Author: Xiang Yixian
In the fifth year of Yuanfeng (1082), Su Dongpo degraded Huangzhou for three years. In the spring of this year, the beloved Snow Hall was finally built. He was in a very good mood, and suddenly remembered the scene when the thatched cottage was completed in the western suburbs of Chengdu more than 300 years ago, and also remembered the alder in Du Fu's poems, which was a kind of tall Shu wood that he had been familiar with since he was a child. Our Mr. Dongpo was sick again, and he immediately wrote Du Fu's "Tang Cheng": "The back of Guo Tang is shaded by white grass, and the Yuanjiang Road is ripe and overlooking the suburbs." Alder forests hinder the sun and chant wind leaves, cage bamboos and smoke droplets dew tips. Temporarily stop flying Wu will count the sons, and frequently come to the swallow to set a new nest. Others are mistakenly compared to Yang Xiong's house, lazy and have no intention of making mockery. This is the title of the book "Alder Scroll", also known as "Alder Poetry Scroll of the Ministry of Books", Chengxintang paper, now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
The alder mentioned in the poem is familiar to me, and it was the object of my observation when I was a child. In Nie Jiayan, the hometown of Nie Jiayan, located in the hinterland of Daba Mountain, a bowl thick alder tree stands proudly on the north side of the primary school playground near the cliff. I often climbed up, sat on a thick branch, and looked up at the sunset over the smoky mountains and the gods in the mountains. Alder gives off a faint smell that is very popular with ants and some beetles. The fast-growing alder wood was loose, and at one point, I almost fell off a broken branch. I saw alder in the vast classics more than ten years later when I was in college—a lush alder forest emerged from my beloved collection of Du Fu's poems. At that moment, a sudden respect for one's hometown was born that I had never felt before—even in an unknown and remote place, a poetic life would grow.
Illustration: Zhou Yixun
In the winter of the second year of the reign of Emperor Zongqian of Tang Su (759), Du Fu's family took refuge in Shu. In the spring of the following year, the poet found a habitable place on the west bank of Huanhua Creek and began to build a thatched cottage. The poet kept writing poems and asking his friends for saplings to plant. In a letter to He Yong, the governor of Miangu County, he made no secret of his preference for alder: "There is no forest in the west of the grass hall, and no one can see the heart again." I have heard that the alder is three years old, and it is ten acres of shade by the river. The greenery around the cottage is almost all together, only the west side is still empty, and the locals of Chengdu continue to suggest to the poet: plant alder trees that grow in the wind, or in three years, it will be a large area of shade. As can be seen from the poem "Tang Cheng", after some hard work, Du Fu finally built a residence with both alder and bamboo. Judging from the "alder forest obstructing the sun" and "cage bamboo and smoke", alder and bamboo have grown into forests at that time.
Su Dongpo finished writing "Tang Cheng" in one go, and suddenly felt that the snow hall was full of paper smoke clouds. For a while, he was still unsatisfied, and then held his breath and condensed, and wrote a 103-word inscription: "There are many alders in Shu, and it reads like a tree, and the scattered materials are also, and the ears are alone." However, it is easy to grow, three years is the arch, so the son Mei Shiyun: "I have heard that the alder is three years old, and ten acres of yin by the stream." 'Where the wood is made, the ground is barren. However, alder is not, the leaves fall into the mud and rot in the water, which can fertilize the field, more than the dung soil, so the field family likes to plant it. The wind blows, and the sound of the leaves is like an aspen. The sentence of the wind is especially documentary. The cage bamboo is also the name of the bamboo in Shu. ”
This passage, which covers biological and cultural attributes, shows Su Dongpo's extensive knowledge of naturalism. It mentions the pronunciation of "alder" at that time - "欹仄之欹". Thousands of years have passed, and the pronunciation of the word has not changed. In the text, it talks about the function of alder - bulk wood, which is made quickly in three years, has a loose texture, and is suitable for firewood. Dongpo also noted the uniqueness of alder – beneath it, the land would not be barren due to its large foliage. It sprouts in spring and leaves in autumn and winter, and its thick leaves rot in muddy water, making it a good fertilizer and popular with farmers. Finally, Dongpo also talked about the aesthetic attributes of alder - when the leaves are not falling, the tall alder will make a beautiful sound like a poplar tree in the wind, and Du Fu has the expression of "singing wind leaves" in the poem. I heard that kind of voice in Nie Jiayan. It turns out that alder is also a kind of tree with a musical character.
