Meng Xia's most beautiful poems were written by Tao Yuanming and influenced countless poets in later generations, including Bai Juyi Luyou
"Mengxia" refers to the first month of summer, and also refers to the period between the Lixia Festival and the Mangzhong Festival, synonymous with the first summer, early summer, and early summer. And Mengxia is an ancient language, there was a pre-Qin era, the Zhou Dynasty Records said that the first month of summer was Mengxia, and Qu Yuan's "Leaving Sorrows" also has two records of Mengxia. "Looking forward to the short night of Mengxia, and the age of He Obscure." It's about the fact that summer nights are short, so why do I spend the night like a year. When Qu Yuan's sadness is the sadness of the country's displacement, the mental heavy blow, he can no longer feel the beauty of the seasonal changes, and he has a deep sense of responsibility for the country.
But as a season, summer will come as promised, and more people are in nature to adapt to the changes of the seasons and perceive beauty.
The reason why Tao Yuanming is admired by future generations like Qu Yuan is that his era is different from Qu Yuan's. He is a very personal rapids retreat.
In the last years of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the war intensified, the princes were in scuffles, Tao Yuanming grew up reading Confucian poetry, and at the age of 20, he began to travel, and according to his talent, he also obtained corresponding low- and middle-level positions. But this is not an era of being able to be promising, after seeing enough of the tricks of the official elite, he is different from most of the scholars and officials, they desperately seek to rise or make money, and Tao Yuanming, in his 40s, after doing Peng Zeling for three months, gave up his official position and returned to his hometown to live in seclusion.
Why did he do that?
First, as a local county order, it seems to have a lot of power, but Shangfeng's orders are mostly rude, disregarding local people's feelings, and levying and tyranny. Tao Yuanming was not accustomed to it.
Second, his parents died early, and his sister died of illness while he was Peng Zeling. Between life and death, he prefers to stay with his homeland.
Third, Da ze is both good for the world, poor is alone, in such an era of inaction, seclusion, according to his own heart to live, to give the family the most simple and tender long-term comfort, become his active choice.
Some people say that Tao Yuanming was a large landlord, which is a joke, or there are still more wilderness and idle fields in the late Eastern Jin Dynasty, but Tao Yuanming is not a landlord, because he personally participates in labor, and some poems also expose his hardships and poverty. Closer to the average farmer. Later, someone invited him to go out to the mountains to become an official, but he also refused. Because in his limited career, he is more willing to be close to the countryside that gives him life and feelings.
He is a person who is willing to pour love and enthusiasm into nature, and survives like ordinary farmers, and it is also because of him that there is a distinct and beautiful pastoral poetry in the history of Chinese poetry. At the heart of pastoral poetry is written for the most silent people closest to the land. I am with you, and I use my poetic pen to describe the life and beauty of these underclasses who are ignored by the edges. You exist, and I exist.
"Mengxia grass is long, and the trees around the house are sparse.
The birds are happy, and I love me.
Both ploughed and planted, and sometimes read my books.
The poor alley is deeply rutted, and it is quite a return to the old people's car.
Drink spring wine and pick vegetables from my garden.
Light rain came from the east, and the wind was good.
A general look at the "Biography of the King of Zhou" and a view of the "Mountain and Sea Map".
Pitching the final universe, why not be happy? "Eastern Jin Dynasty · Tao Qian, "Reading the Thirteen Songs of the Classics of Mountains and Seas,"
This is the pastoral life he depicts, certainly poor, but he is loyal to his own choice and makes poverty a beautiful life.
Mengxia grass grows, around the house, and the trees sway vigorously.
The birds rejoice, because there are trees to make nests, and I rejoice, and I love this poor and natural home and house.
In the early summer, the fields were also cultivated. The wheat that should be harvested is harvested, and the rice that should be planted is planted. The green leaves are crisp, just reading.
It's a remote place, there are no cars and horses, and I can imagine many people trying to find me, but they can't enter this roadless place.
But I drank my own wine and went to the garden to pick fresh vegetables.
Hear the thunder in the sky, it is a gentle breeze and rain after early summer, moisturizing the soil and allowing the crops to grow freely.
In the room of wind and rain, I quietly looked at the ancient "Biography of the King of Zhou", read the ancient book "Classic of Mountains and Seas", and explored the traces and wisdom of the ancients in my thinking, this happiness, only I know, how full.
Tao Yuanming is a wise man, but this wisdom is not used in the career of rising, but in a broader way to think about history and life, he reconciles with fate and heaven and earth, and writes poems with a strong sense of natural beauty.
Most of the ancients read books in pursuit of high-ranking officials, but Tao Yuanming's reading was more valuable for his own existence at this time. At a certain point in time and space, he relied on hard work to solve the problem of survival, to perfect his thoughts and wisdom.
