There is no material to make up for the heavens (1), and it is wasted into the red dust of the year (2).
This is the matter before and after the body, who remembers to do the strange biography (4)?
【Description】
The author fictionalized that there was a stubborn stone under the Peak of Qinggeng, which remembered its experience after being carried into the red dust, followed by another one, which is the seven-word poem. 偈 (ji 記), the lyrics in the Buddhist scriptures, also refers to the poetry of the Buddhist family, which is originally a transliteration of the Buddhist Sanskrit word "偈度", which is translated as "praise".
【Notes】
(1) Patching up the heavens: from ancient mythology. Legend has it that in ancient times, the sky collapsed, the fire burned unquenchable, the flood continued, the beasts of prey ate the people everywhere, and the five-colored stone of the Nüwa (wā frog) clan repaired the heavens. She also cut off the four legs of the sea turtle to use as Optimus Prime, killed the black dragon to save the Central Plains, and accumulated reed ash to stop the flood. In this way, all calamities were appeased, and the common people were thus able to live in peace (see Huainanzi Meditation). Here the author borrows the mythical story to talk about the great cause of Kuang Shiji. (2) "Wrongdoer" sentence: Confessed to come to the world for so many years. This is the author's lament for the emptiness of the years, red dust, Andu Xidu Endowment; "Red dust is everywhere, and smoke clouds are connected." This book is written about the prosperity of Chang'an, and later used to illustrate the bustle and prosperity of the world. (3) "This system" sentence: This is the story experienced in front of and behind the stone, the novel says that Gu Shi "phantom human world", transformed into a psychic treasure jade, with the reincarnation of Jia Baoyu, came to the human world, after experiencing some clutch sorrow and joy, still transformed into Gu Shi, returned to the bottom of the Qinggeng Peak, so say so. The poem seems to have an allegorical meaning, and the author may use it to imply that what the novel describes is not limited to his personal life experience, but an artistic summary of the various realities of his grandparents and grandchildren for more than three generations; For Xueqin, the Cao Yin era is his "in front of" thing; For the Sheng Shi Cao family, the fall was also a "posthumous" matter for the deceased. (4) "Who is Qian (Qing Qing)" sentence: Who did you copy it for me to circulate the anecdote? Qian, pinch. Legends, or legends, are inverted for rhyme, meaning that strange stories can be passed on. It was originally a kind of short story written in chinese language that arose in the Tang Dynasty, and here it only takes novel and anaphistical meanings.
【Comment】
This is a preface poem by the author that relies on mythological forms to indicate the reason for the creation of the Book of Stones. Cao Xueqin fictionalized the story of this book in the wedge of the novel, which was copied from the stone, and its original author was transformed into a psychic treasure jade, so that the divine attendant (jia Baoyu's predecessor) "entrained" it to go down to the mortal world, and experienced a dreamy heavenly stone. And Cao Xueqin herself is just a "reading addition and deletion" person. The intention of such fiction is: (i) to emphasize the authenticity of the story. The so-called book is said to be a "posthumous story personally experienced" (the first wedge), so let the virtual author Psychic Jade accompany the protagonist of the story throughout, (2) affirm that the experiencer is not himself. Although the story is true, most of it happened in the era of her ancestors' lives, as Feng Jie said, "I hate that I am a few years younger, if I had been born twenty or thirty years earlier, now these old people are not thin and I have not seen the world." Speaking of the story of Emperor Taizu's imitation of Shun's tour, it was more lively than a book, and I did not make it catch up" (sixteen times). The prosperity of the wind and moon is "old" for Xueqin, and it is a matter of "in front of" (Cao Yin died twelve or three years before Xueqin was born); And the day when "all the realms return to the void" is a matter of "behind the body" for those who experienced it at that time, such as Cao Yin. In order to show that most of the material comes from the dictation of the elderly such as grandmothers, a fictional original author was created and he let himself play the role of "reading additions and deletions". So, from the perspective of the experiencer of the event, the stone is not equal to the author; However, in terms of the creation of this book, the stone is Cao Xueqin, and the critic Li Yanzhai is afraid that the reader will mistakenly think that Xueqin is really a "person who reads and deletes", so he specially exposes "the author's pen is very cunning", and finalizes that the author is Xueqin himself.
