In the eighth year of the Southern Song Dynasty (1181 AD), the forty-two-year-old Xin abandoned his illness and came to Shangrao in Jiangxi and lived a semi-reclusive life. When he was young and powerful, he did not expect that what awaited him in the future would be a derogatory career of more than ten years.
Xin took his wife and slaves and built hundreds of houses in the lake. Usually, he drinks and enjoys flowers in the farm, and occasionally takes the initiative to go out to find relatives and friends, close to nature.
At that time, there was a Huangsha Ridge in the west forty miles of Shangrao County. There are two springs on the ridge and there are dozens of acres of farmland. One night, in the middle of the night, Xin Abandoned passed through the Huangsha Ridge, saw the moon and stars, listened to the cicadas singing frogs, and smelled the aroma of rice flowers emanating from the harvest field.
Later, although there were "two or three points before the rain mountain", but it could not dilute the joy and joy in Xin Ren's heart, so he wrote the famous "Xijiang Yue: Night Walking in the Yellow Sand Road".
This poem uses many images such as the bright moon, black magpie, cicada, rice field, frog chirping, and star child to portray a natural beauty. This beautiful idyllic scenery is extremely similar to what many rural people saw when they were children at night during the rice harvest season.
Although the scene depicted in this poem is very beautiful, there has always been some small controversy in the first two sentences of the word. Let's first appreciate the original words of Xin Zhiyi and leave the controversy for later.
1. Appreciation of "Xijiang Yue, Nocturnal Huangsha Road"
"Xijiang Yue, Nocturnal Huangsha Road" - Southern Song Dynasty Xin abandoned disease
The bright moon does not startle the magpies, and the breeze chirps cicadas in the middle of the night. Rice blossoms say good year, listen to the sound of frogs.
Seven or eight stars out of the sky, two or three o'clock before the rainy mountain. In the old days, the Maodian Community was lined up, and the road turned to the creek bridge.
Vernacular Translation:
In the bright moonlight, I walked alone in the night, and the sound of footsteps startled the crows that stopped at the treetops. The swaying of the treetops surprised me. In August, the Yellow Sand Ridge is a breeze and the sound of cicadas in the trees.
The breeze blew a ripe aroma of rice blossoms, as if someone was whispering: This is another good harvest year. In fact, where are the people, they just heard a frog chirping in the pond.
In the sky, there were still seven or eight stars; in front of the mountain, it had begun to rain lightly. Just around the edge of the woods not far away, there is a hut that I used to visit to shelter from the rain, just turn over the bridge above the creek.
The time of the narrative of this song is in the "middle of the night". The ancient "midnight" was between about 1 and 3 a.m. In ancient times, there were no electric lights, and ordinary farmers rested very early at night. So, why did Xin Appear Alone in the Yellow Sand Road "in the middle of the night"?
Xin Zhiyi once mentioned in "Ugly Slave Near Boshan Road Zhongguo Li Yi'an Body": "Qingqi sells wine, and there are no other people on the side of the mountain." At that time, he often crossed a mountain, found the restaurant with the blue flag to drink, and went on a date with his friends.
It is conceivable that on this day, Xin abandoned the disease and just returned from seeing his friends in the tavern. Because he was still far from home, when he walked to the rice field, it was already "midnight".
The Huangshaling Trail, Xin Zhiyi didn't know how many times he had walked through it hundreds of times, but only tonight this time was very special for him. Probably because he was drinking and chatting with friends, and the conversation was very speculative.
Because Xin Qiyi's mood on this night was very happy, he also paid special attention to the wind and objects along the way, so he discovered the beautiful scenery that he usually couldn't see at all.
On the surface, this poem is all about what the author himself saw and heard on this night trip, and it is all described according to the actual scene, and it seems that there is no deep connotation or meaning.
However, when you carefully ponder the meaning of this word, you will find that the original two sentences, "The rice flowers say a good year, listen to the sound of frogs", still reflect the lyricist's own concern for politics, worry about the country and the people.
In middle age, Xin abandoned the disease, in fact, a rich man, who bought a large number of fields in Shangrao and built hundreds of houses. Although he calls himself "Jiaxuan", he does not rely on farming to maintain his large family.
So, under such circumstances, why is Xin Still willing to "say a good year in the fragrance of rice and flowers"? This can only be said to be due to his nature of caring about the lives of the people of Li and the safety of the country.
