Chinese poem - "Spring Rain" - by Du Fu | 春夜喜雨 - 杜甫

Welcome back to the Chinese Culture Project everyone! If you missed our first post, you can check it out here. We hope you have discovered by now, Chinese poetry isn't as dull and stuffy as you think, especially when we present it in a simple, light hearted and contemporary manner. Even if you don't know any Chinese at all, through our posts, you will be able to appreciate and gain more insight into the fascinating world of Chinese poetry. Today, the topic of our poem is Spring.

Spring is the first season of the year, bringing with it new beginnings, and life after the long cold winter. In our last poem "Migration", we used that to represent our journey to move onto Steemit as our new home. In this poem, we want to use it to represent the beginning of the Chinese Culture Project on Steemit.In the northern hemisphere, spring is arriving everywhere. Sadly with the effects of global warming, the spring as we used to know is gradually changing or even disappearing. Thankfully, with the rich depository of Chinese poetry, we can still appreciate the beauty of spring, and share with the next generation what spring used to be like.

大家好，歡迎大家再次來到《樂筆詩塾》，詩的世界。沉醉在詩海，默默感受對詩的喜愛，頓時發現世界的美好仍在，煩愁不再，我們希望把中國的文化瑰寶，詩歌帶到Steemit，讓外國的朋友也能領略唐詩之美，也讓華人朋友在這機會下，重新感受唐詩的活力。唐詩是中國文學的結晶，但它並不是大家想像的很深奧，反而是很淺白，經過我們的英語翻譯，就算你不懂中文，也可以好好的去了解唐詩，就像是看故事一樣。

在上一次，我們介紹了唐詩的來源，第一次認識唐詩的朋友，你們可以到這連結了解什麼是唐詩：https://steemit.com/dlive/@ccp-hk/f3744770-4952-11e8-aa5b-83da28bb4ae3。

今天，我們的主題是：「春」。

春是四季之初，萬物循環之始，春是花開之時，是復甦之示。在上一期，我們介紹了《移居二首》，是想借詩歌借喻我們《樂筆詩塾》移居到Steemit的心情，而這一期，我們就希望借用「春」，來表達我們的開始。

現在的北半球，正是春天，也正正切合了我們的主題，讓《樂筆詩塾》與世界一樣，洋溢在一片春意中。只是，在地球䁔化下，我們的春天好像在漸漸消失，幸好，有唐詩的留存，縱然有朝一天春天失去了，我們還能在唐詩中教導孩子什麼是春天。好吧，請大家細心欣賞，詩人杜甫的《春夜喜雨》。

The Background to “Spring Rain” 《春夜喜雨》創作背景

"Spring Rain" is written by Du Fu (712 - 770) who is one of the most prominent poets from the Tang Dynasty. He mainly writes about historical events, often in a humanised and satirical style, so was sometimes known as "Shi shǐ" meaning historical poet. In his works we can often see his compassion for those suffering, and his praise for those who are selfless in devoting themselves to help others in need.

"Spring Rain" is not one of Du Fu's typical style of poem as it takes on a more gentle and softer tone, reflecting his love and appreciation of the spring rain. Normally we just watch the rainfall with our eyes, but Du Fu feels the visual and audio impact of it paying great attention to the beauty it brings to the world. To him, the rain is a human being who brings with her a new lease of life, devoting herself to help others and to make the world a better place.

Du Fu describes spring rain as good rain, just like the people with a good heart who selflessly helps others in need. She times her arrival in the evening sprinkling her magic overnight and giving the world a breath of fresh air when they wake up in the morning.

