From the starlight of a cloudless midsummer night in Wan Li, the author thinks that fireflies glow on the same night. From fireflies to palace lanterns, the author thinks of the Tang Dynasty palaces (not limited to palaces) with palace lanterns everywhere. The author uses Zhuangzi (Zhuang Zhou), the originator of Taoism, and "Saint Zhuangzi daydreaming, bewitched by butterflies" (2) (Jinse by Li Shangyin) as the same story, dreaming of fireflies depends on their "dreams".
Describing himself as a firefly, the author naturally feels like an ant to life. Compared with human life, fireflies are ephemeral. Compared with the life span of stars, the life span of human beings is also short. The "instant continuation and extinction" can be the British Empire a hundred years ago, the prosperous Tang Dynasty a thousand years ago, or the Jurassic era thousands of years ago. However, he was born in China.
The author describes the prosperous Tang Dynasty by chasing dreams and ignoring Luo, which can be described as a stroke of genius. At that time, Guangluo (1) represented "high-tech" industry (textile industry), as well as art (painting) and rich life. "Chasing the Light for a Small Fan" is a vivid picture of a lady, showing wealth, leisure and interest.
In this sentence, the author does not take the characters as the main body, but only the clothes representing the upper-class women as the main body, which shows that this is a picture without a bright face, just like the hazy dream mirror and the fuzzy bird's eye view in the distance. At the same time, it also shows generality and universality. If you change this sentence to "dream of chasing a group of palace moths (ladies)" or "dream of a group of palace moths (ladies) chasing each other for fun", it will fall to the bottom and become narrow. In addition to emphasizing the feeling of movement, joy and playfulness, it is different from the dull and sad scene of the poem "Flying fireflies with a small fan on an autumn night" by Du Mu, a poet in the Tang Dynasty. The small fan in Du Mu's poems is used to shoot flying insects. Yu Shi's small fan is used to chase the wind. So the same "flying fan" is endowed with rich meanings.
"Dreaming of another summer night, a star's funeral"
What the author wants to say is: "Under the starry sky on another summer night, a bright star has actually died quietly." It's just that the star is far away. Several years later, in the night of another era under the same starry sky, the same star was seen by the watcher. At that time, lamenting the bright star was actually lamenting the death of that star. So although there is no sorrow of death. Only this "instant continuation and extinction" (5) can cross the century, the replacement of dynasties, and even the survival of mankind, making others feel awe. "And your sigh, my review, and silence."
This "review" not only refers to looking back because of sighing, but also refers to reviewing one's own life and reflecting on the brevity, helplessness and loss of life, resulting in a moment of silence.