Source: Longshang Poetry Book
"In February of the sixteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty, the cliff mountain was broken, and Xiufu went to defend the king's boat, and Shijie and Liu Yi each broke off and went, and Xiufu could not take off, but the staff and sword drove his wife and son into the sea, that is, the king went to the sea and died, at the age of forty-four. ”
It means that in February of the 16th year of the Yuan Dynasty, the Yuan army broke through Yashan, Lu Xiufu escorted Wang Zhou to escape, and Zhang Shijie and Su Liuyi led the rest of the more than ten ships to cut through the big rope and break through. Lu Xiufu knew that he and the little emperor could not escape the danger, so he first pulled out his sword and sent his wife and children into the sea, and then jumped into the sea with the little emperor on his back, when Lu Xiufu was 44 years old.
History books are like this, a thrilling historical event can be explained clearly in just a few words. But for Lu Xiufu, his wife and children, the soldiers who jumped into the sea, and the young master, we have no way of knowing how sad his heart is. It's really emotional.
This year is 1279 A.D., three years forward, the Yuan people broke through the Southern Song Dynasty capital Lin'an. Like the text quoted above, it is concise and concise, plain and unpretentious. But "breaking through Lin'an" was like the sky falling for the people at that time. Behind these four words is endless grief, suffering, and despair.
On the day of the destruction of Lin'an City, the Empress Dowager Xie Daoqing surrendered with Emperor Song Gong. Kublai Khan ordered all the rest of the personnel to be escorted to Beijing, except for Xie Daoqing, who was frail and sickly. It was also emphasized in the edict that the royal family members who went north were "exempt from tying their necks and leading sheep". On the surface, although he did not follow the old path of Jingkang's shame and saved face for the royal family, the cruelty of changing the dynasty was also fully revealed.
If this is still the case for the royal family, it will be even more difficult for the literati. After the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, many remnant literati emerged, either to resist the Yuan Dynasty, or to read the Song Dynasty and so on. Among them, the most well-known are the "Three Heroes of the Late Song Dynasty" - Wen Tianxiang, Lu Xiufu, and Zhang Shijie. In addition to these three people, there are Jiang Jie, Zheng Sixiao, Xie Fangde and others, who express their pain of losing their country and their deep nostalgia for their homeland through pen and ink.
Understanding this history will help us to deeply understand the "A Cut of Plum Blossoms: A Boat Crossing the Wujiang River" written by Jiang Jie, an outstanding lyricist in the late Song Dynasty, which I share with my friends today. This poem was written in 1276, when Lin'an City had been broken by the Yuan people, Jiang Jie was about 31 years old, and he was only two years old in high school.
A cut plum boat across the Wujiang River
Southern Song Dynasty Jiang Jie
A piece of spring sorrow is waiting for the wine to be poured. The boat on the river is shaking, and the curtain is moving upstairs.
Qiu Niang ferry and Tai Niang bridge, the wind is fluttering, and the rain is bleak.
When will I go home and wash the guest robe?
The streamer is easy to throw people, red cherries, green plantains.
A piece of spring sorrow is waiting for the wine to be poured. The boat on the river is shaking, and the curtain is moving upstairs. Qiu Niang ferry and Tai Niang bridge, the wind is fluttering, and the rain is bleak.
My heart is full of spring sorrow, looking forward to borrowing wine to drown my sorrows. The boat fluttered on the Wusong River, and the flags of the restaurants on the river bank fluttered in the wind. Passing by the Qiu Niangdu and Tai Niang Bridge, which make the literati and ink writers think about it, there is no good interest in appreciating, and now it is stormy, which is really distressing.
A piece of spring sorrow is waiting for the wine to be poured. The beginning of the word directly explains the season, and at the same time, it also expresses the chest directly, and the lyricist's heart is depressed. And the use of "one piece" as a modifier shows that his heart is full of sorrow and depth. The lyricist who is not in a good mood is looking forward to a drunken drink, like a heavy rain to wake up a frustrated person, so as to relieve the pain in his heart. But the lyricist did not clearly say why he was worried, giving people infinite reverie. It sets a sad emotional tone for the whole word.