In the inscription of "Alder Scroll", the most noteworthy is about the geographical space of alder growth - "there are many alders in Shu". In the era earlier than Su Dongpo's Song Qi's "Yibu Fangwu Strategy", it is also mentioned that alder is suitable for growing in Shu, and the people love to plant, and they will be cut down for firewood in two or three years, grow fast, cut fast, and people get many benefits from it. Wang Anshi, a contemporary of Su Dongpo, received a alder seedling from the Jinjiang River in Chengdu one day from Xiucai Xue Zhaoming, and wrote a poem to commemorate it while being overjoyed. Su Dongpo mentioned the alder in Shu in a poem he wrote to Wang Anshi: "Chop the bamboo through the flowers and break the green moss, and the small poem ends with alder." Take a closer look at the beginning of creation, and the flowers bloom spontaneously in the south of the Yangtze River in spring. ”
Duan Yuci of the Qing Dynasty pointed out in the "Annotations on the Interpretation of Words" that alder is actually the "machine wood" on Danhu Mountain in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas". In the Han Dynasty Shu people Yangxiong's "Shu Du Fu", there is a description of "spring machine willow, weak cicada", "machine" is an ancient character, and "alder" is the present word, which is the same kind of tree. When spring comes, the alder and willow wake up and turn green, and after some time the cicadas begin to chirp nicely in the soft alder or willow treetops. According to the research of Mr. Meng Wentong in modern Shu, the Classic of Mountains and Seas (especially the "Mountain Classic" part) was originally written by the ancient Shu people, so the "machine wood" on the single fox mountain may be the alder in Shu. In the late Tang Dynasty poet Xue Neng's "Spring Ji", we saw alder again: "On the lonely boat of a long-time guest, the end of the world is in the dawn." The wild alder is like a willow, and the river is snowy and spring. The official can frighten the heron, and the official is rough and harmful. He is poor in Shu, but he remembers the tourists. It is still written about the spring scenery in the "Shu Realm".
Poets from Shu, or poets who have been to Shu, often write about alder. Su Dongpo was originally from Shu, and naturally loved the plants and trees of Shu, and he may be the poet who likes alder the most besides Du Fu. This liking is not only due to the close relationship between alder and Shudi, but also due to his love for Du Fu. The poem that sent Dimon to Chengdu Yujuguan was written to a friend on the surface, but it was actually written to Du Fu in his heart, so the beginning was "Picking up the relics and singing the wine, Yemei Guanliu West Suburbs Road". "Wild Plum Guanliu" comes from Du Fu's "Western Suburbs" written in Chengdu: "When the time comes out of the Biji Fang, the western suburbs go to the thatched cottage. The city bridge official willow is fine, and the river road is wild and fragrant. Dongpo also mentions a food called "taro kui" in the poem, which was planted by a neighbor in the south of Du Fu's thatched cottage: "Mr. Jinli's black horn scarf, the garden harvest taro chestnut is not completely poor." Then, in the poem, we saw the alder wood that Du Fu and Su Dongpo thought about, and smelled the smell of alder.
Lu You is not a Shu person, because he has been in Shu for many years, he mentioned alder several times in his poems, and his poems are always intrinsically related to Du Fu. His "Works in the Garden" wrote: "Writing books to increase water products, and looking for alder plants in sentences." As he flipped through the poems, he imagined his garden planted with alder trees like a thatched cottage. Lu You mentioned alder for the last time in the poem: "There are no falling leaves in the alder forest without the sun, and sometimes there are new chicks in the swallow households." This reminds people of "frequent words and swallows set new nests". The alder in Du Fu's poems has become a verdant shade above the heads of later poets.
In an essay on alder, the Shuzhong writer Jiang Lan recalled an old literary incident. In the summer of 1940, Zhu Ziqing, a professor at the Department of Chinese Literature and Literature of Southwest Associated University, arrived in Chengdu and lived in three thatched huts in Bao'en Temple in Songgongqiao, a southern suburb of the eastern suburbs. In the summer of the following year, Zhu Ziqing abandoned the shore from the Jiuyanqiao Wharf to board the boat, entered the Jinjiang River, passed through Jiangkou, Jiajiang, Jiazhou, and then went ashore in Yibin, and then transferred to the Sichuan-Yunnan Mountain Road to enter Yunnan. After arriving in Kunming, he described his feelings as he walked down the Jinjiang River in a letter to his friends in Chengdu, Jin Shizhi and his wife: "Above the mouth of the river, on both sides of the plain, the bright green is pleasant. There are many alder forests along the river, sparse and thin, very much like landscape paintings. "In Chengdu today, alder forests are hard to find, but alder can still be seen from time to time, and it is still a representative Shu land. I once saw a hundred-year-old giant alder in Qingcheng Mountain, which proved to the world with its tenacity and magnificence that those who live quickly can also gain eternal life.
The alders that brought endless coolness and solace to the strangers Du Fu, Lu You, Zhu Ziqing, and the Shu people Su Dongpo are still alive in poetry and calligraphy, and may they also stand forever on the vast land.
Guangming Daily (2025-04-04 05 edition)
Source: Guangming Net-Guangming Daily