A Brief Analysis of Huang Tingjian's Poem Xu Ruzi Ancestral Temple

Song Dynasty: Huang Tingjian

The gazebo is hidden in a three-acre house. Who should I talk about?

The vine is proud to dry the clouds, and the flute and drum have no intention of entering the wine.

A White House may have no children, and Huang Tang does not owe Fan Chen.

The ancients laughed at today's cold, and the lake grew old every year.

To annotate ...

① Xu Ruzi: Xu Zhi in the Eastern Han Dynasty, named Ruzi. Chen Fan made a couch for yu zhang to sit on.

② Straw: Xu Zhimo mourned Guo's mother and only put a bunch of straw (grass). The Book of Songs says: "When sokcho was born, people were like jade."

Brief analysis

Anyone who has read Wang Bo's Preface to Wang Teng-ting knows the story of "Xu Zhimo on the couch in Chen Fan". The ancestral temple was built in Ceng Gong, and Huang Tingjian paid tribute to Xu Zhi, expressing the loneliness that Gao Shi could not reuse. This poem is deeply influenced by Du Fu's Shu Xiang, but it lacks the aura of Du Fu's poetry.

The first couplet of this poem is "Where is the Mingxiang Temple? The artistic conception of "in a deep pine forest near Silk City" is only that the order of the upper and lower sentences is reversed and an allusion of "growing grass" is added. Some people praised Huang Tingjian for learning from Du Fu's poems. I'm afraid that such a change will set an example, and Du Fu's poems will be much smoother to read. However, couplets are interesting and can be understood without textual research on allusions. Vines climb trees, complacent, even the sky can be covered, the sun can also be covered. I don't know if Cai Jing and his party can be "furious". Su Shi was surprised when he recited it. The next sentence "What is the heart" is a good question. No one has the heart to pay homage to the deserted ancestral temple and the extraordinary scholar. It's really intriguing.

Explaining the cervical couplet with "a thousand Li Ma Duo, Bo Le Wu" in Han Yu's Ma Shuo, all the problems are solved. Qu Yuan's "Huang Zhong perishes, Wafu thunders", Du Fu's "A man with lofty ideals can't be blamed, but a great instrument is hard to use", and Gong Zizhen's "I urge God to restore his spirit and drop talents in an eclectic way" are all endless elegies for talents in China.

The last sentence on the couplet is very clear. The following sentence is worth recalling: the ebb and flow of the tide is a natural law; Rise and fall, this is the social law. "Just like (Han) Xin (Peng), why not treat him as a warrior?" This "old mark" will be seen in any dynasty. Euphemistic and tortuous language contains the poet's profound irony, and it is really wonderful to end with a scene.