即事

Meaning

How urgent and unrestrainable is the wish to restore the fallen state, how hotly the will to destroy the enemy still surges in the heart. Through the strong wind comes the clear, keen note of the bugle, and in the blood-red setting sun the great banner stirs bright. In white mourning clothes I swear to repay my house and my country, and in the war-boat I will settle life and death with the foe. The nomad pipe stirs a grief of a thousand ages, and a sheet of bright moonlight has come over the city wall.

复兴故国的愿望何等急切难禁，消灭敌人的志气在心头热烈奔腾。雄劲的风中传来清越的军号，血红的落日里飘动着鲜明的大旗。我身著缟素立誓报效家国，驾着战船与敌决一死生！胡笳声激起千古悲恨，一片明月已照临城头。

Appreciation

Xia Wanchun, childhood name Duange, courtesy name Cungu and styled Xiaoyin, a native of Huating in Songjiang, was a poet at the end of the Ming and a hero of the resistance to the Qing; his father Xia Yunyi and his teacher Chen Zilong were both leaders of the Restoration Society and died for the dynasty in turn. The poem unfolds in a linked chain of feeling and scene: the opening couplet speaks its urgent grief directly, restoring Chu and bringing down Qin; the second turns abruptly to a heroic view, the clear bugle keen in the strong wind and the great banner bright in the setting sun, two words, keen and bright, writing the martial bearing of the volunteer army; the third returns to statement, white mourning and the war-boat declaring in absolute terms a vow to die; and the last comes back to scene, the nomad pipe and the cold moonlight over the wall gathering up the grief. Scene and feeling cross and recross, the breath runs on, and the manner is at once tragic and exalted, grave and broad.

【白话串讲】 夏完淳是明末少年英雄，抗清被俘，从容就义。他写《即事》：“复楚情何极，亡秦气未平”。“缟素酬家国，戈船决死生”——他要用战船决一死生。“胡笳千古恨，一片月临城”——死时他才17岁。 【意象与手法】 此诗以“情—景—情—景”连环映带的结构展开：首联直抒“复楚”“亡秦”的急切悲愤 【情感与主旨】 夏完淳，乳名端哥，字存古，号小隐，松江华亭（今上海松江）人，明末诗人、抗清英雄 【名句点睛】 常考“用典抒情”“情景关系”“爱国情感”。命题示例：赏析“雄风清角劲，落日大旗明”的妙处。答

Allusions

The opening couplet quietly uses the words recorded in the Basic Annals of Xiang Yu in the Records of the Grand Historian, that though only three households of Chu remained, it would be Chu that destroyed Qin; Chu stands for the Ming and Qin for the Qing, so that the will to recover the old state and destroy the invader is openly declared. White mourning properly means the white clothes of mourning, and here refers both to the death of the poet's father and to the white robes worn to declare a resolve of vengeance and the wiping out of shame. The nomad pipe is a wind instrument of the northern peoples and in the poem stands for the Qing army, lodging hatred of a foreign invasion. In the second of the set, the line about keeping the Han calendar in one's person uses Han for Ming and declares a refusal to follow the Qing calendar; the national feeling in it is severe and unbending.

《即事》用典在“复楚”“亡秦”“缟素”“戈船”。“复楚”用申包胥哭秦廷复楚之典；“亡秦”用楚虽三户亡秦必楚之意；“缟素”写白色丧服（为君父服丧举义）；“戈船”写战船。全诗以这些典故写复国壮志，用典自然而激昂自见，正是夏完淳诗的笔法。

Commentary

Xia Wanchun was a hero at an early age, and his poetry has been said to make the words themselves choke on blood; he has long been named with Chen Zilong as one of the twin jewels of the poetic world at the end of the Ming. Shen Deqian of the Qing included his work in the Selected Ming Poems and praised it for mourning the state's fallen and grieving for its resolute men, matter for weeping and for song. The modern writer Liu Yazi said that in reading Wanchun's poems every word is blood. This piece, written by a boy of fourteen on the will to restore his country, is not less tragic than the old Du Fu, and in its gravity comes straight after Yuan Haowen, a supreme song of patriotism at the end of the Ming.

《即事》是夏完淳诗的名篇，也是明末抗清诗的代表作。此诗写复楚亡秦、家国之恨，向为论者称道。论者多赏其复国壮志的激昂与家国之恨的沉痛——“复楚情何极，亡秦气未平”写复楚亡秦，激昂之极；“雄风清角劲，落日大旗明”写雄风清角、落日大旗，更见其壮；“缟素酬家国，戈船决死生”写缟素举义、戈船决死，尤见其烈；“胡笳千古恨，一片月临城”写胡笳千古恨，尤极沉痛。夏完淳以少年抗清、以身殉国著称，其诗以激昂沉痛著称，此诗正是其代表——以复国壮志写家国之恨，正是其诗风。

Prosody

Line by line

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