对影如何成三人？
月下独酌【其一】
李白
花间一壶酒，独酌无相亲。
举杯邀明月，对影成三人。
月既不解饮，影徒随我身。
暂伴月将影，行乐须及春。
我歌月徘徊，我舞影零乱。
醒时相交欢，醉后各分散。
永结无情游，相期邈云汉。
Drinking alone under the Moon
Li Bai
Amid the blossoms a bottle of wine,
None with me, I am drinking alone.
Lifting the cup inviting the moon to drinkwith me,
And thus three of us: the moon, the shadowand me.
Yet the moon knows no taste of wine,
The shadow just follows me, in vain.
Temporarily the moon and the shadow accompanyingme,
While it is right the spring for glee Iwould go on the spree.
The moon listening to my songs lingers inthe empyrean,
The shadow dancing with me rolls and frisksunder the moon.
While awake, we go on the tilesunlimitedly,
While drunk, we will disperse unavoidably.
The moon, let us become bosom friendsdespite the age. One day,
Let us make an appointment to meet besidethe bank of Milk Way.
(Tr. By Peter Wang)
There are more than one explanation on the line: And thus three of us: the moon, the shadow and me（对影成三人）. The rhetoric device “personification”is the commonest explanation for the three men here, which means that the poet personifies the moon and the shadow,and thus the three of us. We are sure the rhetoric device has been employed here to express the poet’s strong feelings. However, we need discuss about why there are three of men, and who on earth they are .
Flowers and wine are material pleasures in the secular world and so many people delight in them. Sharing these things has been a tradition for Chinese people among relatives and friends, thus strengthening the relationship. But for Li Bai, flowers and wine are not only pleasures in the secular world but the beauty that is bestowed to human beings. It’s easy to find people to share them as pleasures but hard to find people to share them as beauty, so the poet feels “None with me, I am drinking alone.” In the state of grand loneliness, the poet begins “Lifting the cup and invitingthe moon to drink with me,”. Here we, as readers of Li Bai’s poetry, have to ask ourselves a question: why does not the poet invite something else around hime other than the moon?
To answer the question, we need recall something that I have analyzed in the short article about Meditation on aTranquil Night(《静夜思》)：the moon dominates an important position in his poetry because it symbolizes the purest and loftiest spiritual world or spiritual homeland.
In the poem Drinkingalone under the Moon , the poet personifies the moon just because of its allusiveness, which is the art of reading poetry. Why does the poet long for going back to his spiritual homeland? The reason is that he could find an ideal self there. Thus, we can logically draw an conclusion that the reason why the poet doesn’t invite something else other than the moon is that the moon as his spiritual homeland can symbolize the ideal self. He himself, lifting up the winecup, is the real self and the shadow of his is the illusory self. The ideal self,the real self and the illusory self are his three men drinking together!
Have you ever experienced conversing with your ideal self and illusory self? Li Bai in this poem is doing so. Thus we have got a key to unlock the poem and naturally comprehend why the poet says there are three men altogether.
Bearing the three selves in mind, we decipher the poem more easily than what we did without the concept of them. Everyone needs converse with the soul, the ideal self and the self that one imagines of what he himself is. The ideal self represents what one chooses to be in the spiritual world and the illusory self what one knows to be in the imagined world and the real self, what one is in the secular world. Personally, the ideal self corresponds with Dao( The Way), the illusory self, De(Morality) and the real self is the realization of the illusory self, who comes from the ideal self.
“Yet the moon knows no taste of wine,” as the poet wrote, the ideal self, who symbolizes Dao( The Way) in the doctrine of Daoism, is non-being, which is unnamable. “the unnamable is the beginning of Heaven and Earth, the namable is the mother of all things.”. That is to say, Dao(The Way), symbolized by the ideal self in the poem, has no sense, and of course can’t know the taste of wine. Meanwhile, the illusory self is the reflection of the real self, so it follows me( the real self). The soul is still imprisoned in the body( which is defied with so many desires that the enjoyment of the secular world attracts the poet powerfully) and the poet is in extreme self-contradiction: the three selves are fighting, which results in the pain and agony in the poem.
If Freud had ever read Li Bai, he would have quoted him to prove his theory. The ideal self is calling for purity and absolute happiness and the real self is drinking for temporary joy and the illusory self is warning of the defilement of going on the spree. When clear-minded, the poet is fully aware of this painful state and he longs for going back to his spiritual homeland but soon he, indulging himself in drinks, the secular joy, becomes drunk and forgets his ideal self and illusory self.
And now we can understand the last lines: The moon, let us become bosom friends despite the age. One day/Let us make anappointment to meet beside the bank of Milk Way. When waking up from being drunken, he remembers his longing for his spiritual homeland and he seeks after the identification of the three selves. When one returned to his spiritual world,the lost paradise, the three selves would become one and a man would be a complete or a perfect one. It’s a long way. So , this may be unable to be realized until death.
From the analysis above, we can understandthat the poem is not about loneliness, but about the course of psyche: the extreme inner contradiction the poet is confronted with. This poem constantly remind the readers of Epicurus in the western philosophy, which maintains that people should catch every chance to enjoy the secular pleasures. I’m strongly against it.
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