Help me analyze a poem

This poem was first published in Zhu Xi's "Chu Rhetoric Annotated - Afterword", and is rumored to have been written by Cai Yan. Cai Diem, known as Wenji (文姬), a native of Chenliu (陈留)

圉(今今河南札县人), was the daughter of Cai Yong (蔡邕), a famous scholar at the end of the Han Dynasty. She was a learned scholar, talented and skillful in music and rhythm. In the midst of the war, she was captured by the Hu Horsemen, and was taken as a consort by King Zuo Xian of the South Xiongnu, giving birth to two sons. Twelve years later she was ransomed for Cao Cao. She wrote this

experience into a poem of grief and indignation, one in pentameter and the other in soprano style, which appeared in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty - Biography of Dong Sizhi's Wife. The content of "Eighteen Beats of Hu Jia

is more or less the same as the two "poems of grief and indignation". The authenticity of this poem has always been debated. For more details, please refer to

Hu Jia 18 Beats Discussion Collection published by China Bookstore. In terms of the system of human poetry, there is a considerable distance from the works of the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and there are some contradictions between the content of the poem and the life of Cai Yan, so the possibility of naming the poem after Cai Yan is greater than that of the poem. Here, I will follow the old style and still sign Cai Yan. Eighteen Pieces of Barbarian Pipe" is an ancient musical instrument song. Hu Jia is

a kind of wind instrument popularized in the north and west of China in Han Dynasty, its sound is sad, and its later form is a wooden pipe with three holes. Why "

Hu Jia" is "zither song"? Liu Shang, a poet of Tang Dynasty, said in "Preface of Hu Jia Song", "The Hu people admired Wen Ji, they

rolled reed leaves to play reed, and played the mournful sound, and later Dong Sheng wrote the sound of Hu Jia as eighteen beats. The last beat of this poem also said:

"Hu Jia is originally from Huzhong, but it has the same sound and rhythm because of the zither". It can be seen that it was originally made of reed, and later turned into a qin tune by the hand of Dong Sheng.

"Eighteen beats" means eighteen movements in the music, and eighteen paragraphs in the song. In the first beat, the so-called "a moment of whistle and a beat of qin" means that when the whistle is blown to a section and the ensemble sound is heard, it is exactly a movement of the qin song. The form of this poem

has the characteristics of both the Sao style (using the word "Ruoxi" in the sentence) and the Bailiang style (using seven-character lines and rhyming in each line),

but it is not pure, or it can be called the quasi-Sao style and quasi-Bailiang style. The structure of the whole piece can be divided into three parts: the beginning, the middle, and the end.

The first beat is the beginning. The first beat is the beginning, which summarizes the turmoil of the times and the humiliation suffered by the individual; the middle part of the poem starts from the second beat of the captivity in the west, and ends at the seventeenth beat of the release and return to the east, which lasts twelve years and is divided into two periods, before and after the homesickness and the remembrance of the child;

The last beat is the ending, which echoes the beginning of the poem, and concludes the resentment. To appreciate this poem, one should not read it as ordinary written literature

but think of Cai Yan, an unfortunate woman, playing and singing to herself, the sound of the zither flowing along with her imagery.

With the sound of the zither and the song, we seem to see her walking on a twelve-year long road paved with humiliation and pain.......

She began to show her face in front of the background of the great turmoil of the times. The first beat points out the background of the "chaos": the hu captives are strong,

beacon fires are everywhere, and the people are in exile (see the three lines of "The dry sword is found in the day and the road is in danger"). At the end of the Han Dynasty, the world was in turmoil, with eunuchs, relatives, and warlords holding the reins of government, and peasant uprisings, warlord wars, and foreign invasions continuing. At the end of the Han Dynasty, the poem

writes: "Armor born of nymphs and lice, ten thousand people died. White bones are exposed in the wild, and no rooster crows for thousands of miles" (Cao Cao's "Artemisia"

), "Nothing is seen on the way out, and white bones cover the plains" (Wang Chuan's "Poem of the Seven Deadly Sorrows"), and so on, are all true depictions of the troubled reality of the time

. Cai Yan, the heroine of the poem, was taken captive by the Hu riders in the midst of the military chaos. The captivity is the beginning and the root of her painful career, so the poem dedicates one beat (the second beat) to write about her captivity, and in the tenth beat, she uses the phrase "a life of hard work and separation" to point out her life's misfortunes ("hard work"

The captivity is the beginning and the root of her painful career.