Seemingly indisputable, it is actually another kind of enthusiasm.
So where is the beauty of this poem? Writing about the beauty of summer, of course, after busy and arduous farming, I wrote about the beauty of reading in this agricultural leisure season. Reading is not necessarily utilitarian, but it is more successful in one's own thoughts and life, and guides one's own life. Nourish optimism that conforms to the rhythm of life itself.
His presence also gave future generations of officials a reference to choose from, pastoral life, to be a peasant who was not necessarily the lowest, or who was able to attain greater spiritual freedom. There is not necessarily only one way in life, all roads, all are the achievements of the soul and this life.
"Meng Xia loves Wulu, and Tao Qian's words are not vain.
The flower bottle fell on the wine, and the wind case unfolded the book.
The neighbor's daughter steals new fruits, and the family servants wet small fish.
I don't know how the Emperor Fu Seven, Ikegami is happy. "Don · Bai Juyi's "Sending Emperor Fu SEVEN"
Bai Juyi was an official of the Tang Dynasty, he was born in a small bureaucratic family in decline, and spent a poor and beautiful childhood in the countryside of Fuli, where the landscape, grass and trees also brought a lifelong impact to Bai Juyi. It is Bai Juyi, who grew up in this kind of harsh environment, with excellent agricultural knowledge and hobbies of flowers and trees.
Bai Juyi was 28 years old and a scholar in the examination, as an official from a poor family, he thought of repaying the Tang Dynasty, but the top level of the Tang Dynasty was still the monopoly of the nobility, and the officialdom worshiped gold and was dark, because the newspaper requested the arrest of the murderer of the prime minister Wu Yuanheng, he offended the powerful nobles, from the court officials to Jiujiang. He really understood the rules of the bureaucracy. This is something that the honest and upright Bai Juyi cannot bear.
I think Bai Juyi must have thought about it several times, like Tao Yuanming, who returned to his hometown and did not become an official, but the Tang Dynasty at this time the population increased, there was no idle land in the four seas, not to mention the death of Bai Juyi's parents in his hometown, and it was impossible to have his land. And he has been transferred several times, using his deep feelings of rural residence to build a place, like Tao Yuanming, he built a small courtyard near Lushan Mountain, paying tribute to Tao Yuanming, and also pinning his homesickness.
Therefore, it is Tao Yuanming's beautiful idyllic poems that influenced Bai Juyi.
In the endless risks of his career, a pastoral life that looks like Tao Yuanming has always been accompanied by Bai Juyi, and every time he goes to a place, he does not create an official field there, or if he is in a rural place, he strives to govern local agriculture, and if it is a city, he builds a landscape garden.
And he himself is relatively incorruptible and simple. Although Tao Yuanming cannot have his own relatively constant home, his love for nature is mutually enlightening and continuous, and even sublimated.
In the summer, loving the little grass hall, Tao Yuanming said it was indeed true.
Flowers drifted haphazardly from the trees into the wine glasses, while Breeze flipped through the books on the case by himself.
Obviously, I heard the girls in the neighbor's house stealing plums and apricots from the trees, how could I rebuke them, this is their most lovely childhood, Jiatong caught a small fish by the river, and is celebrating to give me good news.
I don't know if you're interested in going up the pond with me to drink and fish this early summer?
In the busyness and pressure of being an official, Bai Juyi tried his best to get close to the countryside and nature, alleviated the pressure of his career, defused the turmoil of being an official everywhere, and concealed the influence of the government on him. Because he knew that he did not have the strength to realize his ambitions and influence the government.
It is this way of paying tribute to Tao Yuanming, but Bai Juyi ushered in a more comfortable old age. He recalled himself to the imperial court as a man of incorruptibility and dignity and gave him a residence and a residence. However, in his later years, Bai Juyi, in addition to operating flowers, became a famous garden expert in Beijing, he himself regarded money and life and death, donated most of the money to the dredging project, dismissed the singers in the family, and really practiced, the poor are alone, and the noble Confucian feelings of helping the world are reached.
Then this way of using pastoral pleasures to appease oneself and gain inner peace in the complex official arena has also become an effective way for many officials to decompress and pursue spiritual pursuits.
To tell the truth, winter and summer are not a good season for people, hot and bitter, but it is precisely the spirit of aesthetics, and willing to treat life in a simple and down-to-earth way, summer can show unique poetry.
Poetry itself also has an important role in resolving the stress and irritability in life, turning the dull and hot season into a poetic beauty, Tao Yuanming is indispensable, and the inheritor expands the aesthetic space.
"Floating clouds cover the pavilion at noon, and the day becomes Xiao Sen."
The rest of the cool into the corner, Xiao Sprinkled loose annoyance.
MengXia loves my house, and Hideki becomes a good yin.
