Spring Festival in ancient classics 丨 Spring Festival in Tang poetry

　　Datang is the land of poetry, and there are poems when there are things, not to mention such a grand festival as the Spring Festival. However, if you search for the keyword "Spring Festival" in the Quan Tang Poems, you may not have the expected harvest, because calling the Lunar New Year the Spring Festival is after the Xinhai Revolution. In the Tang Dynasty, the Spring Festival was called New Year's Day or New Year's Day, and the night before the First Day was called the Eve of Removal, which is what we call Chinese New Year's Eve today.

　　First, the biggest theme of the night is reunion

　　The form of this reunion is that the family sits around and drinks and watches the old age. For example, Du Fu's "Du Wei Zhai Shou Nian" Yun: "Shou Nian Ah Rong family, the pepper plate has been praised for flowers." "The so-called Arong is the name given to the younger brother by people from the Wei and Jin Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and here it refers to the Du position in the poem. This person was Du Fu's cousin and the son-in-law of the powerful minister Li Linfu. At that time, Du Fu was wandering in Chang'an, and he did not have an official and a half-job, and his cousin's situation was judged by cloud mud. However, a phrase "keeping the age of the Arong family" lets us know that at least in the matter of the night vigil, the connection of family affection transcends the gap of daily identity, so that the two brothers can gather together to celebrate the festival.

　　Since we are together, we must drink wine to help. What kind of wine to drink? What Du Weijia drank was pepper wine sprinkled with peppercorns, which is what the second sentence said, "The pepper plate has been praised by flowers." In addition to pepper wine, the Tang Dynasty's special wine for keeping the age also includes Baijiu and Tusu liquor, which have the meaning of driving away evil spirits and avoiding impurities and prolonging life. For example, Meng Haoran's "Old Song Plum Blossom Singing, New Zhengbai Wine", that is, drinking cypress wine soaked in cypress leaves; and Gu Guan's so-called "also Dan lonely and shy mirror, hand Tu Su let the teenager" is drinking Tu Su wine soaked in Tu Su. Chinese has always respected the elderly, "there is wine and food, Mr. Food" is a general etiquette, but in the night, whether it is pepper wine, Cypress wine or TuSu wine, the rules must be reversed, starting from the child, and finally to the elderly. Why? Because "this year is the end of this night, next year tomorrow is urged." After drinking the wine of the night, the man will be one year older. The child is one year older and is called "the year of gain", while the old man is one year older but it is called "lost year", so that one gain and one loss, the elderly in addition to the joy, it is inevitable that there will be a sense of vicissitudes of "hand tu Su let the teenager".

　　However, since the theme of the night is reunion, the most profound feelings must not be the elders surrounded by their families, but the wanderers who have a hard time returning home. Most of the poets of the Tang Dynasty had the experience of eunuch travel, and spending the night alone in a different place was really "not a taste in the heart". Cui Tu Shiyun: "Chaotic mountains and snowy nights, lonely candles and strangers." Gradually, he became distant from the flesh and bones, and turned to the servant relatives. "And Dai Shulun probably doesn't even have a servant, and the only thing he can get close to is a lone lamp in the inn." He said: "Whoever asks in the hotel, the cold light is amiable." The year will come to an end, and no one will return. Even Gao Shi, who sings "Mo Worries about the road ahead and does not know himself, who in the world does not know the king", in the face of this situation, it is inevitable that he will be decadent, and his poem "Except for the Night" is cloudy: "The hometown thinks of thousands of miles tonight, and the Frost Side Ming Dynasty is another year." This kind of deep feeling of "thinking of relatives every festive season" also belongs to the situation of the night, and it is precisely because of its existence that the reunion and observance of the year are particularly precious and warm.

　　Second, the first day heralds the renewal of Vientiane

　　If the theme of the night is family reunion, then the theme of the first day is the renewal of Vientiane. Lu Zhaolin, one of the four masters of the early Tang Dynasty, has a poem "Yuan Ri Shu Huai", which vividly expresses the joy of the New Year and the exuberance of the times. Shi Yun: "There is no rank in the Zhengshi, and there are foreign ministers in the cultivation." People sing small year wine, flower dance Tang Dynasty Spring. Grass color fans three paths, the scenery moving neighbors. May it be so long that every year the phenology is new. "What do you mean?" I was destined to be unofficial and willing to go home and be a reclusive little man. People drank the wine of the New Year in song, and the flowers swayed with the east wind, dancing the Spring of the Tang Dynasty. The green grass has paved the path outside the door, and the scenery is full of scenery, which also deeply touches my neighbors. I hope that this beautiful day can be long and long, and every year I watch winter go to spring, and the mountains and rivers are new.

　　This poem is not particularly well-known in the Tang Dynasty, where the masterpieces were repeated, but hàn lián] "People sing small wine, flowers dance Tang Dynasty Spring" is written magnificently and atmospherically, which makes people unforgettable. Why is this poem so vivid? Because it makes us suddenly feel the pulse of the Tang Dynasty. The so-called small age refers to the first day. Yuan Day drinking is very common, unusual is that the poet associates the "small year wine" of this ordinary family with the "Tang Spring" of thousands of households, so that people really feel that between flowers and wine, song and dance, the happiness of the small people and the spring of the Tang Dynasty, it is so harmonious and inseparable, the poet is not only singing for a Spring Festival, he is also playing songs for that reverie era in Chinese history.

　　So, is this "Yuan Ri Shu Huai" the highest realm of Tang Dynasty poets chanting the Spring Festival? Not really. There is also a poem, which contains both the night and the first day, contains the wandering thoughts of the wanderer and the dream of the youth's New Year, contains the poet's personal talent and the spirit of the times, and can be called the highest realm of the Tang Dynasty poet YongChun Festival, this poem is the Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wan's "Under the Sub-Northern Gushan Mountain". Shi Yun: "Outside the green mountains of the road, in front of the green water of the boat." The tide level is wide on both sides, and the wind is hanging in the sails. The sea is born in the night, and the river spring enters the old year. Where the township book reaches, it belongs to the side of Yan luoyang. ”

　　Wang Wan, who wrote this poem, was a talented son of Luoyang, but at this time he was wandering in front of Beigu Mountain, and like Meng Haoran and others mentioned earlier, he was also a wanderer at the end of the world. However, perhaps the spring color in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River is more beautiful, or perhaps Wang Wan's personal mood is higher, although he also spent the night in detention, but what he wrote was not "chaotic mountains and snowy nights, lonely candles and strangers", but "the sea day is born in the night, and the river spring enters the old year". What does it mean that "the sea is born in the dead night, and the river spring enters the old year"? It means that this poem is written at the intersection of the night and the first day, the night goes to the light, the winter ends and the spring returns, between the vast sea and the sky, a round of red sun spews out, it is born in the dark night, but it is about to dispel the darkness; on both sides of the mighty river, the spring is like the dark surge of spring water, it breaks into the old year, and it is about to replace the old year. It's a really pun, is it just about the sun and spring? Of course not, this is the heart of angry teenager, and it is even more about to come out of the Tang Dynasty! It is said that this joint poem was directly hung by Zhang Shuo, the prime minister of the dynasty and the leader of the literary world, on the government affairs hall of the prime minister's office as a model for the world's articles. This is the Spring Festival of Datang, and it is also the spring of the big country in our Chinese hearts.

　　(Source: Learning Times, February 4, 2022, 1st edition; Author: Mengman, Professor of the School of History and Culture, Minzu University of China; image from the Internet)