世人賞雨，以雙眼觀賞雨景的表象。而詩人杜甫賞雨，細緻地運用視覺與聽覺，因此留意到無聲潛入的春雨，從而欣賞春雨所蘊含的生機，因春雨的無私奉獻而感到欣喜。

杜甫是一個擅寫現實主義的詩人，特別善於描寫當時歷史實況，有「詩史」的稱號。杜甫的詩作經常滲入悲天憫人的情懷，讚美博施濟眾的美行。

《春夜喜雨》並非一首典型的杜甫式敘事諷刺詩，而是一首詠物抒情詩，抒發了詩人對春夜細雨的喜愛，同時讚美春雨的無私奉獻。「春雨」被杜甫形容為「好雨」，正因春雨與杜甫心目中博施濟眾的仁者印象不謀而合，因此「雨」在詩中擬人化，能夠知曉時節，亦能隨著春風潛入夜晚，形象活潑生動。詩人為靜景注入無窮生機，像雨一樣為萬物賦予了生命力。

“Spring Rain” by Du Fu 《春夜喜雨》 杜甫

好雨知時節，當春乃發生 Hǎo yǔ zhī shí jié, dāng chūn nǎi fā shēng
隨風潛入夜，潤物細無聲 Suí fēng qián rù yè, rùn wù xì wú shēng
野徑雲俱黑，江船火獨明 Yě jìng yún jù hēi, jiāng chuán huǒ dú míng
曉看紅溼處，花重錦官城 Xiǎo kàn hóng shī chù, huā zhòng jǐn guān chéng

The Composition 詩句大意：

This poem consist of 8 lines.
《春夜喜雨》共八句，按詩的結構劃分，分為首聯（一、二句）、頷聯（三、四句）、頸聯（五、六句）和尾聯（七、八句），共四個層次。

The prelude of the arrival 首聯：春雨的降臨預告

            「好雨知時節，當春乃發生。」 Hǎo yǔ zhī shí jié, dāng chūn nǎi fā shēng

Good rain knows when the time is right, when spring is here it will arrive
及時的雨好像知曉時節，當春天來臨時就萌發生長。

Arriving quietly 頷聯：春雨的悄然降臨

            「隨風潛入夜，潤物細無聲」Suí fēng qián rù yè, rùn wù xì wú shēng

Following the breeze at night time, it quietly moistens everything
春雨伴隨春風悄悄地在黑夜降下，無聲地滋潤着萬物。

The scene when landing 頸聯：春雨降臨的實際畫面

            「野徑雲俱黑，江船火獨明。」Yě jìng yún jù hēi, jiāng chuán huǒ dú míng

Clouds shroud the dark sky above the fields, the lone light from the boat on the river is especially bright
田野小徑上方的天空佈滿漆黑的烏雲，唯獨江邊船上點著一縷火光，格外明亮。

The morning after scene 尾聯：春雨降臨後的想像畫面

            「曉看紅溼處，花重錦官城。」Xiǎo kàn hóng shī chù, huā zhòng jǐn guān chéng

Red petals cover the moist ground when morning breaks, fresh flowers covered with the morning dew will be seen all over Chengdu
破曉時再看滿佈紅色花瓣的濕潤泥土，錦官城（成都）將會開遍沾上雨露的鮮花。

The poetic structure <春夜喜雨>的格律特點：

This poem is a Five Word Lushi, lets see what this means.

這首詩每句五字，在體裁上屬於「五言詩」。而全首共八句，屬於「律詩」。那麼是否全詩共八句的詩就屬於「律詩」呢？因此我們需要更深認識「律詩」在格式、押韻、對仗方面的規範定義。

Sentence structure 句式
The first feature of a Five Word Lushi is that each sentence must be of equal length. Here, there are five words in each of the eight lines.

「律詩」的第一個特徵，句子的長短必須一致。<春夜喜雨>全詩每句均是五字，共八句，因此符合「五言律詩」的第一個特徵。

Rhythm 押韻
The second feature is rhythm. The last word in the second and each alternate line should rhyme. When spoken in both Cantonese and Mandarin the last word in the even lines in Spring Rain all have finals ending in "ng".

