The Appreciation of Some Famous Ancient Chinese Poems By Jenn Zhu (2)

The Appreciation of Some Famous Ancient Chinese Poems

Jenn…………………………………………………………………………….,Zhu

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By Jenn Zhu May 21, 2021

Chinese poems have occupied a very important position in

Chinese literature, especially the poems from Tang dynasty

that had made Chinese people feel so proud of their language

and literature. Some of the most splendid ones had glowed

through all the later dynasties and still manifest that

magnificent beauty which attracted and inspired many poem

lovers.

As part of literature, the poems definitely can’t avoid the

influence from other culture elements. The Tang poems were

built on the foundation of precedent poems. China has a long

history of creating poems, the first most known poem

collection in China is the Book of Poems, also called Poems of

Songs, which was listed among one of the books for

Confucianism teaching. Many of those poems weren’t written

by some particular poet, but were created by ordinary people

who would sing them in their daily life or performances. Just

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like the Epic Poem created by Homer in ancient Greek

between 800 – 700 before the birth of Christ, who was said to

be a blind man and didn’t write down the poem himself, but

he was singing that epic story among people for a living.

During the period of Qin(221 -206 BC) and Han(206 BC-220

AD ) dynasty, the poem was further developed, though the

prose or essays were the major plays during those periods.

However, from Han dynasty, through Wei(220-265 AD) and

Jin(265-420 AD), to Southern and Northern States

Period(420-589 AD),there had appeared quite some

well-known poets, who made great contribution to the poem

rhythm scheme and tonal pattern development. When it

came to Tang dynasty(618-907 AD), a sophisticated system of

poem writing rules was established and made this period

coming out with a great number of shiny stars in the poetry

field. It seemed that those brilliant poets had created a new

constellation of stars under the cultural sky, and made this

dynasty shined with splendid light and unique beauty.

When poem first appeared, in both eastern culture and

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western culture, it functioned like songs that people could

sing and chant with repeated verses, due to its rhymed and

tonal feature and simple phrase pattern, a suitable style for

singing. After China was united in Qin(221 -206 BC) dynasty,

the prose and essays which are good for illustrating reasons

and explaining things become the emphasized writing style

and shied the other literature styles, which trend continued

until Han dynasty, before the poem gradually started to

become popular.

Why poem would rise in Tang dynasty(618-907 AD),and

suddenly give out the most splendid and beautiful light to the

world. Qin dynasty(221-206 BC), as the first Chinese empire of

the feudal society, was built on the teaching of Legalist School

which stressed the importance of laws and represented the

new rising landlord classes, however, the very rigid law

inclined to the interest of the ruling classes and cruelty of the

regime led to its ruin in a short period of 15 years. When it

came to Han dynasty(206 BC-220 AD), they changed the

national teaching to School of Confucianism after they had

strengthened the new regime. At the end of West Han

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dynasty(206 BC-25 AD), the Buddhism started to spread to

China, and it was gradually accepted by more and more

people. When it gets to Jin(265-420 AD) as well as Southern

and Northern States Period(420 -589 AD),the Buddhism

became so popular, that many noble family’s ladies would

take it as a fashion to become a Buddhism disciple and go to

stay in the temple for some days from time to time. And there

were Buddhism temples everywhere. As it was put in one of

the poems of Du Mu from Tang dynasty: “Among the 480

Buddhism temples from South states period, how many of

them are standing in the rains of the Spring at this moment,

trying to recall their past glories here”This are the lines of

poems to describe the situation of Buddhism temples in Nan

Jing, the capital of the southern state.

Daoism has always been there influencing the right group of

people for them. It has its ups and downs, but it has

something that is alchemy that had invariably attracted the

emperors in each dynasty who had showed great enthusiasm

in looking for immortal life. Alchemy was practically a sham,

and it doesn’t represent the main idea of Daoism, but the

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Daoists did have advocated to look for longevity through

proper cultivation and exercises, which provided the chance

for some opportunists to cheat the rich and clueless people

for making money or gaining favors. So in the Tang dynasty,

all three beliefs which had played major role in Chinese

people’s life and in the Asian culture had all risen to meet the

need of people. And in a culture enriched with spiritual beliefs,

the domains of various arts and literature would usually

become very active and come to produce magnificent works.

