"The willow is at the level of the river, and there is singing on the Wenlang River. The sun rises in the east and rains in the west, but there is no clear sky." The meaning of this poem is that the willow river is wide and flat, and the voice of the lover's song is heard on the river. The sun rises in the east and rains in the west, and it is said that there is no sunshine but there is still sunshine.
This poem is "Two Bamboo Branch Lyrics - One of Them" by Liu Yuxi of the Tang Dynasty
The whole poem:
The willow is wide and flat, and I hear the sound of my lover's song on the river.
The sun rises in the east and rains in the west.
Two Poems on Bamboo Branches is a group of poems written by Liu Yuxi, a literati of the Tang Dynasty. Among Liu Yuxi's surviving works, there are eleven Bamboo Branch Lyrics, divided into two groups, of which these two poems are one. The first poem is about the mood of a young girl immersed in her first love. She is in love with someone, but she does not yet know the attitude of the other party, so she is both hopeful and skeptical; both joyful and worried. The poet uses her own tone to express this subtle and complex psychology successfully. The second is not like the first song to harmonize the implicit love affairs, but from living in Sichuan and hearing the Ba people singing naturally triggered nostalgic thoughts. The style of the poem is bright and lively, with a strong flavor of life and distinctive folk characteristics.
This is a poem that describes the love between a young man and a young woman. It describes the inner activities of a young girl in love for the first time when she hears her lover's song on a clear spring day when the willows are green and the river is as flat as a mirror.
The first line of the poem, "The willow is green and the river is flat," describes the scene before the girl's eyes, using the technique of rising. The so-called "Xing", is to touch the feelings, it is with the latter to express the love affair. It is not directly related, but it is indispensable in the poem. The spring willow described in this line is most likely to arouse human feelings, so it naturally leads to the second line: "I hear the sound of Lang Lang singing on the river". This line is a narrative, writing about the young girl's heart when she hears her lover's song. The last two lines, "The sun rises in the east and the rain falls in the west, and there is no clear sky, but there is a clear sky", are two clever metaphors, using the technique of semantic puns. The phrase "sunrise in the east" means "clear" and "rain in the west" means "no clear". "The words "sunny" and "love" are harmonized, and "sunny" and "no sunny" are the same. "with love" and "without love". The phrase "sunrise on the east side and rain on the west side" is apparently an illustration of "sunny" and "no sunny", but in fact it is a cryptic expression of "sentient" and "non-sentient". but in fact it is a metaphor for "sentient" and "non-sentient". This makes this young girl listen, really feel elusive, the mood of apprehension. But she is a clever woman, she recognized from the last sentence that her lover is affectionate towards her, because the words "have" and "have not" in the sentence emphasize "have". Therefore, she can't help but feel joyful in her heart. This line uses the technique of double meaning to write about the rainy weather on the river, and also skillfully depicts a series of psychological activities of this young girl's confusion, attachment and hope.
References
Liang Shouzhong. Selected Poems of Liu Yuxi. Chengdu: Bashu Book Company, 1990