Su Dongpo wrote two "Chibi Fu", in order to distinguish between convenience, people called the one written in the fifth year of Yuanfeng "Former Chibi Fu". The beginning of the article uses a dozen words to explain the time and place, "In the autumn of Nongshu, in July, Suzi and the guests swam under the Chibi. This sentence translated into modern Chinese is that in the fifth year of Yuanfeng, on July 16, Su Dongpo and his friends took a boat tour in Chibi.
A very ordinary day, a very ordinary outing, thanks to This article by Su Dongpo, everything becomes different. When posterity mentions this article, they often lament the helplessness in life and try to dispel the contradictions and bitterness in their hearts.
As a travelogue essay, "Former Chibi Fu" carries the sorrows and joys of life and is particularly thick. Many people know the famous sentence in the article, "The breeze is gentle, the water is not happy." At first glance, Su Dongpo was very happy, there was no sadness. The breeze blows, the water floats, how pleasant.
In fact, this was not the case, in the second year of Yuanfeng, Su Dongpo was labeled as a "slanderous court" and was therefore imprisoned. History refers to this incident as the "Wutai poetry case", and this case tossed Su Dongpo enough that he even thought of committing suicide at one point. Su Dongpo, with the help of friends from all sides, demoted the official Huangzhou. At the time of writing, he had just recovered.
Judging from the content of the article, Su Dongpo saw the magnificent scenery of Chibi and thought of the vastness of the universe and its own smallness. Large to the extreme, small to the self, through this contrast, Su Dongpo wants to express the feelings are particularly complicated. On the one hand, there is a feeling of inferiority, and on the other hand, it is full of beautiful fantasies.
When he realized that the illusion could not be realized, he suddenly felt sad and could not be suppressed. From being happy and happy, to imagining, the final destination is pain. Is this still the Su Dongpo that everyone remembers as singing "roll up a thousand piles of snow"? Is this still the heroic sue beard?
The most wonderful passage in "Former Chibi Fu" is the dialogue between Su Dongpo and his friends. This dialogue shows the contradiction of Su Dongpo, who hopes to enlighten himself with Buddhist thought, but only when it comes to the end that he finds that he cannot solve it. Su Dongpo thought of the Chibi War during the Three Kingdoms period, which lasted about 800 years from the end of the Han Dynasty to the Yuanfeng period of the Northern Song Dynasty. The ancient battlefield of that year can no longer see a trace, and the talents who have made meritorious achievements are buried in the long river of history. Su Dongpo found that a person standing in front of history was really too small.
He was comforting himself, but it was a little pessimistic and frustrated. When later generations evaluate this article, they tend to pay attention to the relationship between the individual and the long river of history. Human life expectancy is limited and ability is limited to transcend these limitations. For ordinary people, they don't care about these limitations at all. However, Su Dongpo is not an ordinary person, and after he experiences the blow, he will think about the direction of life.
After thinking about it all night, he felt that many contradictions in life were destined to end in tragedy. Su Dongpo is not capable of solving the tragedies in life, but he can learn to face them. When he finished writing "Former Chibi Fu", it should be a state of relief.