Because spiritual life stimulate people’s imaginations and set

free their spirits which enable them to receive the inspiration

of nature or enlightenment of their belief. In Tang dynasty

(618-907 AD), besides the poem, the prose, the painting,

dance, the Tang Ceramics, and textiles had all made great

achievement in their fields. However, due to this

unprecedented prosperity accompanied with the special

mingling of all sorts of cultures and beliefs, the poems as a

unique literature style to express the feelings, thoughts and

ideas in a very flexible and effective way, while being easy to

promote to the public through singing and chanting, or

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performances, they had not other choice but to shine in this

unique stage of China or even some east Asian countries.

During this period, the Silk Road appeared, which had brought

tremendous influence from west Asian cultures and even

European cultures to then Chinese people, vice versa. During

this period, tang monks made their first official trip to India to

learn the Buddhism scripts, as well visited Japan several

times, by helping to spread the Chinese culture and Buddhism

to Japan. While trading with other neighbor countries were

just very ordinary things during this period.

There have appeared many wonderful poets in Tang

dynasty(618-907 AD), also in the Song dynasty(960-1279 AD)

who may represent with different poetic styles, according to

their different personalities, beliefs and life experiences. The

following are just a few examples of some brilliant poets from

the ocean of Chinese poems for people to get a rough idea

about Chinese ancient poems.

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渡荆门送别

作者 : 李白

渡远荆门外 , 来从楚国游。

山随平野尽 , 江入大荒流。

月下飞天镜 , 云生结海楼。

仍怜故乡水 , 万里送行舟。

See off at Jingmen

by

Li Bai

Travel all the way from home town crossing the Gate of Chu,

Jinmen, I came to visit the place which belonged to the old

state of Chu.

The continuous mountains finally came to an end, as we

entered the area of plains, where we see the river flowing far

into the distance of wild plains.

In the evening, the reflection of the moon in water looked like

a mirror that just flied into the river. And the cloud suddenly

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arose and turned into the shape of a mansion floating above

the ocean-like water.

At this moment, I suddenly felt the great indebtedness to that

water flowing along with me from my home town, which

didn’t mind going thousands of miles to see me off.

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Li Bai(701-762 AD) is a very famous poet in Tang dynasty,

represented the romanticism poetic style, and is known as a

poetic immortal as his character manifested the life style and

life view of a Daoist whose ambitious final goal is to relieve

the human body and human spirit from all the suffering and

burden of mundane life and become immortal. His poems

were marvelous with very spontaneous flow of humane

emotion, and effortless wording style, simple way of

expression of ideas in depth, enhanced by his magnificent

imagination. This poem was written at the beginning of his

journey of career exploration when he had just sailed out of

Sichuan – his home province. Although it was the feeling of

nostalgia for his hometown directly revealed from this poem,

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the high spirit of a brave young man who just started his own

life journey independently could hardly be concealed. Li Bai

liked to use exaggerated numbers in his poems. This is one of

his poetry’s biggest characteristics. For example: "(The

waterfall)flying down 3000 feet precipitately from top of the

mountain, it seemed as if the Milky way had fallen from the

highest level of heaven", "The river flows along with fallen

peach flower on it, how lovely, which could be 1000 feet deep,

but it may not be as deep as the friendship of Mr. Wang Lun

showed to us when he was seeing me off by the river.", "The

mountain of Tiantai, literally meaning the platform of heaven,

is as high as 144,000 metres, and it seemed to fall toward the

Southeast side under the sky", "After passing by thousands of

rocks and through ten thousands of turns, the road was

suddenly lost among the piles of flowers and layers of leaning

rocks when it became dark ", "Nobody knows when they

founded those nations of Cancong and Yufu, but it should be

at least 48000 years, and they had never had any

communication with the people from Empire Qin(221-206

AD)”, and so on. These figures are obviously complete sky

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talks, very exaggerated. The trick is that when Li Bai used

