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绝句 -- Jué Jù
唐 - Táng （618-907）
杜甫 —Dù Fǔ （712-770）
江碧鸟逾白-- Jiāng bì niǎo yù bái,
山青花欲燃-- Shān qīng huā yù rán。
今春看又过-- Jīn chūn kàn yòu guò ,
何日是归年-- Hérì shì guī nián。
江碧鸟逾白-- Jiāng bì niǎo yù bái,
山青花欲燃-- Shān qīng huā yù rán。
今春看又过-- Jīn chūn kàn yòu guò,
何日是归年-- Hérì shì guī nián。
何日是归年-- Hérì shì guī nián。
江碧鸟逾白-- Jiāng bì niǎo yù bái,
山青花欲燃-- shān qīng huā yù rán。
今春看又过-- Jīn chūn kàn yòu guò,
何日是归年-- Gérì shì guī nián。
江碧鸟逾白-- Jiāng bì niǎo yù bái,
山青花欲燃-- shān qīng huā yòu guò 。
今春看又过-- Jīn chūn kàn yùqù,
何日是归年-- Hérì shì guī nián。
何日是归年-- Hérì shì guī nián。
何日是归年-- Hérì shì guī nián。
|#|By Du Fu(712-770)
Tang Dynasty (618-097)
On (the) blue river, (the) birds seem more whiter,
In the green mountains, the flowers are like burning fire.
This spring will soon pass,
What day can I return home?
On (the) blue river, (the) birds seem more whiter,
In the green mountains the flowers are like burning fire.
This spring will soon pass,
What day can I return home?
What day can I return home?
On (the) blue river, (the) birds seem more whiter,
In the green mountains the flowers are like burning fire.
This spring will soon pass,
What day can I return home?
On (the) blue river, (the) birds seem more whiter,
In the green mountains the flowers are like burning fire.
This spring will soon pass,
What day can I return home?
What day can I return home?
What day can I return home?
|#|Du Fu 杜甫 dù fǔ (712-770) was born in today's Henan province during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). He is one of the greatest poets in Chinese history.
Du Fu had a very good home education; he began composing poetry when he was 5 and started to learn Chinese calligraphy when he was 9. He communicated with adults through poetry from the age of 15 to16.
In his first travels in Wu and Yue -- today's Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, he knew about another equally great poet of Tang Dynasty -- Li Bai. At this time, he was about 20 years old and his poems were very positive and full of dreams.
When Du Fu was 22 years old, he failed in the imperial examinations but he stayed in the capital Chang'an city -- Today's Xi'an for about 10 years, living a very poor life. This kind of experience and life gave him some opportunities to learn much about the life of common people. His poetry entered in a new and realistic period.
As a follower of Confucian philosophy, Du Fu cared for the future and fate of the country and he wished to have an opportunity to work for the country. However, he did not become an officer until he was 44 years old.
In 755, the Rebellion of An and Shi led the country into a civil war that lasted for about 8 years. During this time, Du Fu became a fugitive and he experienced a harder and poorer life, while his poetry reached its highest peak. In 770, when he was 58 years old and on his way back his hometown, Du Fu died on a boat.
Du Fu experienced the decline of the Tang Dynasty from its most prosperous times and his poems reflect the whole of the process, so that people said his poetry was "Poetry of Historic Significance” in its content. At the same time, he also developed traditional Chinese poetry in its forms and he could write almost all kinds of Chinese poetry excellently.
Du Fu's poetry has had a great influence on poets for about 1,200 years, down to the present day. There are about 1,400 of his poems still in existence.
|#||#|This poem was created in Chengdu in the spring, 764, after Du Fu escaped from the Capital - Changan (today's Xian) from the war of the Rebellion of An and Shi (755-763) which had lasted for more than 10 years.
It expresses the sigh of emotion of the poet as a traveler who had sojourned far away from his hometown for a long time. It writes about the sad feeling via describing a happy views; contrasting or comparison is used in each line of the landscape’s description.
Let us look at the original poem:
The first two lines: 江碧鸟逾白，山青花欲燃。Jiāng bì niǎo yù bái, shān qīng huā yù rán. 江Jiāng, means river, in ancient Chinese language, it just points Yangtse River; 碧 bì means bluish green, blue; 鸟niǎo means bird; 逾 yù means more; 白 bái means white, whiter; 山 shān means mountain, hill; 青qīng means green, blueness, blue or black; 花 huā means flowers; 欲yù means wish, want, desire; 燃rán means burn, light; The two lines mean: the bluish river water sets off the birds, making them look whiter, in contrast to the green mountains, the red flowers just like the burning fire.
