Author: Su Shi

Dynasty: Northern Song Dynasty

Genre: Ci

About the author:

Su Shi (1037 ~1101), named Zizhan and Dongpo Jushi, a native of Meishan in the Northern Song Dynasty. He is a famous writer and one of the eight great writers of prose in Tang and Song Dynasties. He is knowledgeable and versatile, and has high attainments in calligraphy, painting, poetry, and prose. His calligraphy, together with Cai Xiang, Huang Tingjian and Mi Fu, is known as the "Four Calligraphers of the Song Dynasty"; he is good at painting bamboo, wood and strange rocks, and he is also outstanding in painting theory and calligraphy theory. He is the literary leader after Ouyang Xiu in the Northern Song Dynasty. His prose is as famous as Ouyang Xiu; his poetry is as famous as Huang Tingjian; his poetry is majestic and bold in style. Instead of the elegance of his poetry, he is called "Su Xin" together with Xin Qiji in the Southern Song Dynasty, and he is the most bold and bold. Send a lyricist.

Three or two branches of peach blossoms outside the bamboo are a prophet of the warmth of the spring river.

The ground is full of wormwood and reed buds, which is when the puffer fish is about to come.

]" Pass the pledge.

Three or two branches of peach blossoms outside the bamboo are a prophet of the warmth of the spring river.

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Artemisia is all over the ground and the reed buds are short, which is when the pufferfish is about to come.

⊙○●●○○● ⊙●○○●●△

Notes

Hui Chong: A famous monk in the Northern Song Dynasty who was good at poetry and painting, "Evening Scene on the Spring River" There are two paintings by him, one is a picture of ducks playing and the other is a picture of flying geese. Su Shi also has two poems about paintings. This one is about duck opera.

Spring River Plumbing Duck Prophet: Spring is coming, the ice melts, and as long as the water temperature rises, the ducks seem to be the first to feel the message of spring, and they can’t wait to play in the river.

Wormwort: A perennial herb that grows in depressions. It has light yellow flowers and a stem four or five feet high. It is tender and crispy when it is new and can be eaten.

Reed buds: The young buds of reeds are edible.

Pufferfish: A type of fish, scientific name is "Fugu". Its meat is delicious, but its ovaries and liver are highly toxic. Produced in my country's coastal areas and some inland rivers.

Up: Refers to listing, which means selling on the market.

Translation

Two or three peach blossoms are blooming outside the bamboo forest. Ducks are playing in the water. They are the first to notice the warming of the river in early spring. The river beach is already full of wormwood and asparagus has begun to sprout. These are good condiments for cooking pufferfish, which is about to swim upstream from the sea to the river.

Appreciation 1

Su Shi's "Two Evening Scenes on the Spring River in Huichong", later generations often only quote this one, forgetting that there are four more sentences:

Two pairs of returning Hong want to break the group, Yiyi still looks like a person returning from the north.

I know from afar that there are many winds and snows in the Shuo Desert, but I am waiting for the spring in the south of the Yangtze River.

This is a poem on a painting. Hui Chong's "Spring River Evening Scene" has not been handed down, but from Su Shi's poem, we can get an idea: a bamboo forest, two or three peach blossoms, a river , a few ducks, the river bank is full of wormwood, the reed buds have just broken through the ground, and there are still two or two returning ducks in the sky. You can't see the pufferfish, but the gluttonous Su Shi is thinking: It's time for the pufferfish to be served. Stewed with mugwort and reed sprouts, it's much fresher than Dongpo meat.

Hui Chong was one of the "Nine Poetry Monks" in the early Song Dynasty, and he was not from the same era as Su Shi. Su Shi only saw his paintings but not his people. This monk is good at poetry and painting, especially good at painting water towns. He also puts a few birds and animals on it, which is known as "Huichong Xiaojing".

