Wang Changling’s Two Palace Revenge Quatrains

In classical poetry, any work that describes life in the inner courtyard of the palace is collectively called palace poetry. In terms of its content, it can be divided into two categories: one kind talks about the amusements in the palace or secretly talks about erotic affairs, which is generally not advisable; the other type expresses sympathy for the women who are sequestered in the deep palace, telling the truth Their unfortunate experiences and depressed mood thus reflect a sinful side of the feudal system. This latter type of poetry can be called palace resentment poetry. There were many poets in the Tang Dynasty who were good at writing about palace resentments, among whom Wang Changling was the most highly regarded.

Shen Deqian praised Wang Changling's quatrains in "Collection of Tang Poems": "The deep feelings and resentments, the vague intention, the unpredictable and endless play, are called the "Sao" language of the Tang Dynasty." This is Mainly refers to his palace resentment poems. Hu Zhenheng also said in "Tang Yin Gui Zhu" that among his Qi Jue Gong Ci "there are many works of extreme attainment". The following is one of his "Five Autumn Poems of Changxin":

The autumn leaves of Jinjing sycamore are yellow, and the bead curtains are not rolled up by the night frost.

The jade pillow in the fumigation cage has no color, and when I lie down, I listen to Nangong’s clear and long leaks.

This poem about palace resentment uses deep and subtle writing methods and adopts the technique of using scenery to express feelings. It writes about a girl who has been deprived of her youth, freedom and happiness. She is in desolation. In the lonely palace, alone, lying and listening to the uterine leakage. This is a human tragedy under the feudal system. Just because the emperor who enjoyed unlimited privileges wanted to satisfy his personal lustful desires, he locked thousands of girls in the palace, causing them to live a life separated from their flesh and blood and isolated from the rest of the world. It is not difficult to imagine how many sleepless nights they will have during their lifetimes, when they are suffering endlessly and their days are like years. This poem is just a fragment cut from countless tragic life scenes.

In such a sleepless night, the person in the poem is full of worries and knots of sorrow. She should be filled with endless resentment. There are only four sentences in this poem, with a total of twenty-eight words. It can be said that even if every word is filled with resentment, I am afraid it still cannot express her resentment. However, when writing the poem, the author did not hesitate to use the first three sentences to describe the scenery, leaving only the last sentence to describe the characters, and even in this last sentence, there was no explicit expression of resentment. Written in this way, at first glance it seems to be away from the theme of the poem, but in terms of artistic effect, it expresses the theme more powerfully and profoundly. This is because: as far as the first three lines of the poem are concerned, although they describe the scenery, they are not describing the scenery for the sake of describing the scenery. They are all written for the appearance of the final characters; as far as the whole poem is concerned, although the first three lines and the last line describe the scenery, , writing about people, but the four lines of poetry are integrated into a whole, all to express resentment.

This poem is titled "Autumn Ci". Its first sentence, "The golden well sycamores have yellow leaves in autumn," punctuates the title of the poem with the sycamores beside the well and the deep yellow leaves of autumn, and at the same time plays a role in exaggerating the color and setting off the atmosphere. It introduces readers into a desolate and lonely environment from the beginning. The second sentence, "If the bead curtains are not rolled up, frost will come at night", and the bead curtains are not rolled up, and the night is cold and frosty, indicating that it is late at night, thus describing the environment as more desolate. The third sentence, "The smoked cage and jade pillow have no color," turns the poem indoors. There should be many indoor scenes to write about, but the author only selected two utensils: the smoke cage and the jade pillow. He writes about the smoked cage to further enhance the atmosphere of the cold night in the palace; he writes about the jade pillow to remind people of the loneliness of a sleepless person on the bed. The author also uses the word "colorless" to describe the smoke cage and jade pillow. This is both real writing and virtual writing. Real description, firstly, it shows that this is a cold palace, the utensils in the room are old and the colors are dim; secondly, it shows that it is late at night, the fire and candlelight are weak, and the surrounding items are eclipsed. Dummy writing does not necessarily mean that the object itself is "colorless", but rather the subjective feeling of the person who owns the object, which is a reflection of her desolate mood. Moreover, the "colorlessness" of the fumigation cage and the jade pillow also has its symbolic meaning, as it is written as the incarnation of human beings. At this point, the person in the poem is ready to speak out. At the end of the hall, with the sentence "Lie down and listen to Nangong's clear leakage," the reader finally sees a lonely girl sleeping alone and listening to the palace's leakage on the jade pillow beside the incense cage. At this time, when I looked back at the first three lines of the poem, I realized that the author was writing far away and gradually shrinking.