「律詩」的第二個特徵，是雙數句末必需押韻，並且使用同樣或相近的韻母，即「一韻到底」。
我們抽取<春夜喜雨>雙數句末的「生」、「聲」、「明」、「城」作韻母分析。「生」的粵音韻母是「aang」，「聲」的粵音韻母是「eng」，「明」、「城」的粵音韻母是「ing」；「生」、「聲」、「城」的普通話韻母是「eng」，「明」的普通話粵母是「ing」。以「ng」韻尾構成的韻母叫「後鼻韻母」，因此<春夜喜雨>以「ng」一韻到底，符合「律詩」的押韻特點。

Antithesis 對仗
This is where the corresponding words in a pair of sentence have a similar sound, meaning or in the same lexical category e.g. verb vs verb, noun vs noun. In Spring Rain, the first word in the 3rd and 4th line are both verbs, follow「隨 」and moist「潤」.
The second word wind 「風」and everything 「物」are both nouns. The rest of sentences are not antithesis but the 4th sentence is sequential to the 3rd making it overall antithesis. Likewise, in the 5th and 6th lines, the corresponding words are all in the same lexical categories.

「律詩」的第三個特徵，亦是「律詩」最具特色的部份，便是「對仗」的要求。「對仗」又叫「對偶」，指文句中兩兩相對、字數相等、句法相似、意義相關的兩個詞組或句子。
舉大家最為熟識的《靜夜思》為例：「舉頭望明月，低頭思故鄉。」便，「舉頭」對「低頭」，行為對行為；「望」對「思」，動詞詞對動詞；「明月」對「故鄉」，名詞對名詞。因此「舉頭望明月」與「低頭思故鄉」的句子結構相同，便是一組對偶句。

上文提及「律詩」全詩八句分為四聯：首聯（一、二句）、頷聯（三、四句）、頸聯（五、六句）和尾聯（七、八句），其中要求頷聯（三、四句）與頸聯（五、六句）必須對仗工整，詞性相對。

《春夜喜雨》的頷聯是「隨風潛入夜，潤物細無聲。」，「隨」對「潤」，動詞對動詞；「風」對「物」，名詞對名詞；「潛入夜」與「細無聲」則詞性不相對。但兩句有前後承接的作用，先有春雨潛入夜的動作，才有後來滋潤萬物的行為，因此頷聯屬於「流水對」。
頸聯是「野徑雲俱黑，江船火獨明」，「野徑」對「江船」，名詞對名詞；「雲」對「火」，名詞對名詞；「俱」對「獨」，副詞對副詞；「黑」對「明」，形容詞對形容詞。頸聯部份是極為工整且詞性相對的對偶句，由於<喜夜春雨>的頷聯、頸聯運用了對偶，符合「律詩」的對仗規範，可以判斷此詩屬於「五言律詩」。

Highlight from the poem 精選句子分享

Quietly moistening everything「潤物細無聲」

Rain is often associated with tears and sadness, and for long has inspired many great songs, such as "Why does it always rain on me?" by Travis in 1999 or "Have you ever seen the Rain" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and "Rainy days and Mondays" by Carpenters both from the 70's.

In Tang Poetry, spring rain is seen as gentle, summer rain passionate, autumn rain sometimes gentle sometimes passionate, and winter rain is the cold winter bitter snow. In a traditional agricultural society, the coming year's livelihood depends very much on the amount of rain in the spring sowing season. Spring rain moistens the soil, helps germination, bringing hope and life. It does this gently and quietly, almost going unnoticed, and doesn't ask for anything in return. This behaviour is akin to those selfless people that Du Fu pay high regards to. The Chinese Culture Project can't claim to be so noble, but we do want to advocate a similar belief to work quietly, to promote and change people's view of Chinese poetry and present it in a more contemporary way. Who knows, maybe one day, Chinese poetry will become as popular as Shakespeare's works.

在近代的歌曲創作裡，由於雨具備朦朧、綿綿不斷的特性，因此雨經常成為渲染氣氛、表達情懷的媒介，好像悲傷離別、不絕的思念，牽動著人們的情緒。例如周杰倫的《七里香》：「雨下整夜，我的愛溢出就像雨水」，直白地將雨水比作愛意，累積並溢出不止。有時作者亦會將雨水類比為眼淚，令畫面更添一分愁意。例如孫燕姿的《眼淚成詩》：「我的淚水，已經變成雨水早已輪迴」，淚水與雨天編織在一起，滿天不分雨或淚。

