Source: Song of the Stone Drum, a poem by Han Yu, a writer in the Tang Dynasty.

Original text:

I often take this picture off the stone drum and advise me to try to make a stone drum song.

Du Fu is gone. Li Bai is dead. What can my poor talent do for Shigu? .

When the power of the Zhou Dynasty was weak and people's grievances in China were boiling, Emperor Xuandi was furious and waved his sacred spear.

And open his big audience, accept all the tributes, and kings and lords come before him with sonorous weapons.

Yu Qi Yang Cheng Xiong Jun, birds and animals fall three thousand li.

This discovery was recorded and told the new generation that these drums were cut from protruding cliffs and made of stone.

Poets and craftsmen, all the first steps, creation and chisel-set in the mountains.

It's raining, moxibustion, wildfire burning, ghosts guarding you. oh

Where will he find the trace on this paper? Loyal to the original, without changing a hair.

The meaning is deep, the phrase is obscure and difficult to read, and the style of the characters is neither square nor tadpole-shaped.

Time has not conquered the beauty of these letters, and the sword is sharp.

Like a phoenix dance, like an angel hovering down, like a jade coral tree with staggered branches.

Such as a golden chain of iron, tied tightly, such as a fragrant tripod thrown into the sea, such as a dragon ascending to heaven.

Historians forgot to collect these ancient poems in order to make the music songs of the two books more colorful and compelling.

Confucius traveled in the west, but not to Qin. He chose our planet and stars, but missed the sun and the moon.

It's a long way to go in Xiu Yuan, and I can't help crying when I think of these beautiful things.

I remember that when I was awarded the highest degree, it was the first year of Yuanhe.

A friend of mine, who was in the western camp at that time, offered to help me remove these ancient relics.

I took a shower, changed my clothes, and then made a request to the headmaster, stressing to him the rarity of these most precious things.

They can be wrapped in blankets and packed in boxes. Ten barrels can only hold a few camels.

Like a high incense burner, add luster to the palace, otherwise their brilliance and value will increase by a hundredfold.

If the monarch shows them to universities, students can study them and decipher them without doubt.

Many people, attracted to the cultural capital, will soon gather from all corners of the empire.

We can wash the moss, pick out the dirt, restore the original surface and put them in a suitable and safe place forever.

Covered by a huge building with a wide eaves, where they won't suffer as before.

But government officials are used to it, thank you very much.

So the shepherd boy beat the drums to make a fire, and the cows polished their horns on it, and no one dealt with them devoutly.

Still aging and rotting, they may be erased soon. For six years, I have been sighing for them and singing to the west.

The familiar handwriting of Wang Xizhi, although beautiful, can have several pages, only for a few white geese.

But now, eight generations after the week, all the wars are over, why doesn't anyone care about these drums?

The empire is peaceful, the government is free, poets are respected again, Confucianism and men.

Anneng is still on the list, and it really needs an eloquent flow, just like a cataract.

But, alas, my voice, in my song of stone drums, turned into a pleading voice choked by my own tears.

Translation:

Zhang Sheng took Shi Guwen's rubbings of the Zhou Dynasty and suggested that I write a shigu song praising it.

Du Fu and Li Bai are both talented, but they are both dead. People with no talent are helpless in the face of stone drums.

The political decline of the Zhou Dynasty plunged the whole country into chaos. Zhou Xuanwang was very angry and improved his army.

During the celebration, the opening ceremony was celebrated, and the princes followed, and the swords jingled.

Wang Xuan was awesome when he was hunting in Qiyang. Animals were trapped everywhere.

In order to make the heroic work go down in history, the stone drum was carved and destroyed.

The talent of followers is the first in the world. Choose excellent writing stones and put them on the hillside.

Let years of rain, sun and wildfire burn, and protect the stone drum with ghosts and gods.

Where did you get the manuscript of this rubbings? It's complete at all, and there are no mistakes at all.

The wording is rigorous, the content is secret and difficult to understand, and the font is not as unique as Lishu.

After a long time, it is inevitable that the strokes will be damaged and mutilated, and they will still cut off a living jiaozi like a sword.

The handwriting is like a couple flying in the air, and the strokes are like the branches of a coral tree.

The vigorous hook is like a golden rope and iron rope passing through the lock button, and it is like weaving a shuttle to turn a dragon into a dragon.

