In autumn, the grass turns gray after being beaten by frost. Insects are buzzing in the grass, and there are no pedestrians around the mountain village. I came to the door alone and looked at the fields. I saw buckwheat flowers in the moonlight as beautiful as snow.

Appreciate this poem, not by touching beautiful sentences or amazing creativity, but by describing an ordinary night in the countryside where the poet lived in seclusion, telling the scene that the poet was sad because of his mother's death, which made him unable to sleep. The style is fresh and quiet, very poetic. Frost Grass in Cang explains the time background of autumn and also writes a thick autumn color. The "serious" insect sound wrote the sadness of autumn night; Pedestrian Exclusion describes the silence of the countryside in autumn night. Although the first two sentences of the poem are descriptions of scenery, "all scenery words are sentimental words" (Wang Guowei's "Words on Earth"), the bleak scenery not only reveals the poet's lonely mood, but also makes the poem have a deeper charm. Next, the poet "took a look at Noda before going out alone." This sentence is both a transition and a turning point, which not only shifts the object of description from the village to the field, but also leads the whole poem from the bleak and desolate artistic conception of autumn night to another refreshing new artistic conception. The poet suddenly saw the endless buckwheat field in the moonlight. The bright moonlight shone brightly on buckwheat flowers, like crystal white snow. The poet was moved by the picturesque beauty of nature, and could not help exclaiming, temporarily forgetting his loneliness and loneliness. The beautiful scenery described in the last sentence is in sharp contrast with the sad scenery described in the first two sentences, and at the same time, it skillfully shows the changes of the characters' emotions, which is flexible and free, without showing traces, and can be described as unpretentious and natural. It is really "plain, not fake makeup, self-aging, and the seven wonders are close to the ancient" ("Poetry of Tang and Song Dynasties"). The choice of images in this poem is ingenious. The poet gave up the panoramic description of the bleak autumn night to express his sadness. Instead, I only chose the scenery of frost grass, autumn insects, Noda, bright moon and buckwheat flowers, and wrote endless meanings in my heart with endless words.