Meet Li Guinian at the lower reaches of the river.
"Common to the king's house, cui also heard a few times before.
Never thought, in this Jiangnan scenic area; It is the season of falling flowers, and I can meet you, an old acquaintance. "
Appreciation: This is one of Du Fu's quatrains, which is deeply affectionate. Only 28 years old, but it contains rich content of life in the times. If the poet wrote a memoir about the period before and after An Shi Rebellion, he might as well use it to name the book.
Li Guinian was a famous singer in Kaiyuan period. Du Fu's first encounter with Li Guinian coincided with his youth and the so-called "Kaiyuan Prosperity". At that time, princes and nobles generally loved literature and art, and Du Fu, because of his early talent, was extended by Li Fan, the king of Qi, and Cui Di, the secretary supervisor, so that he could enjoy Li Guinian's singing in their mansion. An outstanding artist is not only a product of a specific era, but also a symbol of a specific era. In Du Fu's mind, Li Guinian is closely connected with the prosperous Kaiyuan era and his romantic youth life. Decades later, they met again in Jiangnan. At this time, after eight years of turmoil, the Tang Dynasty has fallen from the peak of prosperity and fallen into many contradictions. Du Fu drifted to Tanzhou, "loose cloth and tangled bones, running around bitter and tepid", and his later situation was extremely bleak; Li Guinian also lives south of the Yangtze River. "Every time there is a beautiful scene, he sings a few songs and hears them in his seat, so he has to hide his face and cry and stop drinking" (Miscellanies of Ming Taizu). This encounter will naturally lead to the infinite vicissitudes of Du Fu's life, which has long been smoldering in his chest. "It's a common thing in Qi Wang's family, and Cui has heard it several times before." Although the poet is recalling his past contacts with Li Guinian, what he reveals is his deep nostalgia for the "Kaiyuan Shengshi". These two sentences seem very light, but the feelings they contain are deep and dignified. "Wang Qi Zhai Li" and "Cui Tang Jiu Qian" seem to blurt out, but in the eyes of the parties, the place where these two literary celebrities often gather gracefully is undoubtedly the rich and colorful source of spiritual culture in the prosperous era of Kaiyuan, and their names are enough to evoke good memories of the prosperous era. In those days, it was "unusual" to get in touch with an art star like Li Guinian, but it was not difficult to get in touch with him several times. Looking back now, it is simply an unreachable dream. The feeling of separation between heaven and earth contained here can only be tasted by combining the following two sentences. In the overlapping singing and chanting, the two poems reveal infinite attachment to the prosperity of Kaiyuan, as if to prolong the aftertaste.
Dream-like memories can't change the present reality after all. "It's the beautiful scenery in the south of the Yangtze River, and it's the season of falling flowers." Jiangnan, with its beautiful scenery, was originally a paradise for poets in Chengping era. Now I am really in it, facing the "lost season" with withered eyes and the wandering artists with white hair. The season of falling flowers seems to be an impromptu work, but it seems to have ulterior motives, intentionally or unintentionally. Readers who are familiar with the times and Du Fu's life experience will associate these four words with the decline of the world, social unrest, the decline of the poet and illness, but they don't think the poet is deliberately metaphorical. This writing style is particularly confusing. In addition, the two function words "exactly" and "you" in the two sentences are full of ups and downs, and there are infinite feelings between the lines. The beautiful scenery in the south of the Yangtze River is in a strong contrast with the chaotic life experience of being divorced from the times and sinking. An old singer and an old poet reunited in the wandering, and the flowing scenery dotted with two haggard old people became a typical portrayal of the vicissitudes of the times. It mercilessly confirmed that the "Kaiyuan Shengshi" has become a historical relic, and an earth-shaking change has reduced Du Fu and Li Guinian, who experienced the prosperity, to an unfortunate level. There is no doubt that the feelings are profound, but the poet wrote that "falling flowers meet the monarch again", but he accepted it with a gloomy mood, pregnant with deep sighs and painful sadness in silence. I don't want to say a word about this "beginning and ending", which is really meaningful. Shen Deqian commented on this poem: "The meaning has not been applied, and the case has not been solved". The meaning of this "inapplicability" is not difficult to understand for Li Guinian, a party with similar experience; For readers who are good at understanding people and discussing the world in later generations, it is not difficult to grasp. Such as the hall of eternal life. In Tanci, Li Guinian sang: "At that time, the sky was clear, but now the drums are beating along the street", "I can't sing endless dreams of rise and fall, I can't play endless lamentations, and my eyes are full of sadness" and so on. Although I sing sigh repeatedly, the meaning is not more than Du Fu's poems, but it seems that the playwright has deduced it from Du Fu's poems.
Four poems, from Village of Emperor Qi's "Smell" song to Cui's face, and then to the emphasis on "Hui", "Wen" and "Hui" in the south of the Yangtze River, connect the vicissitudes of the times and great changes in life in the past 40 years. Although there is no poem directly related to the life experience of the times, it is not difficult for readers to feel the shadow of the great turmoil that brought havoc to the material wealth and cultural prosperity of the Tang Dynasty and the great disasters and trauma it caused to people through the poet's memories. It can indeed be said that "the chaos of the World Games, the rise and fall of the New Year, and the desolation of each other are all among them" (Sun Zhu's comment). Just as there is no set on the stage of an old play, the audience can imagine a very broad spatial background and event process through the singing performance of the actors; Also like a novel, it often reflects an era through a person's fate. The successful creation of this poem seems to tell us how much capacity this short genre of quatrains can have among great poets with high artistic generalization and rich life experience, and what artistic realm can be achieved when expressing such rich content.