Then, why did Cao Xueqin borrow the encounter of that heaven-replenishing stone at the beginning, and first make a sigh of no material to supplement the heavens? This is indeed the author's own situation. Borrowing from the legend of "making up the heavens", in the past we always went to investigate what this "heaven" represented, saying that it was the "heaven of the feudal system", and we were afraid of demeaning the author, so we turned from "making up the heavens" to "hating the heavens" and "demolishing the heavens", and recently some people said that "heavens" should be "love heavens" and "hate heavens". In fact, to deduce a term that has a fixed meaning for thousands of years is to go in the wrong direction. For example, if someone uses the term "dead sheep to make up for the prison", you go to deduce whether the "sheep" is a goat or a sheep, and whether the "prison" is surrounded by wooden fences or stone. There are many example sentences in ancient books that use the phrase "to make up the heavens", which are nothing more than a great cause such as governing the country and helping the people through the world. Zhou Leqing of the Qing Dynasty wrote "The Legend of Patching Heavenly Stones", which contains eight kinds of operas, and also writes the stories of Prince Dan, Qu Yuan, Wang Zhaojun, Cai Wenji, Zhuge Liang, Yue Fei and other famous figures in Qingshi. Therefore, Xueqin said that there is no material to make up for the sky, which means that she is not qualified to do a big cause.
To achieve such a great cause, it is only possible to achieve it through the path of the eunuchs. The objective environment of Xueqin's young age led to the loss of the opportunity to teach and read by Yanshi (he was self-taught by extensive books), because he was not sophisticated in his profession; But more importantly, the upheaval in his family cut him off from the path in terms of political conditions. Qing Dynasty system: Those who have committed serious crimes within three generations of the direct family are not allowed to participate in scientific examinations. This is only necessary to look at the "Dengke Record" in which the admitted people list the names and occupations of the three generations in detail, and use them as alternative records and release officials. His father, Cao Pin, was a "Qin criminal" ordered by the emperor to raid the family, and was also "shackled."
"For many years, how can Xueqin rely on the career of Keju to make a start?" People always think that Cao Xueqin is also like the character jia baoyu he created, born to hate the career economy, so whether he can study and become an official does not care at all. This is not the case. Xueqin is very conceited, and there is no doubt that she is crazy and arrogant at those who are keen on camping in Vanity Fair. But this does not matter to him the fate of his life that he is doomed to the field. The importance of fame to the intellectuals of that era is difficult for us to understand today.
Pu Songling's "Liaozhai exposes and attacks the feudal imperial examination system for destroying talents and causing political darkness and corruption" in many works, which are both profound and painful; However, he himself did not give up fighting in the field of science all his life, repeatedly defeated, sad and depressed, until the age of seventy-one did not get a small tribute. Cao Xueqin naturally felt great resentment and grief for the injustice of fate, and the tune was "because she saw that all the stones had to make up for the heavens, she had no materials on her own, and she was unable to be chosen, so she complained and lamented to herself, and she was ashamed day and night." The misfortune of his "weeping song" of "Yanshi Weeping Song Sorrowful Encounter" (Dun Minshi) is not because of the poverty of life, but because he was "re-booked" and declared that the road to the field was impassable, that is, an insurmountable obstacle was set up in front of him, who aspired to do something big.
Therefore, the lipogram has a criticism of the first two sentences of this poem: "Shame on words, whimpering like smells." He also criticized "no material to make up for the heavens, illusion into the world" said: "The eight characters are the author's lifelong hatred," and it is the batch that directly links it with the writing of the book, "only one piece is left unused, and it is discarded in ... " A few words, saying: After this piece is left, many stories are born. If the day does not make up for the heavens, it is necessary to make up for the pit of the earth and make the earth flat, and there is no such nonsense. The tone of these words, at a glance, is clear that it was said by xueqin's elder, Wat Wat.
He attributed the writing of "Dream of the Red Chamber" to the fact that Xueqin could not have the same opportunity as other young people to make a big career, but she was not willing to do ordinary things needed by society such as doing business and medicine, working as a worker and farmer (the so-called "pit of replenishing the land"), and in a mood of shame and loneliness, in order not to bury herself, she chose to write novels to pass on to the world. It can be seen that Cao Xueqin is "a bit depressed, not allowed to pass through, so recount the past, think of the comers ...
Si Chukong wen is self-evident (present)", and "Dream of the Red Chamber" is his "act of anger" (Sima Qian's "Book of Baoren An").