在唐詩的創作世界裡，若說雨分四季，春雨顯得溫柔，夏雨顯得激情，秋雨時而溫柔時而激情，冬雨更像寒冷的冬雪。對於詩人來說，春雨有一分賦予生機的意義。中國以農耕立國，春雨對於「望天打卦」的殷實農民而言是一年溫飽的指標。雨量充足的年份，豐衣足食；雨量不足的年份，饑荒戰亂。一場春雨彷佛能洗盡大地的污垢，給予剛播種的農作物充足的養分滋潤。

「潤物細無聲」正好表現了春雨默默奉獻的精神，春雨滋潤萬物，卻低調靜默無聲，這是何等高尚的情操！這種潛移默化，不容易被世人所察覺，卻漸漸對世界產生了重要的良性影響。CCPHK會努力堅守「潤物細無聲」的信念，默默努力，改變現代人認為唐詩是過時產物的想法，讓唐詩以更活潑的形象面對公眾，使人們以誦讀唐詩為榮，尤如熟讀莎士比亞的劇作一樣高尚。

The Music 音樂

If you can’t watch Dlive, you may watch our music video through Youtube

The music this time is composed in a more Chinese style to take you back to a traditional town in springtime. The beat is more lively to reflect the playful spring rain, and we have included some notes to represent the raindrops. The first part in Mandarin is sang by the virtual singer Miku V4 and the Cantonese part by @tine. When you listen to it, close your eyes and see if you can imagine the spring rain drizzling at night time bringing a new lease of life and fresh flowers everywhere the next morning.

如果你看不到Dlive，也可從Youtube欣賞我們的音樂視頻。

這一次的《春夜喜雨》採取了中國的曲風，帶大家去到古色古香的春雨之城。歌曲的首半段普通話仍是由世界第一位虛擬歌手初音主唱，而後半段的粵語則由@tine 主唱。

詩歌描述了對春及雨的讚美，故整首曲的曲風都偏向喜悅，配上一些模擬水聲的音效，讓大家盡情陶醉在春雨下的美景。大家在領聽歌曲時，不妨心裡幻想著一座沐浴在春雨下的小城，感受雨水的洗滴，和雨後的鮮花盛放帶來的生機處處。

The sketches 畫

We have two sketches this time for the two scenes in the poem. One when the Spring Rain arrives quietly at night time, dark clouds above and the light from the boat on the river. The other depicts the scene the next morning, red petals scattered on the ground and morning dew on fresh flowers across Chengdu.

這一次的畫作以一左一石兩幅圖畫表達作者在詩中描述的兩個情境。左邊的圖畫描述詩的頭三聯，在雨中的黑夜，散落著粉紅的花瓣，遠處江邊一艘船上點著一縷火光，格外明亮。右邊的圖畫則描述詩的最後一聯：破曉時再看滿佈紅色花瓣的濕潤泥土，錦官城（成都）將會開遍沾上雨露的鮮花。

Thank you for reading our Spring Rain post today. The poem may have been written over a thousand years ago, but the scenery hasn't changed that much. The spring rain and dark nights still exists today, whereas the lone light from the boat and Chengdu are the city lights today. Next time when you hear the rain drizzling at night time, see if you can see and feel it in the same way as Du Fu did.

Next week, our poem will be about the hard working farmers in an agricultural society and their similarities to the working class today. See you next week!

謝謝各位耐性的看完我們這篇文章，希望大家會對唐詩會有更多認識！雖然唐詩已經是一千多年前的產物，但它並不古舊，且可融合到我們的現代生活，君不見詩中的春雨、風夜，今日依然，而船火、官城其實就是今天的燈火、城市嗎？在寧靜的雨夜，坐在窗邊，細看雨中的城市，心情就如同杜甫一樣，默默感受著雨水洗滴我們的家，同時在洗滴著我們的心靈。

下一期，我們要介紹一首描寫古代農民的唐詩，也就是現代的基層，相信，與各位也是息息相關！我們下週再見！

Production Team 製作團隊

Literature Guide 導讀: @perlia
Literature Translation 詩歌解析: @perlia
Music 音樂: @kona
Art 插圖: @nanosesame
Video 視頻: @aaronli
English Editor 英語編輯: @livinguktaiwan
Chinese Editor 中文編輯: @aaronli

My video is at DLive