A wanderer hears drums portending battle.
By the first call of autumn from a wildgoose at the border,
He knows that the dews tonight will be frost.
...How much brighter the moonlight is at home!
O my brothers, lost and scattered,
What is life to me without you?
Yet if missives in time of peace go wrong --
What can I hope for during war?
Original Poem:
「月夜忆舍弟」
杜甫
戍鼓断人行， 秋边一雁声。
露从今夜白， 月是故乡明。
有弟皆分散， 无家问死生。
寄书长不达， 况乃未休兵。
Interpretation:
In 759 A.D., Bianzhou, Luoyang, Shandong and Henan were in the midst of war, and several of Du Fu’s younger brothers fled and were separated from each other, separated by the war, and without any news, which aroused his endless worries and longing. This poem is the true expression of such thoughts and feelings.
The first line is about the bleak situation in the fall of the borderland during the war. At this time, Shi Siming’s rebels invaded the north and south of the Yellow River, the southwestern Tubo invaded from time to time, and the war in Qinzhou was tense. The sound of the garrison drums, the night ban, and the cut-off of pedestrian traffic are what you see. Then wrote heard the sound of a lonely goose, the atmosphere is even more desolate. “The sound of geese” not only points to the fall, but also a metaphor for “brother geese line”, the lone geese lost flock, associated with the brothers separated, triggering the memory of brother’s feelings.
In the third line, he writes about homesickness. It means that in the night of the White Dew Festival, the poet stood deep in the night, frost and heavy dew, looking at the moon and thinking of home, the hometown of the moon color must be more clear and bright. This sense of illusion highlights his strong feelings of countryside. In this line, the poet will be “white dew” and “bright moon” split and used in reverse, adding the poetic meaning of the Jianjun and deep and stable.
Du Fu was the eldest of five brothers, and his four younger brothers were Ying, Guan, Feng, and Zhan. At this time, Du Fu had only his youngest brother, Du Zhan, with the remaining three scattered in Henan and Shandong, which were the areas of war and chaos, so it is said that the brothers were scattered, and were on different sides of the world. Home is no longer exist, life and death is hard to predict, this line summarizes the Anshi Rebellion in the majority of the people suffered from the suffering, the separation of flesh and blood of the painful encounters.
The last further expresses the feelings of inner worry. Brothers are separated, often send a letter does not reach, not to mention the war is still frequent, life and death is uncertain, more difficult to have news of flesh and blood.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet:
Du Fu (杜甫), 712 – 770 AD, was a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, known as the “Sage of Poetry”. Born into a declining bureaucratic family, Du Fu had a rough life, and his turbulent and dislocated life made him keenly aware of the plight of the masses. Therefore, his poems were always closely related to the current affairs, reflecting the social life of that era in a more comprehensive way, with profound thoughts and a broad realm. In his poetic art, he was able to combine many styles, forming a unique style of “profound and thick”, and becoming a great realist poet in the history of China.