The fruits of the multitude have been achieved, and the mountain birds will sing forever.
When the cane is also coming, it is time to forget about sexual immorality.
Look up at the rain and the sunset is low. Northern Song Dynasty · Zhang Lei's "East Garden"
Zhang Qian, a high-ranking official of the Northern Song Dynasty, also felt the beauty of summer on the basis of Tao Yuanming and Bai Juyi.
Similar to Tao Yuan's understanding of Juyi, his life was also poor, and in his later years he was idle for a long time, poor and sick, and even could not eat meat for a long time. But it is precisely this kind of poverty that he still wrote down the beauty of the summer countryside with a full mood.
Floating clouds obscured the midday sun, and during the day it was overcast and dark.
A gust of wind came, and the cool air blew into the corner of the room, sprinkling and blowing away the dry heat on the clothes.
This early summer weather, I love my home and room, the woods are shady, verdant and lovely.
The fruit on the tree has been formed and abundant, attracting countless mountain birds to stay.
This is my little garden, in the mountains and forests, I often come on crutches, and even like it here, rain or shine.
I watched as the sky was clear after the rain, and the sunset fell on the distant mountains, magnificent and beautiful.
In the difficult journey, the countryside became a sustenance, even if the output here was not enough for him to buy meat.
But a kind of tranquility and the splendor of the grass and trees and the magnificence of the distant mountains made him always adhere to the justice and morality in his heart, even if he fell from a high-ranking official to this.
"The steaming is not solved, and the rain is coming."
The magpie is shocked by the unstable tree, and the lights are dim and do not become flowers.
Jumping horses everywhere, idle water wheels.
Children's companion Weng Xi, gathered to talk about Sangma. Southern Song Dynasty · Lu You"MengXia Fang Thirsty Rain Suddenly Hot Rain Masterpiece"
This is Lu You's 76-year-old work, written in April Mengxia. He lived in seclusion in Shanyin, Zhejiang, what was life like, farming and reading. At the beginning of this year, there has been a long drought, the heat is difficult to understand, and suddenly, the rainstorm comes.
It's close to the coast, which is typhoons and sea clouds, quickly bringing downpours.
The trees shook, countless birds flew in panic in the wind and rain, unable to fall on the branches, and the wind and rain made the lights in the room flicker and dim, almost at any time.
But such an annoying wind and rain made the farmers hurry down to the fields, ride the rice horses to quickly plant rice seedlings, and every family stopped the water wheels that were irrigated from the river, which also needed manpower. At this time, a heavy rain, the young Zhuang Ding all poured into the field, Lu Youjia's son was no exception, the rest were the old man and the child, including Lu You, who was already unable to get out of the field, Le Zizi and the old farmer stood under the rainy eaves, talking about farming.
Some people say, what does this poem have to do with Tao Yuanming?
The relationship is big. When Lu You was young, he wanted to rely on his career to serve the country, but he was suppressed by Qin Ju and others, and his career was not obvious. He advocated resisting the Jin and recovering the land annexed by the Jin State. To this end, he took the initiative to do a lot of appeal work, and once went to the Sichuan shogunate to participate in military training. However, the Southern Song Dynasty was dim-witted, and there was no need to suppress such talents, and when Lu You was 29 years old, he thought of living in seclusion like Tao Yuanming.
At the age of 29, he once wrote ten poems, rhymed with Tao Yuanming's "Mengxia grass and trees are long, around the house and trees to support the sparse", expressing dissatisfaction with the imperial court and his own years. But at that time, he was still young, although he liked Tao Yuanming's life, but he had more important ideals, and he wanted to save the Southern Song Dynasty.
In his later years, Lu You was actually a high-ranking official in the imperial court, but he lived in seclusion in Shanyin, insisted on the most ordinary grass hall, let his children and grandchildren study while engaging in agricultural production, and told them that if they could not become officials, they would also support themselves.
In his later years, when Xin abandoned his illness to visit Lu You, he was surprised that his hut could only shelter from wind and rain, and planned to build a slightly luxurious cottage for Lu You, but Lu You refused. Throughout his life, he took the initiative to abide by poverty, practiced Tao Yuanming's life to the end, and stood by the side of the most ordinary peasants from his heart and actions. He was a great patriot and lover of the people.
Tao Yuanming's existence is a coordinate of ancient intellectuals and officials with backbones, and if they want to, they can live the hardest farmland life into a spiritual beauty, a grounded, but sublimated aesthetic.
Therefore, the most beautiful Mengxia pastoral poems, starting from Tao Yuanming, have influenced generations of upright poets, who abide by poverty, love nature, and are selfless and altruistic.
Summer, because of the presence of these poets, becomes particularly beautiful and vivid.
Hatsuyoshi Katsuyuki interprets the love and beauty in the poems for you. Image from the web.