The poem starts from the outdoor well, to the bead curtain between the door, and then to the indoor smoke cage and the jade pillow on the bed. From far to near, the scenery changes step by step, and the sentences move around, finally guiding the reader's sight to one point. , focusing on the heroine. In this way, the character's appearance is both smooth and smooth, and has the effect of attracting and developing.

After using thick ink to paint the background and describe the environment, thus forcing the characters to emerge, the author only uses an objective narrative tone in the last line of the poem to describe that the heroine is lying down listening to uterine leakage. The way of expression is to have a case without a conclusion, to hold back but not to speak out, and to express the resentment without revealing it. The focus of attention of the sleepless man in this sentence is the missing sound, and it is also the missing sound that attracts the reader's attention. It is on the missing sound that the author uses a dark pen to reveal his resentment and express the theme. He used the character "清" before the missing sound and the character "长" after the missing sound. This is a hint: because the person in the poem is in a desolate mood, the missing sound is felt to be desolate; because the person in the poem is sad and unable to sleep, the interval between the missing sound is particularly long. The sentence "leaning against the fumigated cage and sitting till dawn" in Bai Juyi's "Gong Ci" is an objective portrayal of the person in the poem; in Li Yi's poem "Official Resentment", "It's like adding sea water to the palace leakage, and the water dripping from the long gate grows all night long." "The two sentences represent the subjective feelings of the person in the poem. At the same time, Wang Changling also pointed out in this poem that the leaking sound heard by the people in the poem came from the Nangong, the residence of the emperor. The word "Nangong" is the finishing touch in the whole poem. It points out the resentment of the people in the poem. The clever use of these dark pens and the writing method of hiding resentment between the lines make the poem more profound, leaving endless meaning and subtext at the end.

This poem "Autumn Poems" is about autumn resentment, and palace people are always worried about resentment. Although there is autumn resentment in autumn, there will also be spring resentment in spring. Let's read another song "Spring Resentment in the West Palace" written by Wang Changling:

The night in the West Palace is quiet and the flowers are fragrant.

The clouds are slanting and the moon is visible in the depths, and the sun is hidden in the hazy trees.

Here, against the background of a night of flowers and moonlight, as described in Wang Anshi's poem "Ye Zhi", "the beauty of spring makes one unable to sleep", a person with the same fate as the protagonist in "Autumn Ci" is described. Her series of movements and moods are deeply thought-provoking and nuanced, making readers feel like they are there, seeing her, and have a glimpse of her tortuous and complex inner activities.

The first line of the poem, "The quiet night in the West Palace is filled with the fragrance of flowers," points out the season and the time, bringing the reader into a flowery spring night. This sentence, in terms of technique, is to reflect the lonely and desolate situation of the girl in the poem; in terms of content, it is closely connected with the following, which leads to the ambivalent mood and infinite hatred of the person in the poem. The author's conception and diction are extremely delicate. In the sentence, the color of the flower is not written, only the fragrance of the flower is written, because generally speaking, under the cover of night, what is intoxicating is not the color but the fragrance. What's more, judging from the following poem, the person in the poem is in the pearl at this time. In the room where the curtains were not rolled up, the only thing that triggered her spring resentment was the fragrance of flowers drifting in the wind.

