Author: Zhang Shi
In April 1993, the first cherry blossom season after I came to Japan, my friend Birchyama and I made an appointment to go seeing the flowers together, but we were very busy all day and never took time. In early April, suddenly one day Birch Mountain called and asked me to go to Ueno after dusk to see the cherry blossoms, and I said, "I have been thankful for the flowers for two days. Birch Hill said, "The night cherry blossoms and the falling cherry blossoms are the most beautiful!" "I had to go with him. Once I arrived in Ueno, there were so many people. In the hazy moonlight, there are only a few pieces of cherry blossom remnants left on the cherry blossom trees, but the ground is covered with falling cherry blossoms, riding on the silver moonlight, stepping on it, it seems that the cherry blossoms are reddish and crystalline flower souls, there are many people sitting on the falling cherry blossoms drinking, a sound of a shamisen taiko drum is heard, as if the night wind plucks the remnants of the cherry blossoms, flowing down a lonely eternity.
Cherry blossom watchers
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > Japanese book unsying autumn</h1>
Japanese people like falling flowers in this way, which is very different from the taste of Chinese. In China, the autumn of all things is always the object of lamentation of poets. Poets are often "cherishing spring and sad autumn", which can be described as "since ancient times, autumn is sad and lonely" (Liu Yuxi's "Two Autumn Words").
Although the earliest collection of Chinese poetry, the Book of Poetry, says "autumn" less often, but once it says "autumn", it will come from sorrow. "Poetry Sutra , Xiao Ya , April " Cloud " : " Autumn is miserable , a hundred flowers are in a state of disarray , and it is appropriate to return." It means, "Autumn is so sad!" A hundred flowers and a hundred grasses are sparse, and I am also suffering, and I am so haggard by the withered state of mind, and the future is unpredictable and difficult to be peaceful! And the more later, the color of the tragic autumn is also more intense, to the "Quan Tang Poems", the poems of the tragic autumn are more, and the Chinese poet Bai Juyi, who profoundly influenced the ancient Japanese poets, is a poet known for the tragic autumn, and his "Twilight" poem Yun:
In front of the Independence Buddhist Hall at dusk, the ground is full of locust flowers and tree cicadas.
At about four o'clock, the heart is always bitter, and the midgut is broken in autumn.
In the Collection of Japanese Chinese Poems compiled at the time when the ManyoShu was written, one or two Chinese poems with tragic autumn meanings will occasionally be seen, but they are also inclined to learn the poetry of Chinese poets, but they are rarely seen in pure Japanese waka collections. In Japan's most representative collection of waka songs, the "Manyo Collection", there are about 140 poems related to the word "autumn", and there are almost no poems that are purely based on autumn sorrow, while in China's "All Tang Poems", there are many poems of sorrow and autumn, only in the 27 poems selected in the "< All Tang Poetry > Essence Classification and Appreciation Integration" compiled by Mr. Pan Baiqi, as many as 19 poems are sad with autumn, and in the pen of the Japanese Manba poet, autumn is simply beautiful: "Twilight is not seen, hidden wilderness is scattered." The autumn wind blows, and the autumn leaves are like sunsets" ("Manyoji", 1536, "A Song of the Yuanda Master").
In the "Floating Clouds" of "Yuanhua Story", it is also said that in Tang Tu, people vigorously praised spring flowers, believing that there is nothing more beautiful than spring flowers, but in Yamato's words, it is "spring only flowers bloom, not as long as autumn".
A scene of autumn in Japan
Chinese most like the vibrant beauty, the original meaning of "beauty" is "big sheep", the magnificence of growing and full of vitality, is the source of Chinese beauty; while the Japanese prefer the beauty of silence, they believe that "extinction" and "death" in the inexhaustible mystery, there is life can not reach but always attracted to the "great beauty".
However, after the Manyoshu, the Japanese also began to mourn autumn, such as in the early Heian period, the collection of ancient and modern waka songs, the fourth and fifth volumes were "Autumn Song Shang" and "Autumn Song Xia", where 144 Japanese songs were included, of which about 16 were poems of Sorrowful Autumn.
Such as the anon. waka of Akigami 189:
Autumn colors stain the earth, yesterday is no longer the case. The cool breeze was blowing, and I was overwhelmed.
A japanese song written by Chisato Ōe in 193:
Looking up at the moon, Pepsi is sad. Everything withers away, not me alone.
Anon. Waka of Akigami 215:
Deep in the mountains, stepping on the autumn leaves, poignantly smelling the deer. Yo yo touched my heart, the most tragic autumn at this time.
It was probably from this era that the Japanese began to formally "miserably autumn" in their own japanese songs.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="62" >Why are the Japanese "miserable autumn" nearly two thousand years later than Chinese? </h1>
So why did the Japanese "miserable autumn" be nearly two thousand years later than Chinese?
The Book of Poetry is the earliest collection of poetry in China, including 305 poems from the early Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period (about 11th century BC - 6th century BC), originally called "Poetry", also known as "Three Hundred Poems". From the Han Dynasty onwards, Confucians enshrined it as a classic, and it was also called the Book of Poetry. The earliest works in the Book of Poetry were written around the beginning of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the latest works were written in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, that is, around the 6th century BC, according to Zheng Xuan's "Poetry Genealogy Sequence", it is "Chen Feng Zhulin", and the entire "Book of Poetry" spans a long history of about 500 years.
The ManyoShu is the earliest collection of poetry in Japan, and its status in Japan is equivalent to the Chinese Book of Poetry. It is believed to have been compiled at the end of the Nara period, including 20 volumes and more than 4,500 Japanese songs, roughly including "Miscellaneous Songs" describing banquets and travels, "Xiangwen Song" and mourning song "Elegy", which contains works from the first half of the 7th century to 759 (three years of Tenpyeong Baozi), for the date of writing and the editor, scholars of all generations have a variety of opinions, it is generally believed that the "Manyo Collection" was compiled and passed down over the years and many people, and was completed by the Daiban family (717-785 AD) in the second half of the 8th century. It was later corrected and approved by several people to form the version of the present biography.
