One night at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, I watched the experimental drama "Du Fu" rehearsed by the National Theatre of China, and the "poet" played by the director himself said that Du Fu "ate too much roast beef and survived to death".
A drama with Du Fu as the theme actually held such nonsense and had such an irreverent attitude, which really surprised me! Regarding the cause of Du Fu's death, there have been the following five theories in history:
1. Drunken death;
2. Death, that is, death;
3. Drowning;
4. Poisoning;
5. Illness and death.
It was the Tang Dynasty zheng who put forward the idea of drunken death.
He said that when Du Fu was wandering in Xiangtan in his later years and living in Leiyang County, Hengzhou, the local officials were very annoyed with him. Du Fu wrote a poem to the county order, and the county order had to give him "beef hot liquor", which is roast beef.
As a result, "if you drink too much, you will die overnight." (See "Ming Emperor Miscellaneous Records Supplement") This statement.
Later, it was adopted by Song Qi, the author of Du Fu's biography in the New Book of Tang, "In the Great Calendar... Prisoner Lei Yang. You Yue Ancestral Hall, the water is rushing to the end, wading in ten years can not eat.
The county ordered the boat to welcome it, but it had to be returned. Ling tasted the ox hot liquor, drunk, one night, fifty-nine years old. ”
The gluttony was not brought up separately, it was all associated with drunkenness.
Advocates of this statement include Liu Xun, author of the Old Book of Tang Du Fu's biography, and Wang Su, a scholar of the Song Dynasty who compiled Du Shi's poems.
The Old Book of Tang Du Fu's biography: "... Living in The Yang Dynasty, he tasted the Yue Temple, but was blocked by the storm and could not eat on the tenth day. Nie Lingzhi knew about it and returned from the boat.
In the second year of Yongtai, he took beef liquor and died overnight in Leiyang at the age of fifty-nine. ”
Wang Su's Jingyin Song Benji: "... Living in Leiyang. Taste the Yue Temple, block the flood water, and do not eat on the day of the day. Nie Lingzhi knew about it and returned it with his own boat.
Five years of summer, one night drunk, died, fifty-nine years old. ”
The person who proposed drowning was Li Guan of the Tang Dynasty.
Li Guan's "Supplementary Biography of Du Shi": "The river surged and drifted for panic, and its body did not know where it landed."
Emperor Xuanzong returned to Nannei, Si Zimei, and commanded the world to seek it. Nie Ling was empty on the river, and Zimei died for beef liquor and was buried here. Smell of this. ”
The proposer of the poisoning theory is the modern famous scholar Guo Moruo.
Guo's "Li Bai and Du Fu": "In fact, it is not impossible to die of cow wine. But not 'starvation', or 'death from fullness', but due to poisoning.
The beef that Nie Ling sent must have been quite a lot, and Du Fu did not finish eating it once.
In the summer, it is not well refrigerated and easily corrupted. Carrion is poisonous, most severely due to the initial poison of twenty-four to twenty-eight hours after decay, paralyzing people's nerves and worsening the heart to death.
Coupled with liquor to promote the circulation of toxins in the blood, and Du Fu's body was originally in a half-body condition, he also had diabetes and lung disease, and it was not impossible to die from carrion poisoning, but it was entirely possible. (p. 205)
The theory of illness and death is the opinion of most Du Fu research experts in history.
The famous collection of Du poems, Qiu Zhao'ao's "Detailed Notes on Du Shi", Yang Lun's "Du Shi Jingquan", and the "Thirty-six Rhymes of the Pillow Book in the Wind and The Boat, presenting Relatives and Friends in Hunan" as Du Fu's masterpiece are all manifestations of this opinion.
Modern scholars Wen Yiduo ("Shaoling Annals"), Feng Zhi ("Du Fu Biography"), Xiao Difei ("Selected Notes on Du Fu's Poems"), etc., are also this opinion.
Qiu Zhaoao, Wen Yiduo, Feng Zhi, Xiao Difei, Guo Moruo and others refuted the two theories of death and drunken death, mainly based on the fact that if they were to die of gluttony and drunkenness.
Du Fu could not have written a long poem to express his gratitude to Nie Shi for giving ox wine to Ling Nie in Leiyang County, "Nie Qiyang obstructs water with servants, books lead to wine and meat, cures famine and rivers, and poetry is cherished in generations, and the rhyme is exhausted."
To the county, present Nie Ling. Forty miles by land to FangtianYi, a day of boat travel, when the river rises, berthed in Fangtian"; Secondly, after writing this poem, he also wrote several poems such as "Late Autumn Will Return to Qin, Leaving Behind relatives and Friends of the Hunan Shogunate", "Changsha Sending Li Eleven Titles", "Thirty-six Rhymes of the Pillow Book in the Wind and Rapid Boat", etc.
(Mr. Guo Moruo did not agree with this, and he believed that the poem given to Nie Ling was Du Fu's masterpiece.) Drowning said that even Tang Xuanzong did not know before du Fu died, and it is not worth refuting.
Mr. Guo Moruo's poisoned death says that although he had the words that "dying of cow wine is not a scandal, nor can it be counted as slander" (Li Bai and Du Fu, p. 209), his intentions are still suspicious.
As we all know, Du Fu described his early experience of "selling medicine in the city" ("Entering the Three Gifts Table") in Chang'an, and during the Period of Chengdu Caotang, there was a verse of "taking pleasure and still coming to see the medicine bar" ("BinZhi").
In addition, Du Fu is also a long-term illness, suffering from diabetes, paralysis, lung disease for a long time, since ancient times, there are words, long illness into medicine.
Obviously, Du Fu had a certain study of medicine, and he would never be stupid enough to be ignorant of the poisoning of carrion. While exerting his imagination, Mr. Guo Moruo insulted the intelligence of the great poet Du Fu.
Judging from the research so far, it is most reliable to say that Du Fu died of illness.