them in his poems, people didn’t feel that way at all. Because

the grandness of image from poem and the sublimity of spirit

of the poem surpassed this seemingly astronomical figure and

was like a very strong emotional strike on the reader and

produced enormous emotional echo in the people, by making

them feeling excited and thrilled , with no hard feeling on the

numbers, who but can’t help clapping their hands and

applauding for its magnificence.

* Cancong and Yufu:the name of the ancient nations of

Sichuan in local legendary stories.

望天门山

作者 : 李白

天门中断楚江开 , 碧水东流至此回。

两岸青山相对出 , 孤帆一片日边来。

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Watching the Gate of the Heaven Mountain

by

Li Bai

The gate of heaven was cut off, where this mountain of the

old state Chu opened a path for its river to go through, and

the clear water, tinted with the color of blue sky, rushed

forward toward east, while making violent turns and swirls

around the gate of heaven.

The green hills came out in pairs from on each side of the

river bank, as our boat, the only one on river, was sailing

between the hills along with the flow of the water, leaving the

sun at sunset far behind.

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This poem was completed at about the same time as the

previous one. Li Bai's poetry is famous for the grandeur and

great momentum conveyed in the lines, but this poem is

probably one of the most successful ones that described the

great motion of the objects and grandness of scenery.

Although there are only four short lines, which is not a big

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accomplishment of words compared with many other long

verses written by him, it described the powerful force of the

river rushing eastward, the rapidity of the water flow and

magnificence of its whirling around the mountains, in a bold

freehand brush style, a technique normally used in Chinese

painting. That once again demonstrated the feature that

there is picture in poem, and the picture also showed rich

colors: lake-blue water, green mountains, red sun and white

sail.

There is a combat between the river-blue water rushing down

the river and the Tianmen Gate Mountain which goes straight

up to the sky, as hindrance, in the way of the river, however,

it seemed that the rushing water cut off the gate of the

mountains in the middle and breaks through it. It immediately

reminded people of the famous lines written by a poet: Pity

for the mountains that it tried in vain to stop the water; after

all, the river will nonetheless run forward into the ocean,

which means that things will always go with their destiny, no

matter how those insensible people try to stop it from

happening. In addition, the grand green mountains on both

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sides of the river is contrast to the tiny lone boat. Is it the

green mountains that have come out from each side of river

to greet this lonely guest – the boat, or is it the boat that was

crossing between the mountains from each river banks? The

speedy runs of the images in the poem along with the

continuing moving visions of the viewer will leave you no time

to think about the detail too much. Then there is this pale sail

that corresponds to the splendid red sun, which brings up a

picture of the farewell between the lonely boat and the

setting sun – suggesting the farewell between the poet and

his hometown.

The beautiful scenery and grand motion coming out of the

poem delivered a perfect character of a scholar man – the

poet himself, with lofty aspiration for the future of his life. At

this moment, he might not have anticipated that some years

later, he would write poems with lines such as "How hard is it

to travel on the Road to Sichuan? it's just as hard as to climb

to the sky" and "When you were going to cross the Yellow

River(The claimed mother river in China), you would see the

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water all became frozen ice; and when you were planning to

climb the Taihang mountains (a famous mountain in Northern

China), you would find it had been all covered with snow". It

indicates everything went against his odds to career success,

but Li Bai is nobody else. Even having encountered the

adversary fate again and again, he would still find his carefree

life and his way of showing positive attitude as a poet. Just

watch those lines: “Let's leave a white deer in a valley

between the green cliffs, and ride on it to visit the famous

mountains as soon as we are ready to do it”; or “The noble

royal horses, the most expensive apparels, so what? Get out

the servant boy and have him exchange those things to

money for wine, so that I can drink with you as much as we

want and forget all the worries and troubles for thousands

years to come ”; or “I bet all the saints must have been very

lonely since antique time (how many people could truly

understand them?), only the real wine drinkers(indicates the

people who have seen through the world) would leave their

names for ever ”.

