The Classic of Mountains and Seas is an ancient book in China that describes ancient zhiwei and is also an absurd and strange book. The book was not written at the moment, nor was the author alone. The content is all-encompassing, beyond the imagination and cognition of each of us in modern times, and it is of great benefit to us to expand our thinking and improve our imagination. Let's enjoy the wonderful world in this book of heaven. #山海经 #
Illustration of the Shan Hai Jing
Let's start with the simple translation:
Three hundred miles east from the Yangshan Mountain, there is a mountain called dǐ Mountain.
There are many streams in the mountains, but there are no flowers and trees, and they are bare.
There is a fish in the water, shaped like an ox, which can also inhabit the slopes of the mountain, with a snake-like tail and a pair of wings, which sounds like when a yak roars, and its name is lù fish. It sleeps in the winter and revives in the summer. If people eat this fish, they can prevent and treat carbuncle (yōng) gangrene (jū) diseases.
Image of a squid
From the Zhuyang Mountain to the east, more than three hundred miles, you will arrive at a mountain called The Mountain.
The peculiarity of this mountain is that there are many streams flowing in the valley, the water is strange, gathered together, in a turbulent trend, the mountain is rocky, but there are no trees, no flowers, bare.
Such a mountain reminds me of the mountains in the northwest, but under the mountains in the northwest, the water flow is rare.
The mountains are strange, and the water in the valley is even stranger.
In the middle of this stream there is a fish called a bass fish, which takes the shape of an ox (one says it is the appearance of a yak). A fish looks like a cow, it is beyond people's imagination, the key is that its tail is similar to the tail of a snake, it should be hairless.
This kind of bass still has wings on both sides, and it is not known whether it will fly. It barks like a ploughing cow "mooing", and the sound can be heard far away.
The peculiarity of the anchovy is that its growth requires hibernation. In the winter, it does not eat and move, hides itself, and hibernates until the following summer, that is, it only spends two seasons in summer and autumn.
Summed up like this, this fish does not look like a fish, cattle do not look like cattle, and birds do not look like birds, which is really very peculiar.
According to the history books, it is said that "the fish lingju", that is, this fish is an amphibian, not only swimming in the water, but also wandering on the mountain, roaring in the valley. That is to say, its hibernation is likely to be on the hills of this barren land, rather than in the water we generally think of.
In addition, this fish also has pharmacological effects if eaten, and can prevent and control carbuncle diseases. The disease of carbuncle, which generally occurs on the surface of the body, limbs, internal organs, etc., is an acute purulent disease and a poisonous sore. Modern medicine explains it as purulent inflammation caused by bacterial infections caused by clusters of hair follicles and sebaceous glands of the skin, and the pathogen is staphylococcus. It can be seen that anchovies are a good anti-inflammatory drug.
Finally, read the original text of this passage in the Classic of Mountains and Seas:
Three hundred miles to the east, there is a lot of water and no vegetation.
There are fish, its shape is like an ox, a mausoleum, the tail of a snake has wings, its feathers are under the xiě (魼), its sound is like a cattle, its name is called 鯥, it dies in winter and is born in summer, and there is no swelling in food.
Note: The original text and translation in the text are from Fu Shuo's translation of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, and the rest are from online editing; the pictures in the text are from the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" of Tiandi Publishing House and the "Pictorial Biography of the Classic of Mountains and Seas" edited by Wang Xulong, and the rest are from network sharing. If there is any impropriety, please inform us of the deletion.