And in the tenth beat, she uses the phrase "a life of hardship and parting" to indicate that the misfortune of her life ("hardship"

) stems from her captivity (i.e., "parting").

During the twelve years she was forced to stay in the South Xiongnu, she suffered a great deal of pain in her life and spirit. The nature of the Hu land is harsh: "The wind of Hu is vast" (beat 3), "the frost is severe" (beat 6), "the wilderness is desolate" (beat 7), and the running water is whimpering (beat 6) "At night, I hear the sound of the Long River whimpering"). The life of the foreigners was alien to her: the clothes made of furs were frightening to wear (Beat 3, "Felt furs as clothes, bones and flesh are shocked"); meat and milk as food were stinky and unpleasant to swallow (Beat 3, "Capricorn stinks as flavor, and it is in vain to curb my feelings"; Beat 6, "Hunger for meat and cheese"; Beat 6, "The hunger for meat and cheese"; and Beat 6, "The hunger for meat and cheese". "Hunger for meat and cheese can't be eaten"); living without a fixed place, moving by water and grass, living in temporary shacks made of straw paper, dried cow and sheep dung (the sixth beat of the "water and grass by and by, settling down and repairing the base ...... Grass is exhausted, and all the sheep and horses are in vain! "

When you are excited, you will beat the drums, sing and dance, and make a lot of noise, all night long (the third beat of "drums are noisy from night

Da Ming"). In short, she could not adapt to the harsh natural environment of the Hu land, nor could she tolerate the living habits of the Hu people, which were very different from those of the Han Chinese, and so she sang out the painful

heartfelt words of "different customs and minds, hard to live in, and different hobbies and desires, and who can speak with me". But it was the spiritual aspect that caused her the most distress.

In the spirit, she suffered a double humiliation: as a Han Chinese, she became a captive of the Hu; as a woman,

forced to marry the Hu. The first beat of the so-called "will is not good and righteousness is lost", its connotation should be precisely referring to the double humiliation

of the word. In a situation where both body and mind are tormented, thinking of her homeland and returning to it has become the most important spiritual force that supports her to live strongly. From the second beat to the eleventh beat, the main content is to write her homesickness

. The fourth beat's "Day and night, I do not think of my hometown", the tenth beat's "My hometown is separated from me, the sound and dust are gone, and there is no

sound, so I will swallow", and the eleventh beat's "I still hope to return to my hometown" are all direct appeals to her feelings of longing for her home. "are all moving phrases that speak directly to the feelings of the countryside.

And the most touching expression of the countryside is the fifth beat. In this beat, the poet with her persistent deep feelings to open

chiseled a far-reaching deep poetic realm: spring, she looked up to the blue sky, looking forward to the south-flying geese to bring the heart of her borderlands

sound; in the fall, she looked up to the cloudy skies, looking forward to the return of geese to the north to bring the news of the homeland. But the geese flew away without a trace

Miao hard to find, she could not help but heartache intestines broken, sad ....... In the eleventh beat, she and revealed their own humiliation to steal

sheng's inner secret: "I'm not greedy for life and evil death, can not donate the body Ruoxi heart to. I still hope to return to my hometown, and when I die, I will bury my bones in a long time." It turns out that her "inability to donate her body" is due to her expectation of "returning to her native country". Finally,

She survived the long twelve years, and her wish to return to her homeland was realized: "Suddenly, I met a Han envoy and claimed that he was close to the imperial edicts, and he left a thousand pieces of gold to redeem my body.

