The dream of the Red Chamber is white and white, why is it arranged in October?
"Don't ask for dew in the bottle of Tuas, but for the beggar Chang'e to make a plum." Cao Xueqin Dream of the Red Chamber
Many people will ignore a time period when they look at the Dream of the Red Chamber, a large group of sisters wearing a cloak to enjoy the snow, Shi Xiangyun Lu Xue'an eating a large piece of venison, Xue Baoqin and Bao Yu wearing a big red cloak, like a fairy child and a jade girl in the sky, called a famous painting like Qiu Shizhou by Jia Mu, Wang Xifeng's only poem "One Night North Wind Tight", and Jia Baoyu went to Li Cui'an to pick a large bouquet of red plums, when was it?
Usually we think of it as November or December of the lunar calendar, which is the common saying of the winter month and the waxing moon. Because only then is there heavy snow, or plum blossoms blooming. The actual plum blossoms are spring flowers, flower buds, sporadic flowering, although they appear around the winter solstice, but the blooming period is often the end of the year and the beginning of the year.
But careful people will find that the most beautiful red plum snow scene of the Dream of the Red Chamber appears in October.
The forty-eighth time in the dream of the Red Chamber, xiangling entered the Grand View Garden, using "October of the Exhibition of Eyes", urging Xue Pan to go out to do business, she had a reason to follow Xue Baochao into the Grand View Garden to learn poetry, and she was also a genius, less than a month, by leaps and bounds.
Then immediately in october, the dream of the Red Chamber ushered in Xing Xianyan, Li Wen, Li Qi, Xue Baoqin, and then another heavy snow, so that these sisters competed in the snow. Some people say that the snow cloak of the Dream of the Red Chamber is a chinese costume event.
Afraid that the reader will not understand, he also pointed out that this is the first snow in October. I just feel that everywhere is red and white, and the plum fragrance is moving. Jia Baoyu did not hesitate to go to Miao Yu and picked a lot of red plum blossoms, and for a time all the sisters were complete in the snow.
The most famous is of course Jia Baoyu's plum blossom poem.
"The wine has not been opened, and the spring has not been cut, and the spring has been asked to go to Penglai.
Do not ask for dew in the bottle of Tuas, for the beggar's widow's sill outside the plum.
Entering the world coldly picked up the red snow and went away from the dust and incense to cut the purple clouds.
Who cherished the thin shoulders of the poem, the clothes were still stained with Buddhist moss. "Dream of the Red Chamber Cao Xueqin Jia Baoyu "Visiting Miao Yu Begging Red Plum"
Although October is the beginning of ancient winter, there are two solar terms of winter and light snow, but it is not the arrival of real cold, it is a prelude. There will be cold air coming in the north, and even one or two snows in the far north, but the overall temperature in October will be like a small spring, that is, around zero to 15 degrees. Sometimes there will be heavy snow when extreme weather comes, but no matter the north and south of the river, the plum blossoms are in the budding period rather than the blooming period.
The south is the hometown of plum blossoms, or it will bloom in October, but there is no heavy snow that can turn into Qiongyao, even frost is rare, then in the north, or there is heavy snow, it is impossible to have trees and red plums in October.
The overall climate of the Tang Dynasty was warm, so Li Shangyin was very surprised to see plum blossoms blooming in the mountains of Shaanxi in November, calling it early plum. Lu Dai was at the junction of Sichuan and Guizhou, and saw the October mountain plum, but there was no snow in that place.
The overall temperature of the Song Dynasty is cold, suitable for plum blossoms, and in the Jiangnan area of October, you can see early plums, but they are also sporadic branches, giving people a feeling of annunciation. Usually it's one branch, a few flowers.
"A thousand forests have withered away, and a sun has not been reported, and the southern branches have bloomed." Song Dynasty Anonymous "October Plum"
"A branch of knowledge is clear, and the business comes from the snow." Song Dynasty Li Longgao "October Plum"
Then the climate of the Qing Dynasty was slightly warmer, so it was almost impossible to snow plum blossoms in October at the same time.
Whether the Dream of the Red Chamber is written about the garden sentiments of the south or the north, it is impossible to have countless plum blossoms in October.
So it is very interesting, why did Cao Xueqin, who has always been rigorous, arrange it this way? Deliberately leaving a flaw in reality?
First, the October snow plum blossoms and the snow appreciation of so many girls have not appeared in reality. It's a specially fictional world.
Second, October is a special day for Cao Xueqin. Or the winter of a certain year in reality, or a certain year makes him feel like winter snow, and all the beauty has passed.
Third, in October, he fictionalized a snowy holy place where almost all the girls appeared in this beautiful context, which actually meant that many of them were no longer there, dead or scattered, and it was a place of worship for them.
Fourth, Cao Xueqin has the intention of passing on poetry, and wrote his own poems through the hands of different girls, in order to pass on poems. In such a snowy background, each poem has a particularly good sense of situation.
Fifth, Cao Xueqin has a plum blossom complex and expresses her inner purity in this way.
Indeed, the first eighty times of the Dream of the Red Chamber, stopped in the autumn of Xiao Ser, Qingwen died, Yingchun married, Xiangling was beaten, about winter, there was no following, only written in the opening sentence, and the white expanse of the earth was really clean.
Then combined with these sentences to see the snow plum blossoms in October, there is a special sense of desolation, as if it is a kind of mourning on the snow, a vivid light and vivid life of various memories and beauty intertwined, but the background color is that October or there is snow, but girls and those plum blossoms do not exist, different dreams, is a recombination of various past fragments and dreams, as if the kingdom of heaven.
So in fact, I would like to know what this October means in Cao Xueqin's reality, whether there are scars left by major events, becoming the division of life, and the node of joining the world and leaving the dust. Or October, which is the symbol of winter.
Hatsuyoshi Katsuyuki interprets the love and beauty in the poems for you.