If there exists a poem which is known to every household but seriously misunderstood, the poem composed by Wang Wei the Grave Sweeping Day is among them doubtlessly. Every pupil who begins to touch the beauty of Tang Poetrywill open his/her mouth and recite the following lines:
Drizzle,and drizzle on the Qingming Day it does,
Overwhelmed with sorrow are the travelers.
Where to find a pub, may I ask, shepherd?
Amid apricot flowers, a dim sign ’s found.
There is a rule about the popularity and misunderstanding of a poem: the more populara poem is, the more misunderstandings there exist. This is a threshold poem, as I have mentioned above, that is, anyone who knows something about Tang Poetry or can recite some Tang poems can eloquently recite the poem but too many people misunderstand the poem, thinking that the poem is about the sadness and sentiment or melancholy about the loss of beloved. A great literature critic says that the lines of the poem have woven a world of sadness with the images of endless drizzle which wets the spring coat, making the mourners on Grave Sweeping Day feel a surge of sentiment or inexplicable sadness. He calls it the typical romance of Tang Dynasty.
However,such explanation seems romantic but apparently incomplete, as it overlooks the images of shepherd and apricot cottage, etc.
The poem consists of two parts: the first two lines is exactly like what the critic deciphers: a world of sadness, or inexplicable sadness. Drizzle or endless drizzle in ancient Chinese poetry symbolizes sentiment or sense of inexplicable sadness in spring, even with a sense of sexuality, which the Chinese call “春愁”. As spring comes, everything blooms and hormone does as well and bring a sense of romantic sadness in youths or in sentimental peots.
The world woven by the first two lines, however, clearly contrast to the world woven by the second two lines in the poem, if you read the poem more carefully and with more imagination. Shepherd or vaquero is the key to the second lines of this poem as well as the cot amid the apricot flowers.
In ancient Chinese poetry, shepherd is a common image, which, generally speaking, symbolizes a state of life: at ease, carefree, with much pleasure. The life is ideal for a poet in ancient times in China. So the tune of the second lines of the poem is quite different from the first ones, forming a remarkable contrast between the two worlds woven by the first and the second lines. This is a contrast between two outlooks on life. the first one is sentimental, melancholy and full of sadness and even movement, but the second one is free and easy, with much pleasure and alleviation. It’s not because the wine that disperses the sadness and sentiment but because the poet takes a different outlook on life.
I have good reason to say so. The readers can have noticed that it’s not after he drinks that he becomes relieved and relaxed but before he drinks that he has been in a different state of life, which is just the reason why he positively tries to find a pub. So it’s unreasonable to say that the poet disperses his sadness by drinking. On the contrary, he has dispersed his sadness by a different outlookon life, which is just the reason why he could in relaxation ask the shepherd aboutwhere to find a pub.
From my explanation, you may understand that the poem is forming a contrast between the two outlooks on life and the mourners on Grave Sweeping Day (in poem, 路人)are in sadness due to the drizzle but the poet, who apparently has a different outlook on life, takes a different attitude on the drizzle and on the mourning.
"Who can assimilate the shepherd? No right and wrong in his life.". So there is no need to be in sorrow and sadness for the secular world. The world of shepherd is just the ideal world which the poet desires to possess and enjoy. The shepherds can lie on the grass, looking up at the azure sky and clouds, without considering the issues of life and death. Their life is full with joys of wildness and childlike simplicity. The image of shepherd conveys the desire of the poet for the indulgency in nature and childhood: innocent, full of hormone, simple, natural,virginal love.
Being oneself is the deeply hidden ideal for a person, like a shepherd. But the social regulations and moral rules restrain the personality. So the poet takes a different outlook on life and he could indulge himself in wine, carefree and relaxed, forgetting all the sorrows and unhappiness for a while.
So this poem is closely connected the Wei-Jin manners. By making contrast between the two states of life, the poet expresses his philosophy of life which was popular in Wei-Jin times and he revives the spirit of the Wei-Jin Manners and find a new way for the oppression and constraint of feudal moral rules.
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