With just 10 words, it writes about 4 things: river, mountain, bird and flower. They emphasize how the river is blue, but the birds are whiter; how the mountains are green, but the flowers are redder. Plus the flowing river water, the flying birds, the swaying flowers in the mountains... these two lines use rich, bright and sharply contrasting colors, to create a series wonderful and vivid landscapes.
In the writing, the two lines are Dui Zhang – antithesis. (In poetry) a matching of both sound and meaning in two lines, usually, with the matching words in the same part of speech;
You see:
江碧鸟逾白 -Jiāng bì niǎo yù bái,
山青花欲燃 - shān qīng huā yù rán。
-- Jiāng vs. shān – river vs. mountain: both of them are nouns; one is water, the other is mountain.
-- Bì vs, qīng – bluish green vs. green and blue: both of them are adjectives, with different colors, but the same color system: one is bluish green; the other is green and blue.
-- Niǎo vs. huā – bird vs. flowers: both of things are moving; one is flying in the sky, the other is waving on the ground.
-- Yù vs. yù – : both of them are verbs and have the same pronunciations. But the first yù is also an adverb and it means exceed, be even more so; to write how the bluish river sets off the birds to look more white. The second yù means want or wish; to give the flower a person’s character -- just wants to burn like fire. It makes people think of the view -- how it is waving in the wind.
-- Bái vs. rán: both of them are adjectives, bái means white, rán means burning. The latter does not write about color, but everyone can think of the color of fire.
After writing one or maybe two or series scenes of beautiful views (relying on your imagination), the poet switches his writing:
今春看又过，何日是归年 Jīn chūn kàn yòu guò, hérì shì guī nián. 今Jīn means present-day this (year, day, month); 春chūn means spring; 今春Jīnchūn means this spring; 看kàn, here it does not mean see or look at, but means yǎnkàn, which means soon; 又yòu means again, 过guò, means pass; 何hé means what，where, why, who, when, here it means what ; 日rì means day; 何日hérì means what day; 是shì means be, is, are ; 归guī, means go back to, return; 年 nián means year. These two lines mean: This spring will soon pass ; what day can I return home (or what day can I return to the capital)?
The line “今春看又过 -- this spring will be soon pass”, points out the time the poem written. It is at the turn of the season when the old season will pass and a new season will come. 又 yòu, again : year after year, spring after spring, every year, I see the beautiful spring view and every year I look forward to going back home.
Then, there is the last line: 何日是归年hérì shì guī nián. When can I truly go back to my home or the capital? It expresses an involuntarily feeling. How I want to go back home, but, I am living in times of endless civil war. Therefore, I really do not know when I can truly return home and the capital at all.
Using a question, the poet not only finishes the poem, but also expresses the long-term dream and the endless sadness inside. The view that the poet has seen and has written about is beautiful. However, instead of feeling happy it makes him think of how many years he has been a traveler who had left his hometown and Capital. The beautiful view does not give him happiness but reminds him of his much more deeply felt anchorless sadness.
Instead of describing the pathos of the poet wanting to go back to his hometown straight away, this poem expresses deep nostalgia via writing about a beautiful view; writing one thing to serve as a foil for the other is the main artistic character of this poem
|#|First of all, Du Fu wrote this poem just like an artist paints a picture. In his poem, he has naturally showed the important ancient Chinese art theory: "Not only are there pictures in the poetry, but also there is poetry in the pictures".
Secondly, to set off by contrast is not only a wonderful way to create beautiful art works, but also we can use it to beautify our existent and work environment, to make our daily life more beautiful and more interesting.
Thirdly, in management, we have to know our own roles. There can only be one core in a company or an organization. All of the others should serve the core and make it better, just like the bluish river sets off the birds to look whiter, the green mountain sets off the flowers to look like burning fire. Otherwise, we would lose something most important and to lead the career of the company or the organization to fall.
To better share the poem with you, I created a painting and a piece of music for it and I wrote an article to introduce this poem when I was in the USA in Dec, 2013. Then my British English tutor Mr. Mike Joyce and Chinese English tutor Mrs. Zhang Xiaogang corrected my writing; my music coach Professor Meng Weiye corrected my music and directed me make the record in 2016.
I do hope what we have done are of some help to you to learn Chinese culture and language.
If you have any questions, comments and or suggestions, you are welcome to write to shirley@ebridge.cn ; you can also publish your opinions on the Message Board on www.ebridge.cn as well.
Shirley Yiping Zhang
Nov 30,2017 in China
Nov. 6, 2016 in the USA.
March, 2015 in China
Dec 16, 2013, in the USA
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