" (beat twelve) This is the "Book of the Later Han" Cai Yan biography said: "Cao Cao has always been good with Yong, pained by the lack of heir, was sent

Envoys to the gold and jade ransom." But the joy was fleeting, and a new cloud of

sadness drifted over her: she thought that the day she was born was also the day she said goodbye to her two sons.

The twelfth beat of the song says, "I am happy to return to life and meet the sage, and I am sorry to say goodbye to my son, but there is no reason to do so.

The twelfth beat of the song, Happy to be born again and meet the sage ruler, Contempt to part with the child is no reason. Two beats of the song are all sadness and joy, and it is difficult to show the two feelings. This beat is the turning point of the text.

From the twelfth beat

onwards, it will turn to the description of not being able to bear to be separated from the son, choking on the words, and sinking into the bones of sorrow. The thirteenth beat is about parting with your son, and the tenth

fourth beat is about dreaming about your son, all of which are very wonderful passages. For example, in the thirteenth beat, "I hugged Hu'er and sobbed on my clothes," and in the thirteenth beat, "I hugged Hu'er and sobbed on my clothes. ...

...A step is far away and it is hard to move one's feet, the soul is lost and the shadow is gone and love is left behind", and in the fourteenth beat, "The mountains are wide and the land is wide and there is no time to see you,

and at the end of a deeper night, I dream of you coming here. In the dream hand in hand Ruoxi a happy and sad, after the pain after the realization of my heart Ruoxi no rest," are written

as long as the lingering, heartfelt. Song Humanities praised the thirteenth beat in volume one of "Night Talks on the Bed", saying: "This will return to the other. When the body experienced its suffering, the word declared in the heart, resentment and anger, sadness and thought, a thousand years as new; so that the holy pen, but also will not bear to delete it. "The heroine's pain of parting in the poem has always accompanied her as she left Hu and re-entered Chang'an (the 17th beat of the poem, "I don't know

It is a great pleasure to enter Chang'an, and I sigh and cry"). The humiliating life is over, and a new misfortune - the pain of missing one's own

children - has just begun. "Hu and Han Ruoxi are in different places with different winds, heaven and earth are separated Ruoxi's son, west and mother's east. I am bitterly resentful of the air, although the six spheres of the world are wide, and the acceptance of the should not be allowed", the whole poem that is, in this feeling like a tidal wave at the end of the song,

completes the creation of Cai Yan's tragic and bitter artistic image to the sky.

The experience of the lyrical protagonist is unique, as it is written again and again in the poem, "I am the most bitter than I am when I am endowed with life" and

"I am the only one who has a thin life and is not in danger of being killed by the army and the captors" (both of which are in the four beats of the poem). However, the thoughts of the countryside and the love of family and children expressed through their special encounters are rich in the laboriousness of the times and embody the fine traditions of the national spirit. In the era of great turmoil of "the day of the dry sword

searching for the road is dangerous, the pawns are in exile and *** sorrow" (the first beat), the feelings of the countryside and the affection of the relatives are the feelings of the people and the pawns who have left their wives and children behind

the wells and their hometowns and the pawns ****. In terms of historical inheritance, as a

weak woman, in a foreign country, in the case of being taken as a consort, having two sons, highly honored (the eleventh beat of the "Hu people favor me Ruoxi

have two sons"), determined to return to the country, which is the same as in the Western Han Dynasty, Su Wu by the Xiongnu exile to the North China Sea to shepherd the sheep for as long as nineteen

years without changing the national integrity. >This is the same as Su Wu, who was exiled to the North Sea by the Xiongnu for nineteen years, but did not change his behavior, although his performance was different. Wang Ch'an's "Ascent to the Tower Fugue" said: "Zhong Yi Yu Yu and

Chu play Ruoxi, Zhuang Xian and Yue Yin. The human feelings are the same in Huai Tu Ruoxi, not poor and different heart." It is a more comprehensive generalization of this kind of situation

and the persistence of the same "Huai Tu" feeling. Cai Yan in the poem is not only fond of the land where she was born and raised, rich in national feelings, but also a woman with the traditional virtue of motherly love, as shown by her hard feelings for the two Hu children when she left the land of the Hu, and the cumulative dreams and grievances after the loss of her bones and flesh.