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静夜思

作者 : 李白

床前看月光 , 疑是地上霜。

抬头望山月 , 低头思故乡。

The Thoughts at the Quiet Night

by

Li Bai

Looking at the moonlight in front of the bed, for a moment, I

had thought it was the frost on the ground.

I looked up and see the full moon in the sky, but I immediately

lowered my head as I could hardly look at it again, because it

made me unable to stop thinking of my hometown.

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This is an for-ever masterpiece in poem to write about

homesickness. The simpler the better, and the shorter the

words, the deeper the feelings. Li Bai liked to write about the

moon in his poems, by usually giving it the human personality.

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《旅夜书怀》

作者 : 杜甫

细草微风岸 , 危樯独夜舟。

星垂平野阔 , 月涌大江流。

名岂文章著 , 官应老病休。

飘飘何所似 , 天地一沙鸥。

A Night in Journey

by

Du Fu

The night wind breezed through the fine grass by the river

shore, where

a guest boat stopped by, with its tall mast poking into the

darkness of the sky.

The stars hanged over the wide plain, and the reflection of the

moon broke again and again in the rushing tide water of the

river.

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It is the time to take the sick leave from my official post, as I

am getting really old; forget about it, I know that the prose

and poetry can’t bring people real fame.

Look at what kind of life I have now;drifting around like an

aimless sand gull in this world.

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As a poet, Du Fu(712-770 AD) experienced the disaster

brought up by An Shi Rebellion in Tang Dynasty, and this

period of history had left a great mark in his poetry. That’s

why his poem was also called as the Poem of History. He was

about 10 years younger than Li Bai and was a good friend of

the latter. He represented the realism poetic style. His poetic

talent is not necessarily less than that of Li, but he just lacked

a little carefreeness and added a few more worries in his

poems. Li Bai's poems reflected the grandeur and prosperity

during the peak period of Tang Dynasty and its inevitable

trend of going to its lower point of power. Du Fu's many

works showed the difficulty of transition from the peak of

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dynasty to its middle point of this period of history. The

constant emotional change between hope (for a better

society and better life) and disappointment, as well as

disappointment and hope made him living at a status of

painful struggle with life while feeling utterly helpless, after

An Shi Rebellion. His poems show the subtle side of a poet,

but without lack of good momentum. Some of those lines

describing the natural scenery in this poem, such as "The stars

hang over the wide plain, and the reflection of moon broke

again and again in the rushing tide water of the river" is not a

bit less of charm than that of Li Bai's " The continuous

mountains finally came to an end, as we entered the area of

plains, where we see the river flowing far into the distance of

wild plains.". But the front couplet of this poem of Du Fu " The

night wind breezed through the fine grass by the river shore,

where a guest boat stopped by, with its tall mast poking into

the darkness of sky." depicts a close-up scene of the night. So

this poem’s image is shifted from near vision to far vision,

from bottom to top, from thin to grand. The third and fourth

couplets are usually for expression of personal feelings or

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comments on life in Du’s eight-line regulated verses. Li Bai's

style is quite different, that his scenery description usually

presented grand images from far distance, which went with

his galloping thoughts almost without rein, but pours of

splendid imaginations.

月夜

作者 : 杜甫

今夜鄜州月 , 闺中只独看。

遥怜小儿女 , 未解忆长安。

香雾云鬟湿 , 清辉玉臂寒。

何时倚虚幌 , 双照泪痕干。

The Moon Night

by Du Fu

I am sorry that you are going to watch the moon alone at

home of Fuzhou again.

