Su Dongpo: The Most Talented Man in the Song (Part 1)
A genius poet dazzles the Song court — until his honest poems land him in prison and a muddy field.
九百多年前的宋朝，苏东坡出生在四川眉山的一个读书人家里。More than nine hundred years ago, in the Song dynasty, Su Dongpo was born into a scholar's family in Meishan, Sichuan.他本来的名字叫苏轼，“东坡”这个名字是后来才有的——这里面有一个故事。His original name was Su Shi; the name "Dongpo" came later — and there is a story behind it.他从小就特别聪明，一本书读一遍，就能记住。From childhood he was exceptionally clever — he could remember a book after reading it just once.
二十一岁那年，他和弟弟苏辙一起去京城参加科举考试。The year he turned twenty-one, he and his younger brother Su Zhe went to the capital to take the imperial examination.考官欧阳修读到他的文章，大吃一惊。The examiner Ouyang Xiu read his essay and was astonished.欧阳修还以为这么好的文章是自己的学生写的，为了公平，只给了它第二名。Ouyang Xiu assumed an essay this good must have been written by his own student, so to be fair, he ranked it only second.后来他对朋友说：“三十年以后，没有人会再谈起我，人人都会谈起这个年轻人。”Later he told a friend: "Thirty years from now, no one will speak of me anymore — everyone will be speaking of this young man."
苏东坡很快成了朝廷的官员，也成了全国最有名的才子。Su Dongpo soon became a court official — and the most famous talent in the whole country.可是他有一个“毛病”：心里想什么，嘴上就说什么，笔下就写什么。But he had one "flaw": whatever he thought, he said out loud — and wrote down.那时候，宰相王安石正在推行很多新政策，苏东坡觉得有些政策对老百姓不好，就把这些问题写进了诗里。At the time, Chancellor Wang Anshi was pushing through many new policies; Su Dongpo felt some of them were bad for the common people, and he wrote these problems into his poems.
一零七九年，有人对皇帝说：“苏轼在用诗批评朝廷！”In 1079, someone told the emperor: "Su Shi is using poems to criticize the court!"他因为写诗被抓进了监狱，关了一百多天，差一点被处死。He was thrown into prison because of his poems, held for more than a hundred days, and very nearly executed.很多人为他求情，连已经退休的王安石也说：“怎么能杀这样有才华的人呢？”Many people pleaded for him — even the retired Wang Anshi said: "How can you kill a man of such talent?"
最后，皇帝把他放了，把他贬官到黄州——一个又小又穷的地方。In the end, the emperor released him and demoted him to Huangzhou — a small, poor place.在黄州，他的工资很低，一家人常常吃不饱。In Huangzhou his salary was tiny, and his family often didn't have enough to eat.
朋友帮他在城东边的山坡上找到了一块田，他带着全家开始种地。A friend found him a plot of land on a slope east of the town, and he began farming it with his whole family.因为这块田在东边的山坡上，他给自己起了一个新外号，叫“东坡”。Because the plot lay on the eastern slope, he gave himself a new nickname: "Dongpo" — East Slope.从前全国最有名的才子，现在成了一个种地的农民——可是他的故事，才刚刚开始。The most famous talent in the country was now a farmer in a field — but his story was only just beginning.
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