The poem also shows that Cai Yan has the traditional virtue of motherly love.

But this artistic image of touching, but not only in its good character and rich feelings, but also in its

encountered the misfortune, that is, the tragic fate of the character. After she was taken captive, she lived in the Hu land, her heart was attached to her homeland, and she was tortured by physical and mental contradictions; and when her wish to return to her homeland became a reality, the pain of losing her newborn flesh and blood came one after another.

This is the first time that I have ever seen a woman in a country where she had to go back to her homeland. "Return to the homeland" and "reunion of mother and child" are both beautiful, everyone should enjoy, but in her but not

can not both. People always sympathize with the weak, pity for the unfortunate, not to mention a weak woman, but also repeatedly suffered misfortune

And has a good character and rich feelings of the weak woman it, it can not help but make people a sympathetic tears.

The greatest feature of this poem in the creation of the artistic image of the lyrical hero is the strong subjective lyrical color.

This

feature is first reflected in the treatment of the relationship between lyricism and narrative. The poet completely abandons the purely objective narrative, and the narrative

is always full of emotion. The more narrative passages in the poem, such as the second beat of writing about being taken to the west, the eleventh beat of giving birth to two

children in the Hu land, the thirteenth beat of returning to the country, and the seventeenth beat of re-entering Chang'an, all of them were sighed out with deep emotion.

Also about the captivity to the west, in the five-character poem of grief and indignation, it is written that "there is no one left, and the corpses support each other in the cupboard. In the second beat of "Eighteen Beats of Hu Jia" (胡笳十八拍), it is said, "There are ten thousand clouds and mountains, and the road of return is long, and the wind blows for thousands of miles and raises dust and sand. People are violent and fierce like vipers, and the control of strings is

armor and luxury", which reveals the poet's love for monks and his distinctive feelings everywhere - "clouds and mountains" connects with the thought of the homeland, and the "brisk winds" is about the road. "

It is a natural expression of true feelings. There are not many passages in the poem that are focused on, and more often than not, they are brought out in passing in the course of expression, that is to say, they are narrated for the sake of expression. For example, in order to express the feelings of "sadness for the present and the past" and "sadness

animal hatred", I wrote about the customs of Hu (the third beat), and in order to explain that my days are as long as years, and it is difficult for me to adapt to the daily life of Hu, I wrote about the food and clothing of Hu (the sixth and seventh beats), and so on. (the sixth and seventh beats), and so on. Strong subjective lyrical color

color, but more importantly, is reflected in the suddenness of the expression of feelings. The feelings of the poem often come suddenly, suddenly

and then go, jumping and changing, unbelievable. Sometimes, they come and go without avoiding repetition, such as blaming the heavens, appearing before and after

four times, respectively, in the first, eighth, ninth and sixteenth beats; sometimes, they come and go without any trace, such as the fourth beat ("no day, no night"), which expresses grievances and anger in a generous way, and the fourth beat ("no day, no night"), which expresses grievances and anger in a generous way, in the light of personal experience, and the fourth beat ("no day, no night"), which expresses grievances and anger in a generous way. The fifth beat ("the geese are going south

Conquering Ruoxi") suddenly turns out to be the cold mood of the geese; the tenth beat of the war atmosphere and the sixth

seventh two beats of the writing of food, clothing and living are all for the purpose of writing about the feelings of the countryside, which should have been connected, but the eighth and ninth beats of the insertion of the reproach to the heavens in the middle of the song. "Just as

the so-called 'thinking without locating', just before the sea, I created the Yao Chi again." (Xie Hazel, "Four-dimensional Poetry," vol. 4) This irrationalization of emotional

expression itself is an important sign of strong subjective emotional color. The strong subjective lyric color

has also left a distinctive mark on the lyrical style and the use of language. The poet is often the word "I" when

head, words without avoidance; also like to exaggerate its rhetoric, extreme words to the full. At the beginning of the poem, he used two "I" words to start

the momentum, followed by "Heaven is unkind to me, and the earth is unkind to me at this time" two lines referring to heaven and rebuking the earth. All things are ruminants" ("Laozi"), this is what kind of boldness and vigor! On the eighth beat,