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It is a pity thing that our daughter is still so young, and

obviously can’t remember Changan(the capital of Tang, where

Du was working at that time)

I imagine that the mist in the morning is going to make your

hair wet again, but watch out, don’t let your jade-like skin of

the arm get cold in the evening moon light.

I just wonder when we can lean on the hanging voile curtain

over the bed, being company to each other, so that we don’t

have to shed tears again for missing each other.

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Started from expressing the homesickness, which

immediately related it to the children and lovers of far away.

Du Fu wasn’t afraid to show his weak side of a human being,

which seemed to have gotten a little sentimental in his

nostalgic self-expression in the poem. It was because of the

sharpened sense of loneliness after sadness from the broken

heart, and the renewed hope after the past disappointment

from failures or stumbles. Li Bai's expression of homesickness

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is the psychological comfort of heroic people after their

tiresome journey, which not only helped to let out his

emotional helplessness, but also provided him the spiritual

support to cheer up again. The different life experiences and

personalities decided their different poetic styles.

登高

作者 : 杜甫

风急天高猿啸哀 , 渚清沙白鸟飞回。

无边落木萧萧下 , 不尽长江滚滚来。

万里悲秋常作客 , 百年多病独登台。

艰难苦恨繁霜鬓 , 潦倒新停浊酒杯。

At The Top of The Mountain

by

Du Fu

The wind is strong, and the sky is high in autumn season; we

can hear the apes howling and mourning, and see the birds

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flying back home from the pale sand by the clear water.

Leaves from boundless woods are falling heavily, while with

endless flow of its water, Yangtze River is rolling toward us

with great momentum.

I have always been living like a guest in other people’s

hometown, and is now ten thousands miles away from my

home lamenting on the destitute autumn’s season alone, on

the top of this mountain. I almost felt that I am already 100

years old, with ailments and health problems all over my

body.

The hardship and suffering of my life made my hair all turned

grey, while the current difficult situation forced me to stop

touching the wine cup.

The floating thoughts of the author is naturally revealed in

the description of the surrounding sceneries. From looking up

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at the sky, and listening to the howling and moaning of apes

from distance, to shift the view to close scenery and see the

birds flying back home. Seeing the leaves in the wind falling

away, can’t help hoping that the river would roll over, rather

than flow away. The author looked as if he was in a status of

emotional self- struggling. As a matter of fact, it would be the

same thing for onlookers, whether the river is rolling over

close or flowing away to far distance. The key is on the

mentality of the onlookers.

The final two couplets get to the point of the poem: the

protagonist was lamenting on the destitution of late autumn,

due to difficulties of the situation, the hardship of his life and

illness of his body.

绝句

作者 : 杜甫

两个黄鹂鸣翠柳 ,

一行白鹭上青天。

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窗含西岭千秋雪 ,

门泊东吴万里船。

A

Quatrain

by Du Fu

Two orioles are singing in the green willows,

A line of egrets is flying up the sky.

Through the window, one can see the West Ridge that is

covered with snow of a thousand years.

A ship sailed ten thousands miles from the place of Dong Wu

was parking by the river bank near our door.

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Du Fu can also write grand things in his works, but his poem is

generally dealt with artistic fineness. Why are there only two

Orioles and one line of egrets? Do you have to see the snow

on the west ridge from the window – which would be a more

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difficult endeavor than from the front of door? The ship

coming from ten thousands miles away exactly stopped inside

the range of view of the door? Very coincidently. All we have

to say is that this is a very beautifully furnished picture. If

there is one more oriole, the ratio will be three to one

between the orioles and a line of the egrets, which might not

be what Du Fu wanted. Or if the boat is parked at the view of

the window, then it will block the scene of west ridge.

Therefore, he is regarded as a sage of poetry, not only

because he wrote excellent poems which reflected his period

of time and the progress of literature of Tang dynasty, but

also because the sage paid more attention to the rules and

detailed depiction and followed some particular things of the

tradition more rigidly. Du had his own unique taste in poems.

