When is the moon falling? ——Zhang Ji's "Fengqiao Night Berth" is confused

Author: Liu Yuyun (PhD student, School of Liberal Arts, Shanxi University, teacher of School of Foreign Chinese)

Zhang Ji's "Fengqiao Night Berth" is well-known, and now the passage is all written: "The moon is falling and the frost is full of frost, and the Jiangfeng fishing fire is sad and sleeping." Hanshan Temple outside Gusu City, midnight bell to the passenger ship. "The same is true of the current primary school Chinese textbooks and popular reading materials. Although readers praise the poem, few people have thought deeply about the problems that exist in it. Such as: First, the "moonset" has no time, how to use the surrounding looking to give it an accurate time positioning? Second, there is no maple tree on the banks of the Suzhou River, where did the poet come from the chant of "Jiang Feng"? Third, since it is the night of the "moonset", how can we identify the tree species by the river? 4. Where is the "sorrow"? Why should the poet sleep in "sorrow"? These many problems directly affect the correct understanding of poetry. In particular, "the moon is falling", if it cannot be accurately positioned, it will lead to the confusion of the narrative logic of the whole poem and the contradiction between things.

Regarding the time of the "moonset crow", there are two main opinions, one is that it is "midnight", which echoes the last sentence "midnight bell", such as Shi Jianyun: "Because of the cold, the crows cannot sleep, so they are still crying." The moon has set in the middle of the night, presumably always winding in late autumn or early winter. Liu Xuekaiyun: "The title is 'Night Berth', in fact, only the scenery and feelings at the time of 'midnight' are written. The first sentence of the poem writes three scenes that are closely related at midnight: the moon is setting, the crowing, and the frost is full of sky. (Commentary on selected poems of Tang) Another view should refer to the dawn of the heavens, such as the fourteen cirrus clouds of Yuan Yang Shihong's "Tang Yin": "The speaker does not understand the poet's living language, but thinks that it is the middle of the night, so he says many songs." As everyone knows, the first sentence 'the moon is falling and the sky is full of frost', but after the dawn, is it really midnight? Huang Sheng of the Qing Dynasty also said: "From the middle of the night to the dawn, the bell rings too early, stirring people's souls and ears." However, the first words of the poem will be known, and the end of the night will be written in the middle of the night, which is a very reasonable narrative, so Huang Sheng also believes that this is a "flashback of the chapter law", "this has been known to write about the situation of last night" ("Three Kinds of Tang Poetry Commentary").

In fact, both views are wrong. If it is the middle of the night, the second sentence mentions "River Maple", how can the night be dark and can identify the tree species by the river? Moreover, "wu cry" is mostly at dusk or when foraging at dawn, such as Ming Beiqiong's poem: "Wind forest sunset and wu controversy" ("Seongnam Absolute Sentence"), Song Song Ku poetry: "Chengque Shu Wu Cry" ("Sending Jing Hai Tall and Thin"). Although there is a song "Dark Night Cry" in Gule Province, it is an abnormal state after all, and "Midnight" is not the time of "Dark Cry". The Old Book of Tang and Music Chronicles says: "'Cry of the Dark Night", composed by Wang Yiqing of Song Linchuan. In the seventeenth year of Yuan Jia, The King of Pengcheng, Yikang, yu Yuzhang, was in Jiangzhou when he was in Yiqing, and when he went to the town, he wept when he saw him, and was strange to the emperor, and he returned the house and was afraid. The concubine heard the crow at night, and clasped the jai Ge Yun: 'Tomorrow there should be a pardon.' His year is more southern Yanzhou Thorn History, composing this song. "It is precisely because U usually does not cry at night, so night crying will be considered a kind of omen." However, if the "moonset cry" is positioned at dawn, although it is no problem from a common sense point of view, but considering the poem as a whole, there is a narrative contradiction: the first sentence is dawn, the second sentence goes to bed, and the third or fourth sentence is half a night, this chaotic narrative state does not make sense in any case. Although Huang Sheng believes that this is a flashback writing, it is really not in line with the hurried state of mind of people who start early at dawn. King Duan of the Qing Dynasty decided that when the first sentence was written in Pingming, he also deeply felt that its "law was too sparse", so he adjusted its order and rewrote the poem as follows: "The ship outside the city of Gusu, the fishing fire of Jiangfeng is sleeping." In the middle of the night, the bells sounded at Hanshan Temple, and the moon set and the sky was full of frost. ("Records of heavy papers", vol. IX) This kind of rewriting, the narrative logic is smooth, but the poetry is much less.

