Thoughts in the dead of night
Tang Dynasty: Li Bai
The foot of my bed is shining so brightly. Is there frost already?
I looked up at the moon and looked down, feeling nostalgic.
literal translation
The bright moonlight sprinkled on enough paper in front of the bed, as if the ground was frosted.
I couldn't help looking up at the bright moon in the sky outside the window that day, and I couldn't help but bow my head and think of my hometown in the distance.
Rhyme translation
The bright moonlight filled the bed like a hazy frost.
Look up at the moon and bow your head to teach people to miss home.
To annotate ...
Thinking about the exam in a quiet night: an idea that comes into being in a quiet night.
Bed: There are five sayings today.
One refers to the well platform. Some scholars have written an article to verify. Shi Cheng, director of China Educators Association, published the research results in a paper and created a poetic map with friends.
Finger well site. According to archaeological findings, the earliest well in China was a wooden well. The ancient well site was several meters high, and the wellhead was enclosed in the shape of a box to prevent people from falling into the well. The box is shaped like four walls and an old bed. Therefore, the ancient mine field is also called the silver bed, which means that there is a relationship between the well and the bed, and the relationship occurs because they are similar in shape and function. In the ancient Jingtian system, there was a special word to refer to it, and that was the word "Korea". Shuowen interprets "Han" as "Yuan Jing Ye", which means shaft lining.
Three "beds" are the general term for "windows". The "bed" in this poem is the focus of debate and disagreement. We can do some basic reasoning. The writing background of this poem is a moonlit night, probably around the full moon. The author saw the moonlight, then the bright moon, which caused homesickness.
Since the author looked up and saw the bright moon, it was impossible for the author to be indoors. If he looks up casually indoors, he can't see the moon. Therefore, we conclude that' bed' is an outdoor thing, and it is difficult to verify what it is. In a sense, the' bed' may be a festival with a' window', and it is possible to see the moon in front of the window. However, referring to the Song version of' Looking Up at the Sky and Bright Moon', we can confirm that the author is talking about the outdoor moon. In terms of time and loyalty to the author's original intention, the Song version is more reliable than the Ming version.
Take the original meaning, that is, the appliance of sitting and lying. The Book of Songs, Four Cadres of Xiaoya, contains a "bed of sleep", and Yi Wang Pi Du Zhu also contains the theory of "those who live in peace", which is about paving the way.
Some people think that bed should be interpreted as Hu's bed. Hu bed, also known as "bed", "chair" and "rope bed". In ancient times, it was a portable seat that could be folded. Mazar-e functions like a small bench, but the surface on which people sit is not a board, but something like folding cloth, and the legs on both sides can be folded. Modern people are often mistaken for "Hu bed" or "bed" in ancient literature or poetry. At the latest in the Tang Dynasty, "bed" was still "Hu bed" (that is, mazha, a kind of seat).
Suspicion: It seems so.
Look up: Look up.
Creation background
Li Bai's poem "Thinking about a Quiet Night" was written around September 15th of the lunar calendar in 726 AD (14th year of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty). Li Bai was 26 years old and was writing at Yangzhou Guest House. His poem "Walking in the Autumn Night" should be a sequel to "Thinking about a Quiet Night" and was written in the same place.
Make an appreciative comment
This poem is about the feeling of missing my hometown on a silent moonlit night.
The first two sentences of the poem are an illusion created by the poet in a specific foreign environment in an instant. A person who lives alone in a foreign country and is busy during the day can still dilute his sadness. However, in the dead of night, the waves of missing his hometown will inevitably surge in his heart. Not to mention on a moonlit night, not to mention on a frosty autumn night. "Could there have been frost?" The word "doubt" in the poem vividly expresses that the poet woke up from his sleep and mistook the Leng Yue in front of his bed for the thick frost on the ground. The word "frost" is better used, which not only describes the bright moonlight, but also expresses the cold of the season, and also sets off the loneliness and desolation of the poet wandering abroad.
On the other hand, the last two sentences of the poem deepen homesickness through the description of actions and ways. The word "hope" takes care of the word "doubt" in the previous sentence, which shows that the poet has changed from a daze to a sober one. He gazed eagerly at the moon and couldn't help thinking that his hometown was under the bright moon at this moment. So naturally, I came to the conclusion that "I sank back and suddenly thought of home". The action of "bowing your head" depicts the poet completely lost in thought. And the word "miss" left a rich imagination space for readers: the old brothers, relatives and friends in that hometown, the mountains and rivers, the grass and trees in that hometown, the lost years, the past … are all in my thoughts. A word "Xiang" contains too much content.
Amin Hu Yinglin said: "Taibai quatrains are all written in words. The so-called people who have no intention of working are unemployed. " Wang Shimao thinks: "(quatrains) Only Violet (Li Bai) and Long Biao (Wang Changling) were extremely ambitious in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Li is more natural, former residence. " What are "nature" and "unintentional work"? This song "Silent Night Thinking" is a sample list. Therefore, Hu specially put it forward and said it was "a wonder of ancient and modern times."
This little poem has neither strange and novel imagination nor exquisite and gorgeous rhetoric; It only describes the homesickness of distant guests in a narrative tone, but it is meaningful and intriguing, and has attracted readers so widely for thousands of years.
Strangers in a foreign country will probably feel this way: just one day, in the dead of night, homesickness will inevitably ripple in my heart; What's more, it's a moonlit night, what's more, it's an autumn night with a bright moon like frost!
The white frost on the moon is clear, which is the night scene of clear autumn; Describing moonlight with frost color is also common in classical poetry. For example, in the poem Xuanpu Liang Na written by Emperor Wen of Liang Jian and Xiao Gang, "jathyapple is like autumn frost". Zhang, a poet in the Tang Dynasty who was earlier than Li Bai, wrote a bright moonlight with "frost flowing in the air" in "Moonlight on a Spring River", which gave people a three-dimensional sense, especially a wonderful idea. However, these are all used as rhetorical devices in poetry. "Is there frost already?" This poem is narrative, not figurative words, but a temporary illusion of the poet in a specific environment. Why is there such an illusion? It is not difficult to imagine that these two sentences describe the situation that the guest can't sleep at night and has a short dream for the first time. At this time, the courtyard was lonely, and the bright moonlight hit the bed through the window, bringing a cold autumn chill. At first glance, the poet was in a blur and trance, and it really seemed that the ground was covered with frost; But a closer look, the surrounding environment told him that this is not a frost mark, but a moonlight. The moonlight inevitably attracted him to look up, and a round of Juan Juan Su Ling hung in front of the window. The space in autumn night is so bright and clean! At this time, he was fully awake.
The moon in autumn is especially bright, but it is very cold. For lonely and distant travelers, it is the easiest to touch their yearning for autumn, which makes people feel depressed and the years fly by. Staring at the moon is also the easiest way to make people daydream, think of everything in their hometown and their relatives at home. Thinking, thinking, head gradually lowered, completely immersed in meditation.
From "doubt" to "looking up" and from "looking up" to "bowing down", the poet's inner activities are vividly revealed, and a vivid picture of homesickness on a moonlit night is vividly outlined.
Just four poems, written fresh and simple, clear as words. Its content is simple, but it is also rich. This is easy to understand, but it is endless. The poet said nothing more than what he had already said. Its conception is meticulous and profound, but it is also blurted out without trace. From here, it is not difficult for readers to understand the wonderful scenery of "nature" and "no work and no heart" in Li Bai's quatrains.