When the sun reaches 45 degrees of ecliptic longitude, the Lixia solar term arrives, which is the seventh of the twenty-four solar terms and the first of summer. "The bucket refers to the southeast, the maintenance is Lixia, and all things have grown up here, so the name Lixia is also." "Standing, building the beginning, summer, false also, things up to this time are false big also."
This year's May 5 is the beginning of summer, but the astronomical time, the earth biological time, and the human time are not strictly consistent. Chinese summer is often spent in June, July and August. In climatology, the Chinese scholar Zhang Baokun combined phenological phenomena with agricultural production and proposed a seasonal method of the weather temperature method in 1934. The average temperature of the weather (five days) is steadily reduced below 10 °C as the beginning of winter, and the stable rise above 22 °C is the beginning of summer; when the average temperature of the weather rises steadily from below 10 °C to 10 °C, it begins as spring; and when the average temperature of the weather drops steadily from above 22 °C to below 22 °C, it begins as autumn.
The temperature difference between the north and south of the mainland during the summer season is large, whether it is spring or summer, the word "standing" may show a kind of hesitation and wandering, and the spring is warm and cold, and every "summer" season we experience is not the same. This spring is early and the climate is hot, several heavy rains in the south with a rather hot summer atmosphere have fallen, and the temperature in many areas in the north has also risen to thirty degrees, and even feel a little "hot and hot".
Lixia Special Offering: Peony, Peony
In the summer, plum blossoms, magnolias, cherry blossoms, peach blossoms, plum blossoms, cloves, begonias have disappeared, the huge flowers of the towering paulownia trees in the north fall very heavily, the gold and silver honeysuckle is loved by its interesting flowers and dark fragrances that turn from white to yellow, and the moon season suitable for the growth of the north begins to accumulate, and they will bloom brilliantly throughout the summer, making every ordinary street in the north dreamy.
Honeysuckle honeysuckle
There are also peonies and peonies that belong exclusively to the turn of spring and summer. Because of the beautiful and large flowers, peony medicine has become a "special offer in early summer", and all the flower shops on the street are filled with large barrels of peony flower buds, which do not have a long flowering period and will bloom vigorously soon after waking up, but also quickly wither in the next few days. Peony, as a woody plant, has long been considered to have proud bones because of its widely praised story of being degraded in Luoyang, and the proud bones of peonies are more or less reflected in the broken vase, which will always die magnificently soon, and its thrilling huge flowers will quickly wither.
Of course, there are also some new varieties of flowers that are concerned every year, and this year's oil painting peony and butterfly peony are hot flower materials, and the flowers of these two flowers have metallic luster. Oil painting peony, also known as "White Phoenix Dan" and "Oil Peony", is a common single-petal peony variety, which was originally a cash crop specially designed for oil pressing. When it opens, it is as big as a palm, the petals are irregularly curled, there is a Tang style and ancient charm, a unique style, and it is inevitable that people will sigh that it is lonely and open and then sent to press oil.
Oil painting peony
Shandong terroir is suitable for peony growth, and there are several large cities and counties rich in peonies, such as Heze (Ancient Caozhou), etc., and there are many varieties of peonies. This also gives Pu Songling, a native of Shandong, a rich creative inspiration, and in his "Liaozhai Zhiyi", the figure of peony is frequently seen, and the two articles of "Xiangyu" and "Ge Towel" are twists and turns, full of tragic implications. The beauty of peony flowers is always coveted, and the love of peony is also its nature. For example, in "Xiangyu", the separation of Shusheng and Xiangyu begins with "there is the Jimo Lan clan, entering the palace to visit, seeing white peony, yuezhi, digging and moving paths." ...... After a few days, Wen Lan moved the flowers to his home, and the day withered. Shusheng wanted to save Xiangyu and "plotted to transplant his family", and Xiangyu said to himself: "Concubines are weak and cannot be revived." And the material life has its own fixed place, the concubine originally did not intend to give birth to the monarch's family, contrary to the promotion of longevity. ”
Spring and Summer Tasting: The Summer of Cultural Significance
Enter into the discussion of the cultural significance of "Xia", which means "great and powerful" in both Qiang and Tibetan.
Chinese of the Spring and Autumn Period said, "Xia, Daiya." Therefore, the great country is known as Xia. "Sayonara": "Xia, the Chinese people also." "Xia borrowed and enriched its meaning step by step from a time phenological word, so that it became the name of the country and culture. China has a great ceremony, so it is called Xia; there is the beauty of the clothing chapter, which is called Hua. Xia also has many other names. In "Erya", Xia is "Zhu Ming", "Long Win", "Nine Summers", "Haotian" and so on. The Book of Han and Li Lezhi says: "Zhu Ming flourished and grew, and applied to all things."