The author believes that the most reasonable time positioning of "moonset crying" should be dusk. This can be proved not only by the natural phenomenon of "noisy crows in the forest", but also from the second sentence. The second sentence of this book is "Jiangfeng Fishing Fire", if you restore the situation of things, you will find the problem. Because of the river outside Suzhou, there is no maple tree at all! Although most of the versions seen today, including the Tang Dynasty Gao Zhongwu's Zhongxing Jian Qi Ji, are written as "JiangFeng Fishing Fire", after all, they are contrary to the thing itself. Fortunately, another version was found in the old Song dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Gong Mingzhi's "Zhongwu Jiwen", Wu Zeng's "Records of Being Able to Change the Zhai Manga", Hu Zai's "YuYin Cong", etc., recorded this poem "Jiang Feng" as "Jiang village". In the Hanshan Temple, yu Fan wrote a poem inscription, there are eight lines of appendix, qiyun: "Tang Zhangji's poem "Fengqiao Night Berth" is popular among the population, and the only sentence 'Jiangfeng Fishing Fire' is quite suspicious. Song Gongming's "Zhongwu Jiwen" is "Jiangcun Fishing Fire", and the Song people's old book Ke Baoye. There are also seven clouds attached: "Fortunately, there is "Zhongwu Jiwen", and the word Qianjin is 'Jiangcun'. On the side of the stele there is an inscription by Inspector Chen Kuilong of Jiangsu, affirming Yu Yuzhi's statement: "The Zhongwu Jiwen contains this poem 'Jiangcun Fishing Fire', an old book of the Song people, which is enough to base it. Qu Yuan Taishi wrote a poem to prove it, and now this poem will be fixed. But why does Yu Fan say that "the four words 'Jiangfeng Fishing Fire' are quite suspicious", while the word "village" is "a thousand gold words"? Due to the limited number of inscriptions on the stele, Yu Shi could not expand the explanation. If you think about it carefully, you will find that the word "village" can not only dispel the doubts at the beginning of this article, but also open up the logical obstacles of the entire poem. "Jiangcun" is a village on the riverside, and "fishing fire" is the light on a fishing boat. At dusk in Cangshan Mountain, it is when the lights of the house are lit. The twinkling candles in "Gangchon" and the lights on the fishing boats are telling the story of family reunion, while the wandering wanderer feels lonely and cold at this time. "The most severed intestine is after dusk", the heart of sijia makes the poet's eyes of "Jiangcun" and "fishing fire", have become constantly cutting new sorrows. The so-called "sleep on sorrow" refers to sleeping in the new sorrow of "Jiangcun" and "fishing fire". The life rules of "jiangcun lights are sparse" and "fishing fires are dusk" at dusk, and the time of the first sentence of "the moon sets and cries" is positioned at dusk. At dusk, the sun sets, the moon has not yet risen, the noise of the crow disturbs the guest's heart, the cold of the autumn night gradually hits, and the lights of the reunion of the family in the river village and the fishing boat have caused the guests to feel infinite nostalgia, making it sleepless all night, and the midnight bell has increased the sadness of the guest's heart. The narrative of the poem is orderly, and there is no such thing as the disadvantage of "the law is too loose".

