The poet wants to use rivers to express that life is like the surging water in the river and will never return. The right and wrong in the world are like river water and passing smoke. There is no need to be brooding and angry because of temporary success or failure. Shu expresses the author's indifferent and free feeling.
1. Source
It comes from the poem "Linjiang Immortal·Rolling Waters of the Yangtze River Passing East" written by Yang Shen, a writer in the Ming Dynasty.
2. Original translation
As the Yangtze River rolls eastward, many heroes disappear like flying waves. Regardless of right and wrong, success or failure (the achievements of heroes of ancient and modern times), it is all in vain until now, and has disappeared with the passage of time. The green mountains (jiangshan) of those days still exist, and the sun still rises and sets.
The white-haired hermit by the river has long been used to seeing the changes of time. It was a rare meeting with an old friend, and I drank a glass of wine happily. Many events from the past to the present were reflected in (people's) conversation and laughter.
Extended information
1. Creative background
Yang Shen was the first of the three great talents of the Ming Dynasty and the number one scholar in the Ming Dynasty. His father was Yang Tinghe, the chief minister of the Ming Dynasty. He was a young and romantic man. , talented, young and successful. In the third year of Jiajing's reign, he received the royal staff due to "great etiquette" and was banished to Yongchang Guards in Yunnan until his death. This poem was written by Yang Shen when he was banished and passed by the Yangtze River.
Yang Shen received a cane in court for giving advice to the emperor, and was later demoted to Yunnan, where he could live out his life. Yang Shen, who was talented but had nowhere to display his male ambitions, fell from the altar to the common people, and his identity instantly changed to a common man. Such ups and downs in his life made him somewhat complain and hate officialdom. As a literary man, Yang Shen, of course, also wanted to express his feelings through writing, expressing his inner infinite melancholy and his subsequent self-salvation.
2. Appreciation
The top line of the poem chants about the eternity of the universe, the endless rivers, and the ever-present green mountains through historical phenomena, but the heroes from generation to generation are all fleeting. Xia Qing writes about the noble sentiments and broad-mindedness of the poet. Using the rise and fall of the past dynasties as a talking point and a joke to promote drinking shows the poet's disdain for the secular, indifferent and free and easy feelings.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Linjiangxian·The Rolling Yangtze River Passing East