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Xiangren Peng II/Wen
Before reading Hong Ye's "Du Fu, China's Greatest Poet", I had read Feng Zhi's "Du Fu Biography" and Chen Yixuan's "Du Fu Commentary", but I was still fascinated by this sentence:
"Shortly before tongguan was captured in July, our poet Du Fu was in Baishui County, about 10 miles northwest of Fengxian. He was frustrated because the military operation had closed roads to other places in the eastern suburbs of Chang'an ('When will the eastern suburbs open?'). ’）。 It seems that in the first half of 756 he will not be able to return to Chang'an. After the fall of the capital, the question before him was where to place his family and how to get there? ”
This is from page 100 of Hong Ye's Du Fu, China's Greatest Poet, full of historical details. From this, I know where Du Fu was before and after such an important historical event as the loss of Tongguan. What he was doing and thinking.
Chen Yixuan's "Commentary on Du Fu" is also full of details, which can be cross-referenced with Hong Ye's description.
Before the fall of Tongguan, it was the town of Geshuhan that guarded Tongguan City. Chen Yixuan wrote: "At that time, Ge Shuhan ... And there are small victories, so Lao Du has great hopes for him. However, thinking that some changsheng generals such as Gao Xianzhi and Feng Changqing had also been defeated and killed, and the war situation was changeable, it was difficult to predict, so I could not help but be worried and wept bitterly. Zhu Zhu thought that Tongguan belonged to Huazhou and was close to Baishui, so he saw that the military morale was so great. Pu Qilong disagreed, saying, "White water goes to Tongguan and four hundred miles, and Andeyun is near?" It is also far from the ear of the word of the void. It is right to say that there is a sense of fiction, but it is more or less based on visual poetry. The white water is not close to Tongguan, and the peaks of Huayue should be able to enter the view. Seeing the sunset returning to the light, reflecting the red skyline, the distant water lingered, shining, thinking that under Mount Hua was the Tongguan where Ge Shuhan's heavy troops were gathered, and I did not feel suspicious that the mountain was floating with military spirit, and the water color was mixed with the light of the sword. The scene is powerful and exciting. ”
Such a description makes me want to go to Baishui, Shaanxi, look in the direction of Tongguan, and try to see what I can see?
Feng Zhi's "Biography of Du Fu" is different in describing this period of history. He wrote: "In May 756, Du Fu led his family from Fengxian to Baishui and lived in the high fast of his uncle Cui Yan. There was still a calm spring sound and pine shadow in front of him, but he felt as if there was a soldier in the mountains and forests, and blades flashed in the water light. At this time, Ge Shuhan was commanding 200,000 soldiers of Helong to guard Tongguan south of Baishui, and Du Fu's friend Gao Shi was also in the army. Du Fu had considerable trust in Ge Shuhan, and he believed that Hu Xian was not a strong enemy who could not resist before Tongguan, because An Qingxu, An Lushan's son, had been repelled by GeShuhan when he first attacked Tongguan in the first month. ”
In Feng Zhi's pen, Du Fu still had expectations for the future of Ge Shuhan and Datang. When they arrived at Hong Ye and Chen Yixuan, Du Fu was saddled with heavy sorrow. Dark clouds hung over Du Fu's sky, and he could not see a trace of happiness.
So, which side is closer to the truth of history? I reread Du Fu's "Nineteen Rhymes of Gao Zhai in Cui Shaofu, Baishui County", and chose to believe Hong Ye and Chen Yixuan.
It is not to belittle Feng Zhi, I still benefit a lot from him. It is difficult to reproduce the specific life and historical truth of a poet from a thousand years ago through words, especially for Du Fu.
The scholar Chen Yuxian said: "The Old Book of Tang says that Du Fu had a collection of sixty volumes, and when Wang Su edited the complete collection for him in 270 years after Du Fu's death, only twenty volumes were left. Therefore, in order to understand Du Fu's life, we have to reconstruct it according to the limited literature and the content of existing Du Shi. About three hundred years after Du Fu's death... There were quite a few pseudo-Du poems, as well as pseudo-Du poem annotations made by Theo Su Dongpo, which were mixed in various Du collections, and were corrected by Qian Qianyi, Qiu Zhao'ao, Pu Qilong, and other examiners in the Qing Dynasty. ”
Hong Ye is naturally well aware of the hardships involved, but he makes an interesting analogy for this: "Like a tangram puzzle". "Imagine that you have a bag of irregular fragments in your hand, put together, and will present a map of the city of ancient Rome, but the lines on the fragments are too faint to read. You know it's not done yet, but many of the fragments have been gnawed away by rats, and some of the fragments have been found to belong to other maps, and you can't be sure how many unrelated pieces have been mixed into the bag. When you examine and compare these fragments, and move them around on the table, you feel very annoyed, they just can't fit together, and occasionally you get excited, because there are many pieces that can be completely combined. It's really a fascinating game. Hong Ye said.
For Hong Ye, piecing together Du Fu's chronology is a game of pain and joy. He must have also spelled du Fu's poems with love. I imagined him as a child, sifting and choosing in countless poems by Du Fu or in du fu's name, with many expectations, trying to spell them out into Du Fu's true form.