Yu Shicun said: The big house is also called Xia, and the high-rise building is the summer house: "Did you not know that Xia Zhi is a hill, or the two east gates can be Wu?" In ancient China, Dashui was also called Xia; Hanshui was once called Xiashui, and Hankou was called Xiakou. Qu Yuan's poem: "Go to your hometown and go far away, and obey Jiang Xia to exile." ”
In the "Book of Time", Yu Shicun wrote: The ancestors also had a sense of cherishing spring when the summer came, so they would prepare wine and food for fun on the summer day, as if sending people away, called RaoChun. Wu Rongting's poem "Li Xia" says: "There is no choice but to go to spring, and return the cherry shoots to spring." ”
It is also the right thing to try new and early in the summer. Broad beans, amaranth and cucumber are "three fresh in the ground"; cherries, loquat and apricots are "three fresh in the tree"; sea geezer, puffer fish and yellow fish are "three fresh in water". There is also "LiXia has to eat plums, which can make the color beautiful", and Lixia eats mulberries, cherries and other food customs. In the Suzhou area, there is a saying of "Lixia sees three new", which are cherries, green plums and wheat for ancestor worship. There are also eating "Lixia rice", "Lixia dogs", "Lixia eggs", drinking "Lixia tea", and so on, such as "Lixia porridge": "A bowl of Lixia porridge, lifelong worry." There is also the custom of weighing in the summer. People hung a large wooden scale at the entrance of the village or in the gate, and a stool was hung from the scale hook, and everyone took turns to sit on the stool and weigh it. The scale man weighs flowers on the one hand and speaks auspicious words on the other. He said that the old man would say, "Weigh eighty-seven, live to ninety-one." Cai Yun has a poem: "The wind opens the embroidery pavilion and yang Luoyi, which is considered to be a swing play but not." For the hanging amount of the official scale, evaluate the swallow thin and ring fat. ”
The Song Dynasty Poet Yang Wanli has a poem: "The imperial city stops at noon on June, and the people of the city are like cooking sweat like rain." Selling ice came through the water, and pedestrians did not eat their hearts and eyes. There were officials in charge of ice affairs in the Ming and Qing imperial palaces, called "Lingren", who were in charge of cutting ice, hiding ice, and using ice. The "Records of the Yanjing Dynasty" records: "At that time, the four major ice food products, one was sour plum soup, the second was watermelon juice, the third was almond tofu, and the fourth was a mixed plate, all of which were iced." ”
The Ming Dynasty painting "Xia Jing Lang Tu" depicts a scene of drinking summer drinks, carved jade in the back garden of the imperial palace, and a disguised cold drink doctor pouring ice water drinks for a small Shami. From the dragon carving of the teapot, it can be seen that this is not an ordinary person's home, or the Ming Dynasty imperial painter painted the emperor's imperial appearance with a certain scene, like the current "role play", the emperor, the queen concubine, the princess, the little prince are all actors.
Li Xia waited for "grasshoppers singing": all things are beautiful
The phenology of Lixia is, one waits for the grasshopper to sing, the second waits for the earthworm to come out, and the third waits for the king to be born. That is to say, in this festival, you can first hear the sound of grasshoppers in the field, then you can see earthworms digging the soil on the ground, and then the vines of the king melon begin to climb and grow rapidly, a derivative of life, and the three weather should all point to the animals and plants in the field, which also shows the importance of the summer season in agriculture.
The beginning of the lixia day enters the first season of the three summers - "the sound of grasshoppers". Zhu You once wrote when he interpreted the Yi zhou Shu Shi Xun: "Grasshoppers, the genus of frogs. Frogs start in February. The shape of the summer and the song is small, its color is brown and black, and it is easy to gather shallow water and sing. And the "Seventy-two Waiting Solutions to the Moon Order" says: "Grasshoppers, small insects, live in the soil of the good night, what people call the earth dog is also, a caddismot, a stone rat, a crab, the differences between the dialects of various regions."
Xu Lijing, the author of "Twenty-Four Solar Terms and Seventy-Two Seasons", believes that whether the grasshopper is a frog or a small insect, in short, it is a cave-dwelling animal with heavy yin qi, and in the summer season, it also begins to run out of the hole, active next to the rice field and the pond, which can eat small creatures in the water, but also cool under the rice grass, and can also look up and swallow the insects flying in the field, and sing contentedly after eating. Even the humble little grasshoppers live so comfortably and comfortably, which shows how suitable the summer season is for the growth of all things. ”
Lixia is generally in the fourth month of the lunar calendar (today is the fifth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar), which is a very important festival, so it is called "April Festival", such as the interpretation of the "Seventy-two Waiting Solutions to the Moon Order": "Lixia, April Festival." Standing character interpretation see spring. Summer, fake also. Things are false at this time. "So-called, everything begins to grow in a warm pattern.