My humble opinion is that Confucian scholars compile the Book of Songs without earning money, and the content of elegance and vulgarity is narrow and not magnificent.

No wonder Confucius didn't swim to the Qin Dynasty and was ignorant. Poetry is not like picking stars, but I miss Xi.

Ah, although I am old, I was born too late. I was crying in Shi Guwen.

In those days, he was called Dr. imperial academy, and his year number was changed to Yuanhe.

My friend worked in Fengxiang House and once designed and excavated stone drums and pits for me.

I brushed my hat, took a shower and asked imperial academy to propose a toast: "How many treasures can there be in the world?

As long as the mat is wrapped in felt, it can be delivered immediately, and only a few camels need to carry ten stone drums.

Is it too much to dedicate it to the ancestral temple and compare it to a composition that is a hundred times more expensive than a tripod?

If the emperor allows him to stay in imperial academy, the students can study and explain together.

In the Han Dynasty, when the temple in Hongdumen was still crowded, we would see that the whole country was rushing for it.

Gouge out the moss, mud and dust to reveal the edges and corners of the text, and put it flat, stable and impartial.

High-rise buildings are covered with thick tiles, and the eaves are deep, which will not be accidentally damaged for a long time. "

The main officials in North Korea are very sophisticated, and they have no clear views. Are they willing to run around?

The shepherd boy drummed on the drum and honed his horn with it. Who can touch this treasure with their hands?

The weathering of years will be buried. Looking west for six years, I sighed!

Wang Xizhi took the opportunity to show his calligraphy charm and wrote several pictures in exchange for a group of white geese.

A week later, the Eighth Generation War ended, and no one has cleaned it up so far. What can we do?

Now the world is at peace, the country is at peace and the people are at peace. The emperor attached great importance to Confucianism and respected Kong Qiu Mencius.

How can I suggest this to the emperor? I'm willing to use a glib tongue to do it.

Even if the stone drum song is written here, it will be over. Oh, my wish may come to nothing!

Extended data

Creative background:

This poem was written in the 6th year of Tang Xianzong Yuanhe (8 1 1). Shi Guwen is the earliest stone carving in China, which was made in the Qin Dynasty. What does Han Yu think Zhou Xuanwang did? The content describes the hunting situation, and the text is Da Zhuan. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, the stone drum was unearthed in Sanyuan Courtyard of Tianxing County (now Baoji, Shaanxi Province). Its real object is now in the Palace Museum in Beijing. If the stone drum was unearthed in modern times, it would be shocked as a "new archaeological discovery", but it was surprisingly bleak at that time.

Because in the eyes of the imperial court, they are just a few pieces of moss-covered garbage, so their suffering is comparable to that of a county like Rockett. Han Yu lamented that the stone drum cultural relics were abandoned and called on the authorities to protect the stone drum and not to adopt it. So, he complained bitterly and wrote a long poem "Song of the Stone Drum".

Before Han Yu, Du Fu recorded the excavation of stone drums in Li Chao Ba Fen Xiao Zhuan Song. Since then, although Wei wrote a Song of the Stone Drum, due to lack of enthusiasm and literary talent, I am afraid that he was also included in Wei Suzhou's anthology by his subordinates. It's just that the phrase "The History of Minister Xuan Wang" in his poem opened the door to the Millennium lawsuit to which Drum belongs. It was not until Han Yu's masterpiece came out that the "light price" of stone drums was greatly promoted and improved in the minds of future generations. Today, it has been over 1000 years since Han Yu wrote songs. Although there is no finished word, the Ten Stone Drum is still displayed in the Palace Museum as a first-class cultural relic, thanks to Han Yu's call sign.

The first four sentences are as clear as words, pointing out the origin of words. In these four sentences, the word "stone drum" seems dull and procrastinating, but it is not. Han Yu pioneered the use of prose to write poems. He didn't shy away from the same words, which is the habit of ancient Chinese prose. The word "persuasion" here is very accurate, which saves the poet a lot of hesitant subtext and idle pen and ink, and has the effect of monopolizing the rest with one word. Han Yu has always boasted that "the stone opens the way" (Li Shangyin's "Hanbei"), but he is ashamed of it, which shows that it is profound and difficult to understand.