"For heaven has eyes, why don't you see me drifting alone? For God has a spirit Ruoxi what is the matter with my head in the south of the sky and the north of the sea? If I am not worthy of heaven, how can heaven

match me? I am not responsible for God Ruoxi God why put me to death over the barren state", this iteration of a series of reproach is the "sky", "God"

as the defendant sent to the front of the judgment seat. The hyperbole and exaggerated words in the article are all over the place, such as "no day and no night

Ruoxi do not think of my hometown, endowed with qi containing the life Ruoxi more than my most bitter. The natural disaster of the country is a disaster, and people have no masters; I am the only one who has a thin life, and I have not been taken captive by the army."

(beat four), "The sky has no boundaries, and the earth has no boundaries, and my heart is sad, and it is also sad."(beat nine), "The four seasons and all things have their only my sadness is temporary. " (14th beat), "Bitterness is my grievance and is vast in the sky, although the Six Harmonies are vast, they should not be tolerated" (18th beat), and so on. The sum of the above forms a strong subjective lyrical color in the poem

a general feature that brings out the image of the lyrical protagonist.

The successful creation of the artistic image of the lyrical protagonist is also due to the in-depth and delicate psychological description.

The heroine, in a situation of

"a bad will and a loss of integrity", why not die to fulfill her integrity? The eleventh beat discloses her secret intention

(see the fourth sentence of the previously quoted "I am not greedy for life but hate death"), showing that she has survived out of a deep sense of homeland. As a result of this dissection, the ideological and emotional basis of the character's activities is revealed, which not only eliminates any possible misunderstanding of the character, but also makes her relatable and respectable. The thirteenth beat expresses the pain of parting with her son, and the fourteenth beat complains of the pain of thinking of her son. Though the methods of writing are not the same - the thirteenth beat expresses it with the help of imagination and through action, while the fourteenth beat is in the form of a dream - the psychological changes of the character in a particular situation are vividly depicted in the poem, which is very vivid and vivid. The most notable psychological description in the poem is the one of the emotional tangle between returning to the country and the sorrow of the other

children. The poet is y aware of the fact that "it is difficult to reiterate the two feelings", and thus he is not afraid of

the trouble of repeating his words, such as "I am happy to have returned home to meet the sage, and I am contemptuous of parting with my child and meeting him for no reason" (the twelfth beat), "

Wish I could return home to meet the sage; I would like to return to the country. p>Wish to return to Ruoxi from the sky from the desire to return to Han Ruoxi happy heart enough. The heart is pregnant with sorrow, the sun and the moon are selfless and have not been illuminated,

the separation of son and mother is difficult" (beat fifteen), and "Now I am leaving my son and returning to my hometown, the old grudge is even and the new grudge grows long" (beat fifteen)

six). Through constant repetition, the expression of ambivalence is emphasized and deepened, thus

highlighting the character's dilemma and pain.

Ming Lu Shiyong said in "Poetry Mirror", "Tokyo style is decadent, and Cai Wenji is talented. Reading

Hu Jia Yin

(according to which, it refers to

Hu Jia Eighteen Beats

), it can make the shocked Peng sit and vibrate, and the gravel fly by itself, which is

fierce embrace

." The so-called "fierce embrace" means that it stirs up strong ****sing in the reader's heart, giving rise to a feeling of sadness. Why

"Eighteen Beats of Hu Jia" has such a great artistic power? Summarizing the above, I can say in a nutshell that it is

because the poem has successfully created the tragic

artistic image of Cai Yan, the main character of the poem, through its characteristic artistic performance.