"On the day of Mengxia, the heavens and the earth begin to make love, and all things are shown together." At this time, the summer harvest crops enter the late stage of growth, the winter wheat is flowered and grouted, the rapeseed is close to maturity, and the summer harvest crop year is basically fixed, so the agricultural proverb has the saying of "standing summer and looking at summer". The management of rice planting and other spring-sown crops has also entered a busy season. Therefore, the agrarian society attaches great importance to the summer festival. During the Zhou Dynasty, on the day of the establishment of the summer, the emperor personally led hundreds of officials from the wen and military forces to the outskirts to "welcome the summer", and instructed Situ and other officials to go to various places to encourage the peasants to pay close attention to farming.
Look at the summer season from the "Moon Order Map" book
Ancient China, whether official or non-governmental, attached great importance to the spread of chronological seasons, especially the moon, stars, seasonal temperatures, changes in animals and plants according to the order of the twelve months of the lunar calendar, and the most far-reaching influence of the monthly orders for arranging production and festivals according to phenological changes.
The earliest document to record the moon order may be written in the Spring and Autumn Period to record the Xia Dynasty calendar "Xia Xiaozheng", many of the existing ancient works of art are related to the depiction of a single year of the season chart, such as the New Year's Day "Year Dynasty Chart", "Three Sheep Kaitai Chart", Lichun "Spring Bull Chart", etc., although these charts have a close connection with the Moon Order Chart, but the real and complete depiction of the December Festival Of the Moon Chart is still not much, the most widely circulated Moon Chart is mainly from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the famous Ming Wu Bin's "Spring Bull Chart", etc. Although these charts are closely related to the Moon Order Chart, the truly complete depiction of the December Festival is still not much, and the most widely circulated Moon Order Chart is mainly from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the famous Ming Wu Bin's "Spring Bull Chart". Nian Hua Jisheng" and the "Moon Order Map" of the Qing Court Courtyard now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. It is generally a set of twelve paintings, focusing on the typical seasonal customs of each month.
The Qing court's "Moon Ling Map" is delicate and realistic, and due to the arrival of Western missionaries in China during the Kang Yongqian period, the concave and convex chiaroscuro and perspective relationships in the Western painting method also penetrated into Qing Dynasty paintings.
The April volume of the Qing Court Ben's "Moon Order Map" depicts the scene of trees gradually growing, a hundred flowers blooming, and people holding umbrellas and toppings in the continuous rain, admiring the flowers, and entertaining. In the summer, the "late spring" in the north is also green and fat, red and thin, only the artificially cultivated peonies are still in bloom, and the monthly season is being accumulated. The cluster of peony flowers depicted in the fourth volume of the "Moon Ling Tu" is realistic, while the magnolia tree with white flowers is a recreation of the painter's filling picture, the magnolia tree in the north blooms very early, and the spring cold material is in full bloom, and by the fourth month of the lunar calendar, it has completely fallen, leaving only lush.
The Academy draws the April axis of the December Order
Lunar May, also known as midsummer. In the old days, farmers used calamus leaves and mugwort leaves to hang at the head of the door to drive away evil spirits, because May was called PuYue. The Erya Shi Tian says, "May is Gao." Hao Yixing yishu explained, "Gao, tonggaoye." The high one is also born in may, and the desire is not up, and everything is strong. Therefore, May is also called Gao Yue. The May volume of the Moon Order Chart depicts the folk activities of dragon boat racing. Under the painter's pen, wanzhu flew in unison, making a lot of noise, and the tense and enthusiastic competition attracted the people on both sides of the strait to watch by the fence.
The Academy draws the May axis of the December Order
The painting of the Ming Dynasty "Moon Ling Map" collected by the Palace Museum is more elegant and upright, dyeing flowers and trees with ink-colored dots, and the pictured scene is an explanation of the twenty-four solar terms and seventy-two weather.
For example, in the "Lixia" season, the "Lixia Yi waiting for the grasshopper" in the book is written as: "The grasshopper is not a thing, and there are two covers: the name of the worm, the name of the grasshopper." The two things are obvious. Cai Shiyun: Scorpion, scorpion also; grasshopper, shrimp toad also, that is, today eat frog also. It is the month, and the yin qi begins to move underneath, so it should be waiting for the sound. "Through the identification and examination of the names and examinations of animals that chirp in the summer season, the characteristics of this phenology are pointed out. In the following figure, we select the Presentation of the Ming Dynasty's "Moon Order Map" against the Second and Third Summer Festivals, from which the viewer can peek into one or two.
Ming Dynasty album "Moon LingTu"