The "Ancient and Modern Collection", known as the "Ancient and Modern Waka Collection", is the earliest collection of Japanese edicts and songs, ordered by Emperor Daigo, and compiled by court poets headed by Ki Kanyuki around 914 AD, and a total of 1111 Japanese songs were collected, mostly short songs.
From the earliest works of the Book of Poetry to the compilation of the Ancient and Modern Collection, there is a history of nearly two thousand years, and why do the Japanese people hardly mourn autumn in the "Manyo Collection", but begin to mourn autumn in the "Ancient and Modern Collection"?
The cultural geography of the areas where the Book of Poetry and Tang poems were produced mainly belonged to the northern Central Plains culture, which took Henan Province as the core and radiated outward with the vast middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River as the hinterland, and the influence extended overseas. The Northern Central Plains is the most important birthplace of Chinese culture and has long been in the political, economic and cultural center of China.
The Japanese, who live in a warm and rainy environment surrounded by the sea, are much easier and more comfortable to live than Chinese in the cold and dry north of China. In a warm, rainy environment surrounded by the sea, it is easier to harvest and gather food, and it is not very cold. In the dry and cold north, the long winter is the enemy of human life, food shortages, irresistible cold is a threat to life, and the arrival of autumn is the prelude to winter, which makes people feel sad. Perhaps the source of the Chinese poet's feelings of "Tragic Autumn" comes from this.
Autumn in Japan
And the Japanese originally did not have a tragic autumn feelings of cultural and geographical environment, Japan is an archipelago country in the eastern Pacific Ocean of Asia, facing the sea on all sides, except for the northeast coast, are surrounded by warm currents from the tropical Pacific Ocean, the climate is regulated by the ocean, forming a relatively mild, humid oceanic monsoon climate, warmer than the same latitude of the continent, rich in precipitation, because surrounded by the sea on all sides and the forest cover area is very large, fishing and gathering culture has been quite developed.
The ancient capital of Nara, the birthplace of the Manyo Collection, is located in the central part of Japan's Kii Peninsula, in the south-central region, and is one of the birthplaces of Japanese history and culture, with a high forest coverage rate, and the variety of plants in Japan alone is more than ten times more than that of Europe. The climate is basically spring-like, and the production culture that has been subsistence or supplemented by the collection of plants, wild fruits and fishing since ancient times is also quite developed.
Autumn on the Kii Peninsula
After the introduction of rice seeds to Japan, Japanese culture moved from the Neolithic Jomon culture, which was mainly based on fishing and hunting, to the Yayoi era, when the use of gold and stone, the cultivation of rice, the storage of grain, and animal husbandry were equally important. This era lasted from approximately the mid-3rd century BC to the mid-3rd century BC.
For the rice culture, Japan's geographical environment is unique, Japan's rivers are short, the amount of water is abundant, there is a lot of snow in the northern and northeastern regions; in the plain area, there are more fan-shaped terrain, and at the end of this fan, there is groundwater self-spraying, which is very beneficial to rice production. In the back wetland between the micro-highlands of the alluvial plains, rice fields can be formed without artificial water diversion, so the Japanese love their rich nature very much, and basically do not have the idea of "fighting with the sky and fighting with the earth", nor do they have the emotional archetype of "tragic autumn".
Later, Japan absorbed a large amount of Chinese Central Plains culture, a total of 4 times to the Chinese Sui and Tang envoys and about 20 times to send Tang envoys (there are other kinds of tax laws), including many to China to study Buddhism monks, etc., at that time, most of the Chinese cultural classics were sent to Sui envoys, Tang envoys, overseas students, learned monks brought back to Japan, some international students bought books from the Tang Dynasty government's living and study subsidies, it is said that some people in Japan at that time personally collected more than a thousand books. From the first half of the 7th century to 759, when the author of the "Manyo Collection" was active, about 12 envoys were sent to China, and not all of them arrived in Tang territory, and China's culture still belonged to the "future" rather than the stage of comprehensive absorption, but in the era of the "Ancient and Modern Collection", it was different, in the 6th year of Kuanhei (894), the court minister and the foreign official Sugawara Michimasa suggested to the 59th Emperor Uta, proposing that the Tang Dynasty was not only dangerous to send Tang and other envoys to Tang due to the turmoil of the Anshi Rebellion. And it is not conducive to the independent development of Japanese culture, Emperor Uta accepted his suggestion, stopped sending Tang envoys, and Tang perished in 907, and it is no longer possible to send Tang envoys, but this era has been different from the era of "ManyoShu", the Japanese have begun to digest Chinese culture carefully, the influence of Chinese culture has penetrated deeply into the marrow, "Bai's Anthology", "Anthology" and so on have become the must-read books of Japanese literati, and the strong sense of sorrow and autumn of Chinese poets such as Bai Juyi has also penetrated deeply into the poetry of the Japanese. Some of the waka are directly transcribed from the tragic autumn poems of Chinese poets such as Bai Juyi.
However, this kind of "tragic autumn" emotion has not yet fully penetrated into the Japanese people's life and artistic feelings, they like the beauty of withering, like the fallen flowers and leaves, like the dry and quiet, "tragic autumn" is a kind of historical imitation of them, not their psychological archetype and cultural dynamics.
(This article is the author's original manuscript, the original title of "Why do the Japanese start "sad autumn" nearly two thousand years later than Chinese?) Reprint, please leave a message to obtain authorization. The pictures in this article were taken by Cusso. ）