Ordinarily, in the season when flowers are blooming, in such a charming night, as a young girl who is active and loves beauty, since she has not gone to bed yet, she should have gone to the courtyard to watch it, but Why does she keep herself indoors? This may be because she doesn't know how beautiful the outdoor scenery is, or she may be trying to avoid it, fearing that the annoying spring scenery will arouse her thoughts. It's better to stay out of sight and out of mind. However, the fragrance of flowers came through the curtains, and she couldn't help but want to watch them. The second line of the poem, "I want to roll up the bead curtain, but spring hates it for a long time", which describes her inner activities after thinking about it. At this time, she had no intention of going out. She just wanted to roll up the bead curtain and watch it from a distance. But at the time of "desire to roll up", there is still "spring hate". It seems that even if the curtain is rolled up, there is no mood to watch. The spring scenery outside the curtain only makes sad people more sad.

But after such a good night and beautiful scenery, sitting indoors, you will feel that the time is unbearable and the sorrow is hard to relieve. The third line of the poem, "Embracing the clouds sideways and seeing the moon deeply," is the behavior and mood of the person in the poem who is bored and bored. At this time, she picked up the musical instrument, wanting to use music to pass the time and relieve her sorrow and hatred; however, she hesitated to play and did not actually play it. She just held it diagonally to her chest and stared at the night sky in trance alone.

This description of "hugging Yunhe sideways", just as Tan Yuanchun said in "Return of Tang Poems", "the attitude is the most charming, the emotion is the most bitter". Poems that can be combined with this line include Cui Guofu's "Ancient Meaning", "I lower the curtain to play the konghou, and I can't bear to see the autumn moon", Li Bai's "Resentment on the Jade Steps", "But I lower the crystal curtain, and look at the autumn moon exquisitely", and Bai Juyi's "Shangyang Bai". "Fa Ren" "Just look at the bright moon deep in the palace, and the east and west circles will turn four to five hundred times." Although the love affairs described in these poems are different, they all express the extremely subtle and extremely painful mood of the resentful girl imprisoned in the deep palace.

Under the moon, what was she staring at, and what did she see? The last line of the poem, "The hazy trees reveal the sun," is the scene she saw. This sentence is not only about establishing love through scenery, but also about seeing love in scenery. What is particularly worth pondering in this sentence is the mention of Zhaoyang Palace where the emperor came to visit. This is the same as the meaning of pointing out Nangong in the sentence "Lying and listening to Nangong Qingluo Chang" at the end of one of the previous "Chang Xin Qiu Ci". It implies that the person in the poem is staring at where the emperor is, and this is the place where she has resentment and places her resentment. However, there are many gates between the West Palace and Zhaoyang Palace, where a large number of palace residents are imprisoned. What's more, it is shrouded in night, and all the poet can see is a hazy tree shadow. This is written through one layer and one step in depth. The person writing the poem wants to pour her resentment towards Zhaoyang Palace, but this Zhaoyang Palace is invisible, which doubles the patheticness of her situation.

Wang Fuzhi praised Wang Changling's "Spring Resentment in the West Palace" in "Introduction to Xitang Yongri·Internal Edition" as "a self-respecting style in graceful love". Hu Yinglin said in "Shi Sou Nei Bian": "Jiang Ning's "Chang Xin Ci" and "Xigong Qu"... are both soft and graceful, with infinite meaning, the character is hidden, and the brilliance is hidden." Wang Shizhen said in "Yi Yuan Yan Yan" He believes: "Seven-character quatrains, Shao Bo and Tai Bai compete for the slightest victory, are all divine." Of course, Wang Changling's palace resentment poems are also average, and even his "Five Poems of Changxin Autumn" is not the first capital. Good; as for all his poems, it cannot be said that "all of them are divine". However, one of his "Spring Resentment in the West Palace" and "Five Poems of Changxin Autumn" should be regarded as the best among the large number of palace resentment poems written in the Tang Dynasty in the quatrain style; it is well deserved to be called "divine" .