Second, there are two points of controversy in the word
This poem has always been widely acclaimed, so it has long been selected into basic education textbooks. So far, though, there are still "two controversial" issues in the song. The first question has not been answered accurately.
These two questions come from the first two sentences of this poem, namely: First, what does "beizhi" in "Bright Moon Beizhi Magpie" mean? Second, the "cicadas" in the "wind in the middle of the night" will not call at night?
First of all, the first question, the word "other branches" in the word, has always had three interpretations:
The first interpretation of "other branches" refers to "another branch." This is the most mainstream interpretation, which was first proposed by Mr. Yu Boping. He thought that the meaning of the first sentence of the word was to say: The bright moon flew the crow and made it jump from one branch to another.
The second interpretation of "other branches" is "parting branches" and "leaving branches" Mingyue alarmed the crow and made it "part" from the branches, and Mr. Zhu Guangqian supported this view.
However, some people believe that the first two sentences of this song are actually "dual" sentences. If "don't" is interpreted as "another branch," then "don't" becomes a verb that cannot be contrasted with the part of speech of "midnight" in the second sentence.
The third interpretation of "other branches" is "branches that slope out." In 1981, the "Dictionary of The Tang and Song Dynasties" compiled by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was interpreted in this way. So, which of the three answers is more correct? That's a matter of opinion.
The second question is whether cicadas can be heard in the wild at 1 to 3 o'clock in the summer night. This question has puzzled many people. Not only do we who live in the city today not know, but Mr. Zhu Ziqing did not know when he wrote "Lotus Pond Moonlight".
Because Zhu Ziqing once mentioned in "Lotus Pond Moonlight": "The most lively thing is the sound of cicadas on trees and frogs in the water." It seems that Mr. Zhu Ziqing was influenced by the word Xin Zhiyi before writing such a sentence.
After Zhu Ziqing's article came out, someone once wrote to him to point out that cicadas could not be heard on summer nights. Mr. Zhu Ziqing also asked many entomologists for this purpose, but there was no particularly clear answer.
It wasn't until later, when Zhu Ziqing himself heard the cicada chirp twice at night, that he was sure that the cicada would call at night. But just because cicadas call after 20 p.m. doesn't mean they call between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m.
Therefore, some people believe that Xin Zhiyi's writing of "singing cicadas" here is not realistic, but replaces the sounds of the fields with the sounds of cicadas. It is no accident that Mr. Yu Boping juxtaposes the first sentence of the word with Cao Cao's "Short Song Line" "The bright moon is sparse and the black magpie flies south".
If at that time, Xin Zhiyi was indeed associated with Cao Cao's "Short Song Line", so he wrote "Mingyue Beicun Magpie", then this word may not be just a simple pastoral scenery word.
The connotation of this poem may involve the talent concept of the rulers of the Southern Song Dynasty court, as well as the poet's own talent. Then the "cicada" used in the second sentence of the word may be from Li Shangyin's Five Laws "Cicada".
According to Li Shangyin's statement in "Cicada", it is a "cicada" who does not meet with a talent, and the cry will be "five more loose desires, five more loose desires, and a tree is merciless". The cicada happened to chirp in the middle of the night, and xin's encounter at that time also fit this setting.
epilogue
Mainstream scholars represented by Yu Boping and Zhu Guangqian generally believe that "Mingyue Beizhi frightens the magpie" is that mingyue alarms the crow. However, some scholars have pointed out that the crows here are not startled by the bright moon, but by the pedestrians under the moon, and I hold the same view.
It is normal for crows to sleep on branches and for the moon to loom in the clouds. Especially in the early hours of the morning, the bright moon is not the first rising moon. It must have been hanging in mid-air for a long time, only occasionally blocked by clouds, and then appeared again.
In this case, Mingyue could not fly the crow at all. Therefore, "the bright moon does not startle the magpie", it can only be the footsteps of the lone traveler under the moon, which frightens the crow.
Classical Chinese poetry is beautiful in terms of elegance and hidden beauty, so the central idea of poetry is often implicit but not revealed, and readers need to understand and feel it themselves. Therefore, different people reading the same poems will come up with completely different, even diametrically opposed feelings.
As an author, all Xin needs to do is to successfully use his narrative skills in this poem, and mobilize the reader's five senses and seven emotions, and then present his own insights through careful tailoring.
As for the "other branches" in "Bright Moon Farewell Branch", how to explain it, and whether he heard the cicadas in the early morning at that time, whether "magpies" and "cicadas" have other metaphors, it is up to the reader to slowly understand.