The boat on the river is shaking, and the curtain is moving upstairs. These two sentences describe the state and what the writer sees in the boat, alluding to the "boat crossing the Wujiang River" in the title.
The word "shake" not only shows the state of the boat on the river, but also alludes to the actual situation of the person who has been adrift for half his life. The boat is shaking, and the heart is shaking. The more vast the river sky is, the more small the lyricist in the boat seems, and the more painful and uneasy his heart becomes.
Once, he also lived a time of "listening to the rain song upstairs as a teenager", but now he is "in the middle of the boat listening to the rain in his prime". Believe it or not, even the wine flags fluttering in the wind on the banks of the river to attract customers have no attraction to him in the slightest.
Qiu Niang ferry and Tai Niang bridge, the wind is fluttering, and the rain is bleak. The specific locations of Qiuniangdu and Tainiang Bridge are now impossible to verify, and I guess they are two locations on the bank of the Wusong River. There are many such places in Wusongjiang, so why should the lyricist highlight them? As early as the Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi's "Pipa Xing" and Liu Yuxi's "Tai Niang Song" were recorded, both of which were named after the singers. The reason why the lyricist brought out these two places related to Fengyue is to lay an ambush for Hou Wensigui.
It can be seen that the lyricist only passed by these two places, which was seen by the lyricist on the way to the boat, and did not stop, which highlights the word "pass" in the title. The sky is not beautiful, the wind and rain are combined, and it does not stop for many days. The drifting life and the cold wind and rain are superimposed, which makes the originally happy and gloomy poet feel homesick.
When will I go home and wash the guest robe? The streamer is easy to throw people, red cherries, green plantains.
When will I return to my hometown, so that I can wash my robe and end my life as a wanderer? Playing with the pipe sheng with silver characters, and lighting the heart-shaped sandalwood in the incense burner. The streamer is fleeting, it is easy to abandon people, the cherries are just red, the plantain leaves are greener, spring is gone, summer is coming.
When will I go home and wash my robe? The question is exactly where the knot in the heart of the lyricist lies. When will he be able to return home? Where is home? Does he still have a home to return to? The country is broken, and he is alone, and he is in this stormy boat. Obviously, he is already homeless, and how can we talk about cleaning the guest robe? This is just a dream in the heart of the lyricist, and the more he longs in his heart, the more the reality makes the lyricist disappointed, hopeless, and even desperate.
The silver word sheng tone, the heart word incense burning. These two sentences are not only the poet's memories of the good life in the past, but also the imagination of the homeless man who dreamed of having a home. Spice up the fragrance, quiet and harmonious, warm and sweet, naturally is the happiness of life. The lyricist is a Yixing family, and this kind of life was commonplace for him when he was a teenager, and he didn't cherish it well. But now that he is suffering from wandering and has no fixed place, he realizes that the old days were so beautiful. It is in response to the sentence that sweet first and then bitter, and it is used to feel sweet.
The streamer is easy to throw people, red cherries, green plantains. The dream is beautiful, but the reality is cruel. There was a sound of wind and rain in his ears, and the lyricist returned to reality, only to find that the past was empty. So, the lyricist sighed. It is a natural law that the streamer is fleeting, but the lyricist uses the word "throw", as if time also understands human feelings, giving people a sense of desolation. The word "easy" seems to be ordinary, but in fact, it is not easy for the lyricist to wander and toss for many years, using the most insipid words to write the deepest sorrow in his heart.
How does time throw people away? The last two sentences give their own explanation. Time has no shapes and colors, it can't be seen or touched, it's hard to describe. Therefore, the lyricist carefully selected two images, cherries and banana leaves, and attached time to them, revealing the seasonal changes from spring to summer.
The cherries are red, the plantain is greener, they are all extremely vivid and lively objects, and the ruthlessness of time is contrasted with bright words, and the artistic conception of the whole word is becoming more and more sad. From here, it can be seen that the emotional tone of the words has also risen from thinking to sighing about the fleeting years.
Time and space are intertwined, singing a sad parting song. The deep sorrow in the heart of the homeless wanderer who lives away from home is slowly expressed through the smooth and natural words of the lyricist.
—Jun An—