His paternal grandpa was a governmental official and also an

accomplished poet, who, however, was very self-regarded,

and thought nobody else could be his rival in poetry circle

during his time. That attitude no doubt influenced the young

Du Fu then, who grew up in this type of family environment

with Confucianism pride and sense of responsibility, and had

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always thought that poetry writing was his family business,

and even openly mentioned it in his writing. One might find

that Du’s verses usually show with rigid rhythm scheme and

tonal pattern, and emphasized work at words. So his works

would definitely not be the same as that of the immortal of

poem.

Li Bai becoming famous for his poems is not because he had

taken it as a serious business more than other ones, since

almost every educated scholars would write some poems

back then that made it become a fashionable social etiquette

to respond to or communicate with friends through poems. Li

had naturally possessed that wonderful talents in writing

poems which showed the charming, carefree, and

non-attached Daoism style that would exactly fit into a

prosperous society where practicing Daoism and looking for

immortal life became a trend for nobles or affluent families. Li

didn’t attend the imperial examination, but was picked by the

Emperor Xuanzong to become a court official at certain point

of his life, due to his fame in poetry. Even though the post

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didn’t work to his expectation, he was so popular among

noble families, that two of his wives were from families of

rank-one court officials. People of ordinary family liked him

too, and many of them had worshipped him like an immortal.

Li had once had very lofty goals to serve the country, but

Emperor Xuan Zong didn’t take that part of him very seriously,

except that he truly admired his poetry talent, and almost

took Li anywhere he went out for funs with his women to

have him write poems for them, which made Li finally fed up.

Li never took the fame and authority very seriously, and he

much despised those flatters in front of the emperor and

powerful people, which rendered his character with

admirable integrity, as well as some exceptional charms to

many people’s point of view.

鹿柴

作者 : 王维

空山不见人 ,

但闻人语响。

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返景入深林 ,

复照青苔上。

Lu Chai

By Wang Wei

Nobody was showing up in the mountain, but

We could hear people talking somewhere in it.

The sun came back on the mountains again at sunset, by

lighting up the beautiful scenery of the woods, and

As well shines on the jade-green moss of the rocks.

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Wang Wei (701- 762 AD) was another famous poet in mid

-Tang dynasty, who was from a very established family and

received good education in many areas when he was young.

Due to the fact that his poets reflected quite some Buddhism

thoughts, which probably had gotten some influence from his

mother who was a Buddhist, he was called the Buda of poem.

Wang almost lived around the same time period as Li Bai, he

served at court as an official before the An Shi Rebellion, then

got himself into prison for his capitulation to the rebels, since

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the rebels invaded Chang An, the capital of Tang dynasty,

and captured many courts officials left by the escaped

Emperor Xuan Zong. Wang was forced to serve the rebellion’s

new government, didn’t expect the Emperor’s people would

fight back with gathered armies. Du Fu was also among the

captured officials, but he was a deep down loyalist and

refused to serve them, thus stayed under the rebel’s control

for some time before he escaped. Li Bai had left his post

before the rebellion, so he didn’t run into such disaster.

However, he made a judgmental mistake in another issue,

that is he accepted the one ambitious prince’s invitation to

serve him, since he had always desired to find a chance to

serve the country in a more manly way, instead just being

employed as a royal poet, as a matter of fact, he had very

good swordsmanship too. Unfortunately, things didn’t work

out to his expectation once again. This prince started an

military campaign at his own discretion in the name of

fighting the rebellion, which caused the suspicion of the then

Emperor, and ended up getting all people who had supported

him into prison. Li managed to escape this fate due to his

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fame, but was sentenced to Yelang, a very remote place for

estranged prisoners.

