Sentence-by-sentence translation of the meaning of cicada ancient poems

cicada

Li Shangyin [Tang Dynasty]

The pure heart is hungry because of this, and you sing in vain all night.

Oh, this last broken breath, in the green indifferent trees! .

Yes, I am like a driftwood. I have made my garden full of weeds.

I thank you for your sincere advice and live a pure life like you.

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Translation:

Living on high branches is not enough to eat. Although you lament hatred, no one sympathizes.

After the fifth watch, the sound of sparse trees was almost cut off, but the trees remained green and motionless.

The official position is humble, the whereabouts are erratic, the home is difficult to return, and the hometown and countryside have long been deserted.

Thank you for calling me up. Me too. My house is surrounded by a fence, and my family is very poor.

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Precautions:

To: Because. Official: refers to a humble official position.

Too high to be full: The ancients thought cicadas lived in high places, so they said "too high to be full".

Hate is a waste of sound: I wail repeatedly because of hate. Fee, in vain.

Gēng: In ancient China, the night was divided into five periods, and the time was based on drumming, so it was called "Gē ng".

Sparse breaking: refers to cicada sound sparse, close to breaking.

Bibi: Green.

Bohuan: The official position is humble.

Stems are also extensive: the book "Qi Ce of the Warring States Policy" was published: Tu Ou said to Tao Stems: "The stalk of Zhi Tao in the East is also carved as a person. When it rains, the water comes and flows away. What will the child look like when he floats? " Later, it was a metaphor for wandering and loneliness. A stem refers to a branch.

Hometown: the name of the former home, hometown.

Weeds have been leveled: weeds have been leveled and covered with fields. Weeds, weeds. Flat means that weeds grow flush.

Jun: It means cicada. P: reminder.

Also: also.

Household cleaning: the whole family is poor. Lift it up, everyone. Clear and white, poor and lofty.

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Creative background:

The specific creation of this poem is unknown. Li Shangyin worked as an official clerk twice in his life, but in the end he failed and his situation went from bad to worse. This poem is to express his lofty aspirations, although his political career is not smooth.

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Appreciate:

This poem first describes the cicada's situation, then jumps directly to his own experience and expresses his feelings directly, and finally returns to the cicada naturally, with harmonious beginning and end and coherent meaning. The whole poem begins with cicada and ends with cicada, which is well organized. The description of cicada and the poet's affection are skillfully expressed together and integrated into one, which is a masterpiece of supporting things and chanting things.

"A pure heart is hungry because of this, and you sing in vain all night." The first couplet begins with cicada's living habits. "Tall" is a metaphor for a person's height with cicada-singing towering trees; Cicada's "difficulty in satiating" coincides with the author's life experience. From "not full" to "sound", there is "hate" in sorrow. But this kind of singing failure is futile and can't get rid of the predicament. In other words, because the author is lofty, he lives in poverty. Although he confessed to powerful people and hoped to get their help, it was in vain in the end. This combination of the author's own feelings to chant things seems to distort the true colors of things, because cicadas have no "difficulty in satiating" and "hate". What the author said seems untrue, but the truth of poetry is the truth of the author's feelings. The author does have this feeling. As long as the "height" and "sound" are consistent with cicada, the author can write his own unique feelings about "height" and "sound", which can be written as "far away" (Yu Shinan's "Chanting Cicada") or "pure heart and hunger", which is the same for two different authors.

Oh, this last broken breath, in the green indifferent trees! . "Zhuan Xu mean, at the end of the even number, sparse voice was almost cut off, the trees are still green.

At the dawn of the fifth watch, cicadas are scattered and almost cut off, but the leaves of a tree are still so green, and they are not sad and haggard for its "sparse" and seem so heartless. Here comes another feature of chanting poems, which is unreasonable and wonderful. The sparseness of cicadas has nothing to do with the greenness of leaves, but the author blames the indifference of trees. This seems unreasonable, but this irrationality shows the author's true feelings. I want to break up is not only about cicadas, but also about my own life experience. Cicada said that strange trees are heartless and unreasonable; As far as life experience is concerned, it is reasonable to accuse the powerful people of being "heartless". They could have relied on the shade. Poetry about objects is mainly lyrical, so this irrationality becomes reasonable in lyricism.

"Yes, I'm like a driftwood. I make my garden overgrown with weeds." Neck tie means that the official position is as humble as a peach stalk, and the weeds in the home have long been barren and flat.

There was a turning point in the neck couplet, instead of chanting cicadas, it recited itself, breaking the limitation of chanting cicadas and expanding the content of the poem. The author works as an aide in various places and is a small official, so he is called "Bohuan". It often flows around, like a puppet drifting around in the water. This unstable life makes him miss his hometown, what's more, the weeds in his hometown and the weeds in the field have become one, and the author's homesickness is more urgent. These two sentences seem to have nothing to do with the cicada singing above, but there is still a secret connection. "Guanbo" is associated with "the difficulty of satiating" and "the dislike of noise", and a small official is humble, so "the difficulty of satiating" and "noise". After this turning point, the lyrical significance of chanting cicadas above is more clear.

"I wish your truth and live as pure as you." Go back to chanting cicadas and write cicadas in an anthropomorphic way. "Jun" and "I" are opposites, and chanting and lyricism are closely combined, echoing from beginning to end. The difficulty of cicada's satiety corresponds to my poor family; The chirping of cicadas reminds me of this little official who is in a similar situation to cicadas, and the thought of "I have filled my garden with weeds" inevitably reminds me of returning home. When commenting on this poem, Mr. Qian Zhongshu said: "The cicada is hungry and groans, and the tree is indifferent, and it is green (green explains the word" green "well). Trees are cruel to people ('I'), so they feel the same way. Cicada perched on the tree, but it was forgotten. Cicadas don't sing for me, but I call them "mutual vigilance", which means cicadas are also "heartless" to me, and I have feelings for them. Intricate and subtle. " Mr. Qian pointed out that not only trees are heartless, but cicadas are also heartless, which further illustrates the complicated relationship between cicada chanting and lyricism.

The most important thing about poetry about objects is that "objects are wonderful and merits are closely linked". This cicada-chanting poem, "vivid and ethereal, super-metaphysical", was praised by Zhu Yizun as "the best in chanting things". Poets express their noble character by drinking cicadas and dew, which is a typical example of praising people with things.

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About the author:

Li Shangyin (about 813-about 858), a native of Yuxi, xi, was a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty. His ancestral home is Qinyang, Hanoi (now Jiaozuo, Henan) and Xingyang, Zhengzhou. He is good at poetry writing, and his parallel prose also has high literary value. He is one of the most outstanding poets in the late Tang Dynasty. Together with Du Mu, it is called "Xiao", and together with Wen, it is called "Wen Li". Because his poems and essays are similar to the paragraphs and essays of the same period, all three of them rank sixteenth in the family, so they are also called "Thirty-six Style". His poems are novel in conception and beautiful in style, especially some love poems and untitled poems are touching, beautiful and moving, and are widely read. However, some poems are too obscure to be solved, and there is even a saying that "poets always love Quincy and hate that no one writes about Jian Zheng". Caught in the struggle between Niu and Li, I was frustrated all my life. After his death, he was buried in his hometown of Qinyang (now the junction of Qinyang and Aibo County in Jiaozuo City, Henan Province). His works are included in Li Yishan's poems. ?