Soon after the summer was busy, the village began to sell watermelons.
"The watermelon is down! Who wants watermelon? Big, sweet watermelon sent a grin—"
The shouting is loud so that the people in the house can hear it and be attracted to it. "Down", this is the local vernacular, where the fruits, melons and vegetables are fresh in season, we say "down", as if coming down from the river of time. The "big" and "sweet" characters bite very hard, and the tail notes of "up" and "grin" drag long.
In the summer, the watermelon reaches the flood season, which is the peak season. Every day there are watermelon sellers, from early morning to afternoon, the shouting and selling are endless. There are bicycles sold with two baskets, some pull rack cars to sell, and some use bungee pulls to sell, electric tricycles are only available later.
As soon as someone asked, the melon seller stopped the car, and the four neighbors gathered around. Those who buy melons, those who buy melons, men, women and children, laughing and shouting around the melon cart, patting and picking. The sellers all advertised that it was a big lily watermelon, and the buyer put the melon in his palm, clapped it close to his ear, and asked: "Is it really a big lily melon?" The seller replied emphatically, "Why not!" People around them also murmured, the melon of Dali is good, the melon of Dali is good.
The melon sellers will lay some thatch in the basket and cover the top with a layer. It was almost noon, and the thatch was sunburned and fragrant. Round watermelons, one by one, lying under the grass, turquoise and turquoise.
- "Watermelon Down" three books
I saw a watermelon garden
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Watermelon Garden
(Song) Fan Chengda
Bi Man Ling Frost lies in soft sand, and watermelon is eaten everywhere for many years.
The shape is as light as water, and it cannot be exaggerated.
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I have not seen a watermelon garden with my own eyes. When I was a child, I ate Da Li watermelon every year and asked where Da Li was, and my father said that it was on the Yellow River beach. I really envy the people there, how beautiful it should be to grow watermelons. When my father was a teenager, he sold melons on the set, and the melon garden was also on the beach, and his father went to the garden at dawn to pack a cart of melons, and the old man who saw the garden would always personally go to the field to pick a top melon and pick it, and his father squatted on the ground to eat breakfast, saying that he would not be hungry or thirsty for ten miles.
It seems that watermelons grow on sand. Reading Lu Xun's "Hometown" once again confirmed my childhood impression, and the picture in literature was more beautiful and clearer: "In the deep blue sky hangs a golden full moon, and below the sandy ground by the sea, there are endless turquoise watermelons." "This is a watermelon garden by the sea, and the teenager standing under the moon with a steel fork in his hand and a silver ring on his neck is the indelible leaping earth in Lu Xun's memory."
In the poem "Watermelon Garden", Fan Chengda's mood is a bit complicated. There is a line next to the poem's title: "The taste is light and liquid, and it is planted in the north of This Yan, and it is planted in present-day Henan." "Originally a watermelon planted in northern Yan, now Henan is everywhere, and the poet seems to have some feelings." Northern Yan is the origin of the Jurchen people, this poem was written on the way of Fan Chengda's envoy to the Jin Dynasty, passing through Kaifeng, which was once the former capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, witnessing the watermelon garden, can you not have a sense of the past and the present, the thoughts of the homeland?
"Bi Man Ling Frost Lying Soft Sand", the vines of watermelon stalks, green and oily are very beautiful, the watermelons that bear fruit, here and one, lie on the soft sand. This is what the poet saw in the watermelon garden, about past the autumn, the northern night has fallen frost, so there is a "frost" saying.
"Over the years, watermelon has been eaten everywhere", which shows that watermelon is widely planted and eaten everywhere, and it seems to be a bit tired of eating. Three or four sentences say: "The shape of the mold is as light as water, and the alfalfa is not exaggerated", that is, the watermelon is not very good-looking, the taste is also light, and the grapes and alfalfa cannot be compared. Grapes and alfalfa were introduced to the Central Plains from the Western Regions during the Western Han Dynasty, and watermelons were originally yanbei species, the same as exotic objects, and now there are them everywhere in The Han Dynasty, Fan Chengda's mood can be imagined. Maybe it's not that watermelon tastes bad, but it looks too good, and it makes people sad to see it, and it is not a taste in people's hearts to eat.
Southern Song Dynasty Anon. "Liuyuan Summer Map"
Cut the melon, or kill the melon?
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"Watermelon Chant"
(Song) Wen Tianxiang
Pulling out the golden saber, he cut through the cangyu bottle.
A thousand red cherries, a clump of citrine.
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The poet Wen Tianxiang left an image of righteousness and loyalty to future generations, but in ordinary life, what kind of person was he? And we get a glimpse of his daily life from eating watermelon tubes.
"Watermelon Yin" has two songs, one writes cutting melons, and the other writes eating melons. "Cut melon" is of course the "civilized people" saying, our hometown used to say "kill melon", maybe now they are also changed to "cut melon", after all, the children in the village also speak Mandarin at home.