Wang wei finally got out of his bad fate also, and started to

live in a style of hermit, by residing in the Zhongnan Mountain,

near the capital, a lot of his time. However, it was during this

period that he accomplished quite some of his most

well-known poems. This poem here reflected a mood of great

tranquility of somebody who has become completely

detached from the mundane world. A single person, Wang

survived by his deceased wife many years ago without getting

married again, who lived deep inside some mountain and saw

nothing in his eyes, but only sensed the voice of some body

echoed in the valley, which happened to get into his ears. It

meant that nothing inside the mountain had caused his visual

interest, then, suddenly, the sun came back on the woods by

lighting up the whole scene and created a magnificent picture

before his eyes, at the same time, the careful poet

immediately noticed that lovely jade-green light reflected on

the moss. Only people who has forgotten the noise and the

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crowdedness of the cities, with deep serenity in his heart,

would catch that momentary change of the scenery, and hear

the voice from the unseen people. It is the status of mood

advocated by Buddhism belief. That’s why Wang Wei is

regarded as the Buda of poem.

杂诗 ( 二 )

作者 : 王维

君子故乡来 ,

应知故乡事。

来日绮窗前 ,

寒梅著花未。

By

The Untitled II

Wang Wei

My dear, I heard that you have just come from our home

town, then

You should know very well about the things over there.

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Not sure if you had noticed something outside that beautifully

carved wood window,

The plum tree, had it blossomed the date before you left the

home?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a poem about the homesickness also, at least from the

appearance. It talks all about his home town, the people from

his home town, the carved wood window, the plum tree over

there. But the careful readers may wonder why he only asked

about the plum tree, whether or not it had blossomed, at the

same time, deliberately mentioned the beautifully carved

window, which belongs to very feminine items, together with

the plum tree and the expected blossom, behind which, one

may start to feel something exceptional touchy and subtle

that the poets had tried hard to conceal, who, however, was

betrayed by the blossom which could indicate a woman or a

lover.

巴山夜雨

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==================================================

作者 : 李商隐

君问归期未有期 ,

巴山夜雨涨秋池。

何当共剪西窗烛 ,

却话巴山夜雨时。

The night rain in Bashan

By

Li Shangyin

And you were asking about the time I would return home, but

I have no idea when that could be.

Don’t you believe that the autumn rain of last night had made

the pond water suddenly rising up.

No matter what, I should let you know, I have been dreaming

for that date when we could cut the candle heart together,

two of us, at the west window of our home.

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==================================================

Where I will tell you all that had happened during that rainy

night, about me and the pond, in Bashan.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Li Shangyin ( 813- 858 AD) is poet from late Tang dynasty. If

Chinese people think Du Fu is the sage of poetry and Li Bai is

the immortal of poetry, then Li Shangyin deserves to be called

the prince of love poetry.

Bashan mentioned in the poem generally refers to the

mountains in Sichuan. There was no electric lamp in ancient

times, ancient Chinese used oil lamp or candle for the lighting

in the evening, in order to keep the candle glow with the

same light, they needed to cut the wick of the candle from

time to time. Li applied this very small occasion of daily life

and the very ordinary autumn night rain in his poem, not only

showed he is a considerate guy and careful observer, but

easily took the reader into a poem picture to share his life and

his emotion without need of fancy words to describe his

feeling, however, better than words to deliver that space and

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time-transcending sense of love and nostalgia.

We don’t need mention the other well-known lines of his

poetry. From this poem, we can just easily tell that he had

very successfully described the lovesickness through this

silent sadness, accompanied by light sorrow, torn by a

desperate feeling facing the helpless situation against deep

wanting of love. At the same time, we almost feel that

emotion seems to have concretized and turned into a most

beautiful and gorgeous young lady, whom one feel so deeply

attracted to, that they can never leave her again. This perhaps

tells a bit about the charm of Li’s poem.

李商隐的《无题》

相见时难别亦难 , 东风无力百花残。

春蚕到死丝方尽 , 蜡炬成灰泪始干。

晓镜但愁云鬓改 , 夜吟应觉月光寒。

蓬山此去无多路 , 青鸟殷勤为探看。

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By

Untitled

Li Shangyin

It was not easy to see each other, and once we met, it was

equally hard to say goodbye again; It was at the season when

the east wind has lost its strength and the flowers were all

withered.