Wang Anshi admired his paintings very much, and praised him in "Chunfu Monk Hui Chong Painted and Wanted to Compose Poems": "There are many paintings in the history, and I am the most praised by Hui Chong in his later years."

The Ming and Qing Dynasties only paid attention to Tang poetry and never paid attention to Song poetry. During the Kangxi period, Mao Xiling, a great scholar and great poet, criticized Su Shi's poem and said: "The ducks must know that the water in the spring river is warm, but the geese don't know?"

This old man is really making excuses. The water in the Spring River is warm, and the geese certainly know it. People in the Song Dynasty also wrote a poem about "when spring comes, the world will know the grass and trees". This is a poem on a painting. Maybe there is no goose in the painting at all.

But it’s not that Mao Xiling just had trouble with Su Shi. He looked down on no one. When he read Zhu Xi, he had to have a scarecrow Zhu Xi around him. If he saw something wrong with his interpretation, he would be beaten and scolded to make the scarecrow Zhu Xi admit his mistakes. Su Shi was already polite enough.

Appreciation 2

These two poems are poems on paintings, written in the eighth year of Yuanfeng (1085).

The following is an appreciation of the first poem: A good painting poem must not only fit the theme of the painting, but also not be limited to the content of the painting. It must be able to reproduce the painting scene and at the same time be able to jump out of the painting and be unique. , leaving painting without losing its independent artistic life. Su Shi's poem can be said to have achieved this. The first three lines of the poem chant about the scenery in the picture, and the last line is an association caused by the scenery in the picture. The whole poem is like a poet expressing his feelings at the scene. The images he gets at the moment are wonderful and natural. The first three sentences represent the painting scene, but in fact the two are not completely equivalent. In the second sentence, "water warmth" (temperature), "duck prophet" (perception) and so on cannot be drawn directly. Poems can describe picturesque things, but poems that praise the physical properties of things are too picturesque. This is because painting is a visual art, while poetry is a language art, with absolute freedom of expression. The last sentence further develops association and makes a judgment about the season of the scenery in the painting based on the objective description of the scenery in the first three sentences, thus adding a rich feeling of the beauty of southern scenery, which is something that paintings cannot do. Regarding the seasonal flavor of puffer fish, Mei Yaochen wrote in his poem "Fan Raozhou Sitting in Zhongguo and Eating Puffer Fish Fish": "Oil buds grow on the spring island, and poplar flowers bloom on the spring bank. When puffer fish is in season, it is more expensive than fish and shrimp." Ouyang Xiu's "Six One Poetry Talk" said: "Pufferfish often come out in the late spring, swim in groups, and eat catkins to get fat. People in the south often make soup with Di buds, and the clouds are the most beautiful." Zhang Lei, a student of Su Shi, also wrote in "Mingdao Magazine" It is recorded that the natives in the Yangtze River area eat puffer fish, but "cook it with three ingredients: artemisia, bamboo shoots (i.e. reed sprouts), and water spinach". They believe that these three items are the most suitable combination with puffer fish. It can be seen that Su Shi's association is well-founded and natural. The beauty of poetry also depends on this.

Appreciation 3

This poem with a picture deliberately depicts a scene of early spring.

The poet first wrote from his side: In early spring, the earth revives, the bamboo forest has been dyed green by new leaves, and what is even more eye-catching is that three or two early peach blossoms have bloomed on the peach trees. The bright colors convey the message of spring to people. Then, the poet's sight shifted from the riverside to the middle of the river. The ducks that had been waiting for the whole winter on the bank could no longer hold back and rushed to the water to play.

Then, the poet wrote from the middle of the river to the river bank, observing and describing the scene of early spring in more detail: Due to the moisture of the spring river water, the wormwood on the ground grew new branches, and the reed buds sprouted; this Everything shows the vitality of spring and is endearing. The poet then thinks that this is the season when puffer fish are on the market, which leads people to imagine more broadly... The whole poem is filled with a strong and fresh breath of life.