Looking at the first sentence, can "moonset" be used as a poetic expression of dusk? The answer is yes. From the physical point of view, "moonfall" is not an accurate concept of time, in January, the time of the moonset changes at any time, and dusk can also have "moonset". Yuan Sadula's "The Second King's Lantern Sunset View of Mei": "The moon in the West Building has fallen at dusk"; Qing Qian Chengzhi's "Passing Through the Luocha": "At dusk the moon falls and the geese fly"; Qing Chen Shixiang's "Youhui": "Winding moon falls in the dusk courtyard" and so on can testify. Therefore, "Jiangcun" and "Moonfall Cry" jointly determined that the time at which the poem begins refers to "dusk", so that the problems of the previous article can be solved one by one.

The restored poems also raise additional questions for us. First, why not use "sunset" directly? Second, why was "Jiang Cun" changed to "Jiang Feng", and the latter became almost the only choice? First of all, because whether it is "moon fall" or "jiangfeng", it has a more intense poetry. The unique gentleness and mystery of moonlight makes itself have excellent aesthetic value. Especially in nostalgic poems, the moon image has a unique function of evoking nostalgia. For example, Zhang Yi's "Sending Friends": "Look at the moon tonight together, be a stranger alone"; Bai Juyi's "Looking at the Moon with Feeling": "Looking at the bright moon together should weep, and the five places of nostalgia in one night are the same.". Thus, in this poem, "moonfall" has a stronger emotional projection than "sunset".

The difference between "Jiangcun" and "Jiangfeng" is that the former is a poetic realm created by the author, while the latter is a poetic realm recreated by the reader after detaching from the facts themselves. The color and connotation carried by the word "maple" transcend the word "village" and win in the choice of history. The so-called poetic reconstruction usually occurs after classical poetry has left the creative environment. In the process of dissemination in pure text form, the aesthetic practice of later generations of readers gradually replaces the author's own intentions, aspirations, and feelings, and intervenes in the revision of poetry and re-creation. The change of "Jiangcun" to "Jiangfeng" belongs to this. The origin of the word "feng" is to inherit the traditional imagery of autumn thought, since Qu Yuan's "there is a maple on the water of the ZhanzhanJiang River, and the eyes are extremely sad to the spring heart", "feng" and "jiang" are combined to graft the expression of melancholy to continue to inherit and carry forward, such as Zhang Ruoxuan's "Spring River Flower Moon Night" in "Qingfeng Pushang is not overwhelmed with sorrow", the sense of beauty and mourning is brought to the extreme. In addition, both maple leaves and rivers have hints about time, the former comes from the biological characteristics of free green and red, and the latter derives from the deep-rooted life metaphor of "the deceased like Si"; On the other hand, "feng" is also often associated with "frost", such as Tang Liu Changqing: "Shake the twilight sky, green maple frost leaves are thin" ("Yugan Hostel"), Song Zhang: "Frost Leaf Dance Danfeng" ("Chaozhongcuo Fisherman"), this is of course also because the maple leaves turn red when the autumn frost arrives, and the autumn feeling of falling is overwhelming. The word "maple" echoes with "frost" before, and then combines with "river", from the two natural characteristics of the season wheel and the passage of time, touching the acupuncture points of people's sadness and autumn, giving a strong hint that human beings are still unable to do, so as to open up the sense of commonality between people's hearts, and the sorrow can be superimposed.

This brings us back to the original purpose: the poem describes an accidental experience of being on the shore, and the poet tastes loneliness in the hustle and bustle of the village by the river. This explanation straightens out the narrative logic and is faithful to the author's emotions. However, the poet's experience of sorrow is not available to everyone. For readers, the beauty of guanqingfeng's gradual redning is easier to capture, and the melancholy of "following the four times to sigh" is easier to touch. If the original poetic context comes from the author's personal life experience, then the recreated poetic context is the universal life experience of the recipient. Traditional inheritance and reading memory together suppress the image template of "Jiang Feng", blur the geographical environment of "Jiang village", and ignore the time positioning of "moonfall", forming a common feeling that does not have to obey reason, which is enough to transcend everything else and become a judgment that affects the taste of appreciation.

Guangming Daily ( 2022-09-05 13th edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily