The four great calligraphers of the Song Dynasty, Su, Huang, Mi, Cai, Huang Tingjian ranked second, he respected Su Dongpo as a teacher all his life, and was one of the four bachelors of Sumen, and the other three were Qin Guan, Chao Buzhi, and Zhang Lei. When Su Dongpo was in trouble, Huang Tingjian was always supporting him. Last time we talked about Su Shi's "Cold Food Post", Huang Tingjian inscribed the tail at the back of the post, reflecting the friendship between Su and Huang who are also teachers and friends. Today we take a look at Huang Tingjian's "Songfeng Pavilion Poems".
Huang Tingjian's "Songfeng Pavilion" is now in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Build a pavilion according to the mountain to see the flat river, and the night is inserted into the rafters.
My name is right.
The old pine is burly for hundreds of years, and the axe is now towering.
The wind roars with the fifty strings of the Wa Emperor, and there is no need for the Bodhisattva Spring to wash the ears.
Jia's second and third sons are very good and virtuous, and they are poor enough to buy wine and get drunk at this feast.
The night rain roars to the dawn hanging, and the monk feels that he does not return to each other.
The spring is dry and the stone is dry and gurgling, and the mountains and rivers are glorious for me.
The wild monk was hungry and couldn't eat, and he saw that there was cooking smoke in the cold stream.
The people of the east slope have sunk into the spring, when will Zhang Hou come to the front.
The fishing platform can sleep during the day, and Yiting looks at the dragon entanglement.
An De got rid of his restraints, and the boat carried all his friends around.
Huang Tingjian wrote the inscription for Su Dongpo's "Cold Food Post".
Writing background
The key to understanding Chinese art, especially art from the Song Dynasty onwards, is the calligraphy of the Song Dynasty. Later, many painters did not come out of the craftsman industry, but came out of the literati who wrote poetry and calligraphy, so the calligraphy of the Song Dynasty was very important. The four great calligraphers of the Song Dynasty, Su, Huang, Mi, Cai, Huang Tingjian ranked second, he respected Su Dongpo as a teacher all his life, and was one of the four bachelors of Sumen, and the other three were Qin Guan, Chao Buzhi, and Zhang Lei. When Su Dongpo was in trouble, Huang Tingjian was always supporting him. Last time we talked about Su Shi's "Cold Food Post", Huang Tingjian inscribed the tail at the back of the post, reflecting the friendship between Su and Huang who are also teachers and friends. Today we take a look at Huang Tingjian's "Songfeng Pavilion Poems".
Huang Tingjian "Pine Wind Pavilion"
"Songfeng Pavilion Poems" was written by Huang Tingjian in 1012, and he died in 1015, so this post was written in his later years. The year before this poem was written, in 1011, Su Dongpo died, so Huang Gu also mentioned this in the post. At that time, Huang Tingjian was sent to Wuchang, Hubei, he played with a few friends, and later played late at night, saw an attic called Songfeng Pavilion, and stayed. When I got up from sleep at night, I felt that there were a lot of things on my mind and a lot of emotion, and I missed his friends, so I wrote this "Songfeng Pavilion" with ink. The servants were asleep, and there was no one to sharpen the ink for him, so he sharpened a little ink himself and wrote in light ink, and then used the quill pen that he had brought with him during his travels. In the Song Dynasty, the literati felt that writing did not have to be so tool-specific, and calligraphy naturally came out when the mood was right.
Textual perusal
"Build a pavilion on the mountain and see the Pingchuan", this Songfeng Pavilion is covered in the middle of the mountainside, so you can see the Pingchuan River outside, which is a big river past. The second sentence of the second sentence of "the night is a bucket and the rafters of the house" is very large, "阑" is past midnight, late at night, "the bucket" is the stars in the sky, the Big Dipper, the "rafters" is the ancient eaves, a piece of wood is erected, when he lies there to sleep, he sees that the eaves are all a brilliant sky full of stars, this is a very literati life.
"My name is right", saying that I came here in a relaxed mood, and I felt very comfortable myself. In fact, this is the time when he is in trouble and decentralized, but he wants to tell his friends that "I come to the right name", there are many frame-ups and unsatisfactory in life, and there are many difficulties and unsatisfactory in life, but you have to have a way to deal with your own state of mind when you go to the landscape. The landscape paintings of the Song Dynasty and the calligraphy of the Song Dynasty both tell you that life must find your own relief in the predicament.
"The old pine is burly for hundreds of years", seeing that there is an old pine tree outside, growing so tall, and the hundreds of years old tree is so great, here he is talking a little about himself, because he talks about "the axe is forgiven", the axe did not cut down the tree to make a house, the axe pardoned the tree. "You can only grow so tall today, so he has a little meaning that I am also an old pine, although I was hit and framed, but fortunately I haven't been killed, and if I kill me, there will be no me, and I can't see such beautiful stars today.
When we look at any word, such as "house", some people often describe that when a brush is dragged on paper, it has a kind of power in it, like playing Tai Chi, a combination of rigidity and softness, and like a vine on the mountain that grows for hundreds of years. The lines of the words are thick and thin, and there are twists in them, and you can feel his tenacity, and his life is fighting against something.
General's armory
Others say that Huang Tingjian's words are so beautiful, and when they describe Huang Tingjian's words, they see that they seem to have opened a general's arsenal, and they will feel that his words look like a lot of knives and guns, and there is a kind of murderous aura or soaring righteousness in them. Huang Tingjian seems to be a weak scholar, but in the face of all these judges who oppressed him at that time, he was completely unwavering, in fact, he only needed to say "I am not from the same party as Su Dongpo" to be exonerated, but he preferred to say "Su Dongpo is the greatest literati today, and Su Dongpo is loyal and patriotic." There is a kind of spirit in this, the persistence of a literati.
Huang Tingjian "Pine Wind Pavilion"
"The wind is singing and the emperor is fifty strings", this sentence is more difficult to understand. The wind blows the pine leaves and makes a chirping sound, "Wa Huang" is Nuwa, the goddess of human creation in ancient Chinese mythology. What he meant was that the pine trees were old enough to be like Nuwa. In ancient times, there was a musical instrument called "se", which had fifty strings. When the wind blows, this old pine tree is like fifty strings playing, which is a feeling of listening to the pine wind.
"You don't need a Bodhisattva Spring to wash your ears", Bodhisattva Spring is the most famous spring in Fankou, Wuchang, and they all use it to make tea. "Washing ears" is an allusion, there was a person in ancient times who didn't want to be an official, but the emperor wanted him to go, he said that the word "official" sounded too dirty, I want to wash my ears with spring water, what is more interesting is that there is a cow downstream of the spring water, and it actually died after drinking a sip of spring water, which shows how dirty this spring water is, which shows how much ancient people hated politics. Huang Tingjian said, "You don't need a Bodhisattva Spring to wash your ears", which means that even if I don't have the spring water of the Bodhisattva Spring, my ears are clean, and I will not be bewitched by you politicians.
Swinging strokes
Huang Tingjian saw the boatman rowing in the Three Gorges, the Three Gorges is a rapid, and the oars should be very steady when rowing, and he learned the method of writing from it. Rowing a boat and retreating bravely from the rapids is a kind of strength, and writing is also a kind of strength. Boating is a kind of tenacity, and writing is also a kind of tenacity.
Huang Tingjian "Pine Wind Pavilion"
"Jia Er and the third son are very good and virtuous", here because he wrote it wrong, when the ancient poet wrote the poem too quickly, he wrote the next word first, and it became "Jia Er and the second son is very good and virtuous", so he ticked a word like "B" next to it to mean that it is reversed. Ancient calligraphers were very casual about their own work, because it was just an expression of his state of mind. This sentence is to say that these friends who are playing with me today are good, reading is a good gift, not a messy person, the three words "very good and virtuous" seem to be very plain, but in a troubled world, it is not easy to have a few friends who can talk about books and ideals in life.
"Poor people buy wine and get drunk at this feast", these literati study all day, probably not much money and are very poor, but they know that Huang Tingjian is here, and they dare to entertain him as a political prisoner, and they are willing to buy wine and treat him to a good meal, so Huang Tingjian said I want to thank these friends.
Wax paper
In the picture, it can be seen that this piece of paper is very special, there are some patterns behind it, drawn with wax, called wax paper. The ancient paper is very particular, the paper is painted with wax a lot of watermelons, peonies, flowers on it, into a decorative shading, so when the calligraphy is written, the word "feast" because the wax does not eat ink, so there will be a pattern, so the wax paper is very beautiful, and the process of making paper in the Song Dynasty is amazing. "The night rain rings in the corridor to dawn", he was drunk and slept in the temple, and heard that it was raining at night, and the whole corridor was full of rain sounds, until dawn in the morning, the raindrops did not stop, and they were still hanging there ticking and ticking. Those seven words are very beautiful. Huang Tingjian didn't actually fall asleep that night, he thanked these friends of his for entertaining him, and he also missed his friends who were scattered all over the country. The night rain was not a noisy noise in his eyes, but a beautiful sound.
When we see the word "night", one horizontal part becomes picked, and the next one is very beautiful, and a long line is pulled, so the word is divided into two parts and becomes an oblique chamfered line, which is a bit like a diamond-shaped feeling. And the last stroke is very quickly pulled out, so it is a chic line, and the two dashing lines are connected together to form a pyramid-like structure, so the word "night" is extremely beautiful. Huang Tingjian used a lot of long lines to make his characters have a feeling of being forward in all directions, a feeling of radioactivity, and at that time the words became very chic, not compressed, not constrained.
"Look at each other and don't return to the monk felt", it rained at night, so everyone didn't go home, a few good friends just chatted with each other, you look at me, I look at you. The "reclining monk felt" is to live in the temple. "Felt" is a blanket woven from the monk's coarse yak hair, so he took a blanket and slept with it, which also conveyed a meaning of freedom.
Huang Tingjian "Pine Wind Pavilion"
"The spring is dry and the stone is dry and gurgling", and writing the scene is actually writing the state of mind. Huang Tingjian had just fallen into trouble at this time, and his life and death were uncertain, he said that the spring water was dry, and the stones had no brilliance, and "the spring was dry and the stones were dry" referred to his own situation. But when the pen turns "Fu", it means that I am starting to come back to life. "Murmuring" is the sound of the water, and the spring dries up in winter, but don't forget that spring returns. In fact, he is telling everyone not to be too pessimistic in difficult times, and life always hopes that it can be "reborn" and can be lived.
"The glory of the mountains and rivers is for me", today I see such beautiful mountains and beautiful rivers, they are so gorgeous for me. The words "for me" are remarkable. This conveys a kind of open-mindedness, a kind of bearing, nature is so beautiful because I live, so I can't be beautiful, I can't be too bad.
"Wild monks can't be hungry early", because the drought harvest is not good, so there is a great famine, and even the monks can't eat enough. This also reveals that the politics are not good, and the people are not making a living. Huang Tingjian and others actually have a kind of concern for the common people, and they hate how this bureaucratic system makes people's lives like this. This is compassion. There was a typo here, "drought" was written as "early", so he clicked three times and said that the word was wrong.
"I saw that there was cooking smoke in Hanxi", but he also told everyone that I was glad to see Hanxi (Hanxi is a river northwest of Wuchang) at dawn this morning, and the smoke rose from the poor houses on the far side of Hanxi.
Huang Tingjian "Pine Wind Pavilion"
At this time, he began to miss his friend Su Dongpo, "the people of the East Slope have sunk into the spring", because Su Dongpo died the year before. "Shen Quan" has sunk below the Nine Springs, so he said that my best friend, the teacher I most longed for in my life, has died. Another friend is Zhang Lei, "When will Zhang Hou come to my eyes", I heard that Zhang Lei is coming to see me, when will he come to me, in fact, I am a little lonely. fell into trouble and then died, degraded and degraded, so there was no way to be together, he was very sad and in a bad mood. "Diaoyutai can sleep day and night", Diaoyutai is a Diaoyutai next to Wuchang. He said that the waves under the Diaoyu Tai were so loud that I could still sleep during the day. The "stormy waves" in this imply framing, but I don't care about you, I can sleep well during the day, because I have a clear conscience.
"Yiting looks at the seal Jiaolong entanglement", Yiting is on an island in Wuchang, it is said that Yiting has the seal character written by Li Yangbing in the Tang Dynasty. He slept there during the day, watching the seal characters like dragons and snakes fighting.
"Settle this body out of restraints", and finally say when will my body be able to get rid of these restraints.
I can have a small boat to take all my good friends, we can talk about poetry, we can live a peaceful life, and we can have a good circle. This is the most amazing state of mind of the literati of the Song Dynasty, looking at the mountains and rivers to get rid of all personnel entanglements, and never giving up the hope of the landscape and beauty when they are the most difficult and difficult.