Reading "Du Fu, China's Greatest Poet", one of the discoveries is that there are many question sentences in the book. It adds an atmosphere of ups and downs to the flat narrative. It's also like a person walking in a valley after the rain, and from time to time he encounters a cute little mushroom. "Then is Du Fu the only son of Du Xian's Lady Cui?" "When Du Fu was about nineteen years old, he had already begun to roam... Unfortunately, we know very little about the details of Du Fu's first trip. We can only guess why a child would be allowed to be away from home for so long. ”
Du Fu, China's Greatest Poet
Author: Hong Ye
Publisher: Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House
Translator: Zeng Xiangbo
Published: 2020-5-31
"Why did Du Fu become so inattentive?" Why did he start to evade his duties and get drunk? What has become of his desire to write and present his performances, his joy in his early years, his expectations for the restoration of peace and prosperity? Why is he now looking forward to retirement – or even death? ”
...... There are also many questioning sentences, which I will not list here. Hong Ye had the enthusiasm and impulse to inquire because he liked Du Fu; he also had more questions because of his writing, and some of them were answered in the book. Those questions that have not yet been answered are lying on the pages of the book, inspiring Hong Ye and inspiring future generations to answer.
Hong Ye not only read Du Fu's poetry, but also conducted in-depth research on the politics, history, geography, military, and economy of the Tang Dynasty. For example, he would ask in the book, "Du Fu often left his parents to roam and rejuvenate, where did the cost come from?" Based on the General Classics, the Old Book of Tang, the Tang Huijiao, the New Book of Tang, and the relevant discussions of Japanese and Western scholars, Hong Ye finally concluded that his father Du Xian could fully afford the travel expenses of his son Du Fu.
Hong Ye's explanation of a poem that Du Fu gave to Li Bai also impressed me. The poem goes like this:
Qiu Lai took care of Shang Piaopeng and did not feel ashamed of Ge Hong on Dansha.
Drinking and singing in the air, flying for whom.
In the eyes of many, this poem is Du Fu's harsh rebuke of Li Bai, or that there is jealousy between these two great poets. But Hong Ye felt that this poem was Du Fu's self-examination and self-reproach of himself. He translated the poem: "It's autumn again, and we are still drifting in the wind like grass. We have not been able to find the elixir of immortality, as Ge Hong did. I drank bitterly, I sang wildly, and I wasted every day in vain. I'm so unruly and unruly, for whom? The "I" in the poem is Du Fu, not Li Bai.
Hong Ye's translation makes sense. As he himself said, a Chinese poem is like a telegram, its poetic language is very concise, pronouns and connecting words are always omitted, and if we make a mistake in the content and object that is omitted, and do not know the complex thinking and situation behind it, I am afraid that we will misread the poet's situation and mood, and it is impossible to read a poem.
In the book, Hong Ye also pointed out that "Night Feast Zuo ShiZhuang" is the earliest surviving poem by Du Fu, written during his first trip to the south between the ages of 19 and 24:
Lin Feng slender moon set, clothes dew clean piano Zhang. Dark water flow flower path, spring star with grass hall.
Examine the book burn candle short, look at the sword lead cup long. The poem heard Wu Yong, and Bian Zhou did not forget.
Hong Ye said at first that he could not confirm who zuo shi was, did not know the specific location of Zuo Shizhuang, and "could not even determine the time when Du Fu wrote this poem", but he immediately made us believe in convincing language that the birth time of this poem was the same as what he had guessed.
"Because Du Fu has been traveling in the south for quite some time—maybe a few years—he may have learned enough of the Wu dialect to understand Wu Yong—in other words, to be able to understand and be moved by the story of Fan Ligong's retirement," Hong Ye said. Have our poets already thought of the opportunity to enter the career after the expedition? Did he regret being forced to postpone this planned voyage to the unknowable future because of the expedition? I am inclined to think that if this poem were to be written in the late spring of 735, the year of the southern journey, it would become very meaningful. ”
So, I believed Hong Ye's words. But I also sometimes think that Hong Ye likes Du Fu so much that his insight and vision will be discounted at certain moments, because it will yield to his love for Du Fu.
After An Lushan was killed by his son An Qingxu and Chang'an was restored by the Tang army, on December 8, 757, the emperor triumphantly returned to Chang'an amid the dance, cheers, and tears of joy of the crowd that stretched for miles.
At this grand moment, at this moment of national welcome, where is Du Fu? In the view of some researchers, Du Fu was not in the ranks of returning to Beijing, and for various reasons, he missed the time to return to Beijing.
But Hong Ye said, "No, you can't take away du Fu's experience." Just like writing about our contemporary hero Jonathan. General Wainwright's revered experience is like erasing his experience of witnessing Japan's surrender on september 2, 1945, aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Patriotism was an outstanding part of Du Fu's character. After so many ups and downs, December 8, 757, this day must have been unforgettable for Du Fu. I can imagine how Du Fu couldn't help but burst into tears when he saw the crowd of cheers and weeping in front of Chang'an City. ”
As a result, I was also moved, and I could not bear to take away Du Fu's experience, whether it really existed in history or not.
Hong Ye has a poetic heart, and reading the above text, I am more certain of this. Thanks to the translator Zeng Xiangbo, he worked hard to preserve and reproduce Hong Ye's poetic heart for readers.
Finally, I would also like to mention that I was born late. Before, I didn't know who Hong Ye was, and it was very late to read Du Fu, China's greatest poet. When I finished reading it and knew that the book had already been published abroad in 1952, but after publication, it was long out of the field of vision of scholars and readers in China, and it was not until 2011 that it was translated into Chinese, and my admiration for Hong Ye went a step further.
When was 1952? That was also when Feng Zhi published the biography of Du Fu. Thirty years later, Chen Yixuan published a more detailed, million-word commentary on Du Fu. It is generations of scholars with telescopes in hand that pull a thousand-year-old poet before us and show us little by little, his pores and flesh. Thanks to Hong Ye, but also thanks to Feng Zhi and Chen Yixuan.