Not barbaric or civilized considerations, language evolved in the soil of life, but learned in the environment, which would have been beyond reproach and helpless. But let's make a slight comparison in terms of literal meaning and rhetoric: taking human or animal lives is "killing", decisive, powerful, and imposing, such as killing pigs; Use a knife to "cut" from top to bottom, rubbing, approaching, pulling, such as cutting vegetables. A large watermelon is placed on the table, do you say to kill it with a knife, or to cut it with a knife? I think at least the first knife down is to kill.
"A meaning of a word is a usage, because that's what people learn when a word is first incorporated into language." Wittgenstein said this in His Last Philosophical Notes. If we experience it with our hearts, we can find that the words used in the vernacular vernacular language, and the way in which they are used, are manifestations of the incorporation of human nature or the state of mind into language. Conversely, with the help of a return to the truth, we may be able to return to the homeland of the soul.
Looking at Wen Tianxiang again, the words he used were more fierce, and the killing was too weak, and he used a "axe". The first sentence, "Pull out the golden sabre", can be described as menacing, "cut through the jade bottle", "axe" originally means a big hoe, and by extension, with a knife and an axe. Pull the golden saber from your waist and slash it with one knife! "Cangyu bottle", this metaphor seems to be a small watermelon, probably the kind of dark green, long oval melon, is it the "black beauty" of Guangdong?
After the cut, look: "A thousand red cherries, a clump of citrine." A thousand red cherries, are they watermelon seeds? This sentence is very puzzling, check the interpretation of others, there is said that watermelon juice splashed like red cherries, which is even more bizarre, killing melons has never seen such a thing. A clump of citrine, should mean that the melon is crystal yellow, right? Huang Yong watermelon, I originally thought it was a new variety cultivated by high technology, it seems to have existed in ancient times.
The second part of the "Watermelon Yin" writes about eating melons, "The next swallow removes the fireworks, and the teeth make ice and snow sounds." Chang'an Qingfu said Shao Ping, striving to be the secretary of state of the Han Dynasty. "After eating the first bite, I suddenly felt that my body and mind were cool, and the fireworks were suddenly removed, which was really painful." Watermelons should have been frozen in well water, and the melons are brittle and chewing snow like chewing ice.
Eating it again, like the literati of all generations, Wen Tianxiang also thought of Shao Ping, the most famous allusion to planting melons in history. When Shao Ping qin attacked the Marquis of Dongling, he ate thousands of households, and after the death of Qin, he was reduced to cloth. Zhang Qian traveled to the western region, brought back watermelon seeds, Shao Ping liked to cultivate, so he planted melons outside the East Qingmen gate of Chang'an City, melon beauty, known as "Tanglin melon" in the world.
Here, Wen Tianxiang satirizes Chang'an Qingfu's lust for glory, but does not know or does not want to know the impermanence of honor and humiliation. The allusions of the Marquis of Dongling have often been discussed by poets of all generations, for example, Tao Yuanming's "Twenty Songs of Drinking" has a sentence: "There is no definite place in decline and glory, and they are more common to each other." Shao Sheng melon in the field, rather like Tanglin shi! Li Bai also said in the "Fifty-Nine Songs of Ancient Winds": "Qingmen melon growers, the marquis of Dongling in the old days." So the rich are like this, and the camp asks for nothing. ”
The village where Shaoping planted melons was later renamed "Shaopingdian Village", and the name of the village has been used for more than 2,200 years. This village is also in Guanzhong, not far from Dali County, and the watermelon we ate when we were young may be the descendants of Tanglin melon.
Qi Baishi "Watermelon Grasshopper"
A small scene of summer sketching
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"Tianjing Sand Summer"
(Yuan) Bai Pu
Clouds collect rain over waves,
Building high water cold melon sweet,
Green trees drape over the eaves.
Gauze kitchen vine,
Jade Man Luo Fan Light Silk.
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Yuanqu writer Bai Pu's "Tianjing Sand" suite is divided into four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. This little order, like a white depiction of life, will be hot and restless summer, writing a cool and idyllic summer.
The poet specifically chooses after the rain, perhaps a summer thunderstorm, with the wind and clouds, the thunder rumbling, and the heavy rain. "Clouds collect rain over the waves", there is no thunder and rain feet, after the noise, there is a moment of tranquility in the air, even the water only sees the waves, not the rapids.
At this time, he sat on a tall building and brought the heavy plum floating melon to taste. "The water in the building is cold and sweet", the water should be well water, and the watermelon will be sweeter after freezing in the well water for a while. The building is high, the water is cold, the melon is sweet, and just looking at these few words is enough to get rid of the heat.
After the heavy rain, there is no breeze. "Green trees hanging over the eaves", the shade of the trees is low, the eaves are lonely, and the summer naps often have this silence, the noisier the cicadas, the quieter the shade.
"Gauze kitchen vine, jade luo fan light silk", jade people are also static, lying behind the gauze cabinet, on the cool mat, dressed in a filament silk coat, holding a fan, plain and lazy, it seems that even the fan forgot to shake.
In the whole small scene, watermelon is the only bright color, but also the only experience that appeals to the sense of taste, the sweetness of watermelon, all over the summer.
Written/Three Books
Editor/Zhang Jin Li Yang
Proofreading/Lucy