The silkworm of the Spring would never stop spitting silk until

it dies, a candle's tears would dry only at the moment of its

burning out.

Look at the mirror in the morning before you found out the

aging of your face, when reading the poems in the evening

moon light, didn’t it start to feel the coldness of the season?

It is not really very far from here to Mountain Penglai. The

sacred bird of West Queen Mother enthusiastically offered to

look for the road for the traveler.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

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==================================================

This is a masterpiece of love poem. The effortlessly

manifested subtlety and obscurity of Li’s poem in revealing

the affection between lovers, and the skill of borrowing real

life objects to suggest the complicated and deep feeling which

cannot be directly shown or expressed in mature adults, make

Li almost the best love poetry writer during the Tang dynasty.

Li Shangyin have accomplished quite some those type of love

poems in regulated verses and quatrains. Those regulated

verse usually have eight lines, with each line presented pentasyllabically,

that is having five character in each line, or heptasyllabically,

which has seven characters in each line. The

quatrains only have four lines and follow the same syllabic

rule. Each line of those poems all follows certain regulated

tonal pattern and a rhythm scheme. Li’s poems usually have

seven characters in each line. Why did Li write so many love

poems? It didn’t seem very normal for a Confucian official of

the court, since the Confucianism had never tried to advocate

the indulged life in love, and would expect man to act like a

strong and responsible person who should be de-attached

from woman and sex. The exact reason wasn’t very sure even

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==================================================

now, but one of possible explanation could be attributed to

his talent of that unique type of poet, who is affectionate and

was excellent in maneuvering the words in expressing subtle

feelings which was the only way to get his love poems

published in that scholar circle without being reproached for

his moral standard at that time. And the other explanation

could resort to his bumpy official career. Because of the

marriage between Li and a woman, the daughter of a very

powerful family in the court, he was involuntarily dragged into

the power struggle between the two political groups of then.

Therefore, some people think that the lovesickness described

in the poem actually reflected the wounded feeling of Li

Shangyin himself to show his sad and depressing situation in

career, and his lover is the person who could help him to get

out of disappointment and get to succeed.

芙蓉锦鸡图

作者 : 赵佶

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秋劲拒霜盛 ,

峨冠锦羽衣。

已知全五德 ,

安逸胜凫鷖。

The Golden Pheasant And The Cotton-rose

By

Zhao Ji

In autumn, the frost is strong, but look!

What a gorgeous Golden pheasant is sitting there with its

magnificent feather apparel competing with the beauty of

cotton-roses under it.

Don’t you think that all five virtues have been clearly

demonstrated on this adorable thing?

If our people also possess all these five virtues, then we can

just rest assured without worries.

The golden pheasant is a bird that should belong to the same

family as rooster. According to the theory of Confucianism, its

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appearance is the symbol of the birth of the holy king. The

ancient people thought that the rooster has five virtues, with

a crown on its head and the colorful and gorgeous apparel on

the body to demonstrate its talents, the never failed crow in

every morning to indicate its credibility, its happy cry to invite

others to join them whenever they find food to show its

benevolence and righteousness, its brave defense to protect

their youngsters showing its courage, and the strong

performance in its fight with the enemies tells its combat

skills.

This is the poem accompanied with a famous painting The

Pheasant And Cotton-rose by Zhao Ji, Emperor Huizong of

Northern Song Dynasty(960-1127 AD). The poems and

painting reflected the prevailed social atmosphere of

emphasizing the Confucian culture and morals in Song

Dynasty. The righteousness, faith, bravery, wisdom and

strength were regarded as the five most important virtues at

that particular era.

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The Appreciation of Some Famous Ancient Chinese Poems By Jenn Zhu (2)

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