In the Year of the Tiger, let's read some tiger poems. There is a poem in the Quan Tang Poems by Li Zheng's "Untitled":
Occasionally, because of the special category of madness, the plague is still inescapable.
Whoever dares to fight today, at that time, the voice was high.
I have laid down for foreign objects, and the king has taken advantage of the momentum.
This evening creek mountain against the bright moon, not long roar but into a howl.
The poem is from Li Zheng, 427 vol. of the Taiping Guangji, and is annotated by Xuanbaozhi, written by Zhang Yan of the Tang Dynasty. Ming Lu Kai's "Ancient and Modern Talking about the Sea" includes this article and is renamed "The Legend of the Human Tiger". Modern Japanese novelist Atsushi Shima (1909-1942, whose novels are mostly based on Chinese history and literary stories) adapted it from "The Tale of the Human Tiger" into "The Tale of the Mountain Moon", showing the image of intellectuals who were suppressed and alienated in Japanese society.
The Tang legend "Li Zheng" tells the story of Li Zheng, a disciple of Emperor Tang of Longxi, whose family was in Yuluo (present-day Lingbao, Henan), erudite and capable of literature, and was known as a famous scholar. He has a fierce temperament, has a high self-esteem, is not willing to be humble, and is not poor. Once, out of business, he went crazy and disappeared. The following year, Li Zheng's friend and his ancestral home of Chen Commandery (陳郡) was the county name of the Qin Dynasty, which governed a vast area of Henan and Anhui. Chen Jun's Yuan clan was a famous ancient scholar who was sent on an envoy to Lingnan, passing through the shangyu territory where hungry tigers eat people (shang yu youhu, also mentioned in Li Shangyin's poem "Shang Yu Xin Kai Lu"). Suddenly, a fierce tiger pounced out of the grass and was about to eat Yuan Qi, but when the tiger suddenly stopped, cut out a human voice and said, "It's so dangerous, I almost ate the deceased", Yuan Qi knew that this tiger was Li Zheng. It turned out that Li Zheng was running wildly and ran all the way into the mountains and forests, he felt that his body was full of strength, unconsciously all four limbs could run on the ground, he could easily leap over the rock cliffs, and then found that his body was full of hair, and he had turned into a tiger. Since then, Li Zheng has lived a life of eating people and eating animals and shouting proud of the mountains and forests. The tiger entrusted Yuan Qi to take care of his wife and children at home, recorded the articles it had not passed down, and recited this "untitled" poem, telling his own tortuous experience and mental journey.
Illustration 1: Cover of Jan Martel's novel The Fantastic Drift of the Young Pi
"Occasionally because of the madness of the disease into a special category, the disaster is still impossible to escape", the taiping Guangji records that Li Zheng's transformation of the original text is: "Suddenly the baby disease went crazy in the valley, and Russia took the left and right hands to take the ground, and the more fierce the heart, the more powerful it was." And depending on its humerus, there are hairs. "This passage is bizarre and very real, writing about the surprise and confusion of the newly incarnated alien, and writing about the speed and passion of the new power. This kind of change is like the unconsciousness of people turning into wolves in foreign werewolf movies; this kind of power is like the explosive power of the protagonist in Ang Lee's movie "Hulk" when he becomes a Hulk. The change of this category is like fate and cannot be avoided.
"Whoever dares to fight today, at that time, the voice traces were all high", after Li Zheng became a tiger, "he also saw those who walked in the Tao with their crowns, those who ran with their negatives, those who soared with wings, and those who galloped with wings, and those who wanted to get it." Even to the south of Han Yin, forced by hunger, it is worth a person to stretch his muscles, because he has exhausted his grip and chewing. Whether it is flying in the sky or running on the ground, whether it is man or beast, he will catch and chew it. He has accepted the call of the wilderness, adapted to the return of the wild, and become the king of the hundred beasts. His voice echoed in the mountains and forests, and his figure shrouded the deserted countryside.
"I am covered with foreign objects, and the king has taken advantage of the momentum", "轺" is the car taken by the special envoy of the imperial court, referring to the former friend Yuan Qi, who is already the inspector of the imperial history, riding in a luxurious car. After all, Li Zheng is incarnated by a human being, he still preserves a part of people's emotions, human nature, the original text said: "Not to miss his wife and children, to think of friends, to act directly to negative gods, to turn into a foreign beast in one day, to be shy to people, so it is not clear." Woohoo! I ascended to the throne in the same year as Jun, made a good relationship, and today I hold the Heavenly Constitution, and I shine on my relatives and friends, while I hide in Lin Xue, forever thank the people, jump to the heavens, cry on the ground, and destroy my body. Is it fate? ”
"This sunset brook mountain against the bright moon, not long roar but into a howl", "howl" refers to the howl of the beast, but also refers to the crying. Li Zheng enjoyed the pleasure of being a tiger, but also endured the loneliness and shame of human nature, in the mountains and forests under the bright moon, he howled and cried, telling his career of intertwined struggle between animal nature and human nature. Ang Lee's film "The Fantasy Drift of the Young Pi", based on Jan Martel's novel, uses a tiger named Richard Parker to express a metaphor for life, that is, deep inside everyone, there is a tiger that does not know when to roar.
Illustration 2: Ang Lee movie "The Fantasy Drift of the Young Pi"
In foreign novels and movies, man and tiger are separated, and at the end a "union" is seen. In the Tang legend "Li Zheng", man and tiger are one, but in the last sentence of the poem, we can see a "point". Probably the division and integration of human nature and wildness, this is the real course of human evolution.
In addition, there is also Yan Hanqian's "Shu Huai" in Tang poems:
Once a fairy, now a tiger, wandering on a cliff and full of wind and rain.
Even more will the spotted body be left behind, and the empty mountain will be as bitter as ever.
This poem comes from the Tang Niu monks and children's "Records of XuanWei", volume III, "Xiao Zhizhong", about a person wearing a crown, who claimed to be a celestial immortal, who was degraded to become a tiger spirit in the human world. The poem speaks of the pain of immortals and tigers who are inseparable.
Finally, we can imagine that Yuan Qi and his party spent the rest of their lives carrying Li Zheng's instructions forward. They looked back and saw a colorful tiger roaring at the remnant moon, and after a few sounds, it jumped into the dense grass and disappeared. Although the tiger has disappeared, its tiger tracks are still on the ground, and its voice still echoes in the mountains.
Illustration 3: Illustration of Jan Martel's novel The Fantastic Drift of the Young Pi
Text/Contributing Writer Chen Xiaobin