What does it mean when it rains in Tomb-Sweeping Day and pedestrians are driven out of their wits?

First of all, it should be "season" rather than "holiday time".

"There are many rains during the Qingming period, and pedestrians on the road want to break their souls." "Desire" means: as if; I thought the same thing.

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Source: Qingming by Du Mu in Tang Dynasty

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Original text:

It rained a lot during my stay in Tomb-Sweeping Day.

Pedestrians on the road want to die.

Ask local people where to buy wine?

The shepherd boy just laughed and didn't answer Xingshan Village.

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Translation:

During the Qingming Festival in the south of the Yangtze River,

All travelers on the road are down and out.

Ask the local people where to buy wine to relieve the hangover.

The shepherd boy just smiled and pointed to the village deep in the apricot blossom.

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Precautions:

Qingming: one of the 24 solar terms, around April 5 in the solar calendar. On the day of the old custom, there were activities such as sweeping graves, hiking and inserting willows. In the palace, it was the Swing Festival. Swings were placed in the Palace of Kunning and the harem, and the concubines performed swing plays.

One by one: multiple descriptions.

Want to break the soul: describe extreme sadness, as if the soul is to be separated from the body. Broken soul: looks sad and unhappy. The meaning of these two sentences is that there are many rains in the Qingming period, and it is fluttering; In this weather and this festival, pedestrians on the road are depressed and upset.

Excuse me: Excuse me.

Xinghua village: a village deep in apricot flowers. Today is outside Xiushan Gate in Guichi, Anhui Province. Influenced by this poem, later generations often take "Xinghua Village" as the hotel name.

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Creative background:

This poem was first recorded in the Splendid Flower Valley in the early years of Southern Song Dynasty, and later appeared in Selected Poems of Thousand Scholars in Tang and Song Dynasties, Poems of Thousand Scholars by Xie Fangde in Ming Dynasty and Poems of Imperial Selection in Tang Dynasty by Kangxi in Qing Dynasty. "Jiangnan Tongzhi" contains: Du Mu once went to Xinghua Village to drink when he was the secretariat of Chizhou, which is what the poem refers to. There are attractions such as Duhu Lake and Southeast Lake nearby.

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Appreciate:

During the Qingming Festival, the weather is changeable, sometimes the spring is bright, the flowers are red and green, and sometimes it is drizzling. The first sentence "It rains in succession during the Qingming Festival" describes the characteristics of "throwing fire and rain". The second sentence "pedestrians on the road want to break their souls" is about the mood of pedestrians. "Soul-breaking" refers to feelings that are very sad but not exposed.

Why does this pedestrian "want to break his soul"? Because Tomb-Sweeping Day is a big festival in ancient China, as usual, families get together to pay homage to the grave or go for an outing. Now that pedestrians are traveling alone in strange places, the taste in their hearts is already bad. It happened that he was caught in another rain, his clothes were all wet, and his mood was even more sad.

How to dispel melancholy? Pedestrians will naturally think: it is best to find a hotel nearby to have a rest and shelter from the rain; Second, drink some wine to relieve the cold; More importantly, you can drown your sorrows by drinking. So he asked the way: "Excuse me, where is the restaurant?" Who did you ask? I didn't specify. The word "shepherd boy" in the last sentence "the shepherd boy points to Xinghua Village" is both the subject of this sentence and the object of the previous sentence.

The shepherd boy's answer replaced words with actions. Pedestrians looked in the direction of his finger and saw a son (a symbol of ancient hotels) vaguely exposed in a treetop full of red apricots.

This poem came to an abrupt end here. As for how happy pedestrians are when they hear this news, they are excited to catch up and find a hotel to have a few drinks, so as to get satisfaction such as shelter from the rain, relieving the cold and eliminating worries. These are left to the reader to imagine. Due to the widespread spread of this poem, the word "Xinghua Village" became another name for this restaurant in later generations.

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About the author:

Du Mu (AD 803-852), born in Fanchuan, Mu Zhi, Han nationality, Jingzhao Wannian (now Xi, Shaanxi), was a poet in the Tang Dynasty. Du Mu is called "Xiao Du" to distinguish him from Du Fu. Also known as "Little Du Li" with Li Shangyin. Because he lived in South Fan Chuan Villa in Chang 'an in his later years, he was later called "Du Fanchuan" and wrote "Collected Works of Fan Chuan".