Starting today, it has entered the middle of April in the lunar calendar.
I was reading poetry and researching information yesterday and found that people in ancient times had so many elegant names for the fourth month of the lunar calendar. For example, in yesterday's poem "Farewell to Liu Jun and Kunzhong" by Huang Tingjian, two couplets were found:
The first one says Sophora japonica and the second one says Maiqiu, which seems to be two seasons. In fact, they are both elegant names for the fourth month of the lunar calendar.
Entering the fourth month of the lunar calendar, the beginning of summer, the locust trees are also blooming, and the yellow-white petals are the prelude to blooming like summer flowers. Therefore, April is also called Sophora xu and Sophora summer.
April is summer, which is understandable. But why does "Mai Qiu" also refer to April? It can be explained in three steps.
First of all, ancient China originated from the agricultural civilization of the Central Plains, and wheat was the main food crop of the ancestors at that time. This can be seen in many poems in the Book of Songs such as "The big rat has no food for my wheat," "I walk in the wild, and the wheat is harvested," and "The love is gathering wheat, and it is in the north." It can also be seen.
Then, the maturity period of wheat is in early summer, which was called "Mengxia" in ancient times, which is April. "Book of Rites·Yue Ling" says:
In the Mengxia season, people have to drive away wild animals and protect grains. Moreover, the emperor and the people had to offer new wheat and pork as sacrifices to the ancestral temple.
Finally, the ancients believed:
That is to say, according to the law of the four seasons, spring represents the rebirth of all things, while autumn represents maturity and harvest. So for wheat whose harvest period is in early summer, early summer is its autumn.
"Book of Rites·Yue Ling" also says:
This means that in the month of Mengxia, most annual herbs have finished flowering and bearing fruits, and many herbs need to be harvested, made and stored. The wildly growing grass will die, and the wheat autumn season has arrived.
From then on, there was a kind of autumn called "Wheat Autumn".
It represents the fourth month of the lunar calendar, which was the most important wheat harvest season at that time.
It not only reveals the traditional aesthetics of "farming civilization", but also exudes the ancient poetic flavor of "Spring and Autumn Etiquette".
Of course, in addition to Mengxia, Huaixu, Huaixia and Maiqiu, April’s elegant names include Zhengyang, Qinghe, Meiyue, Yuyue and so on.