"Thousand Character Essay" Poetry Interpretation 1 The sky and earth are black and yellow, the universe is prehistoric, the sun and the moon are waxing, the stars are arranged, the cold is coming, the summer is coming, the autumn is harvesting, and the winter is hiding
Inscription poem:
Emotions give rise to writing, which is based on pictograms, so it is called writing. Writing gives birth to characters,
The shapes and sounds complement each other, that is, the writing is called writing. The writing is the foundation, and the object image is the foundation.
The original is the source, the source is the mother, and the mother is affectionate; the single body is called text,
the combined body is called character, the shape and sound are combined, and the breeding is multiplied. The word is used to express feelings,
the word is Expressive expressions, expressive feelings, deep feelings, touching the world.
From ancient times to the present, the same feelings are shared, the same heart is shared, and the words are connected.
Zhong Yao once wrote , a thousand-character essay, destroyed in the war, Emperor Wu of Liang Dynasty developed it,
ordered Zhou Xingsi to write a thousand-character essay. The second rhyme was Tongmeng, to pass on to descendants.
The sky and the earth are black and yellow, the universe is prehistoric: love The sky and the earth are born, the sky is mysterious and the earth is yellow,
The emotions are connected in the universe, up and down in all directions, sincerely reaching the past and the present, past and present;
The sun and the moon are waxing, the sun is midday, and the moon is eclipsing. , the sun and the moon are affectionate,
The yin and the sun wax and wane, rising and falling; the stars are listed, the twenty-eight constellations,
The Big Dipper, *** arches one star, the stars adjust the yin and yang, and the stars are aligned. Four o'clock;
Cold and summer come and go, silently and odorlessly, the cold and heat push each other, forming each year.
The cold and heat have feelings, the four seasons have meanings, autumn harvests and winter hides, spring grows and summer grows. ,
Naturally, everything comes together in four seasons. True love is eternal, sincerity always exists,
Where true love comes, it always comes and goes, has a beginning and an end, and remains unswerving.
Text:
"The Thousand-Character Essay" is my country's best educational textbook. It uses a thousand Chinese characters to outline the basic outline of a complete Chinese cultural history. , represents the highest level of the enlightenment stage of traditional Chinese education. "The Thousand-Character Essay" is coherent from beginning to end, has beautiful phonology, and is catchy to read. It is not only a four-character poem, but also a pocket encyclopedia of knowledge. Wang Shizhen, a master of ancient prose in the Ming Dynasty, called it a "wonderful article". Chu people in the Qing Dynasty praised it as "limited to a limited number of characters but able to run through it coherently without any mistakes, just like dancing neon clothes on an inch of wood or spinning long threads on tangled silk".
The whole theme of "The Thousand-Character Essay" is clear, the chapters and sentences are in the same vein, and are advanced layer by layer. The language is beautiful, the vocabulary is gorgeous, and almost every sentence is quoted from the scriptures, and every word is used. This is incomparable to several other educational books that are also recognized as good. Therefore, calligraphers of all ages competed to write. For example, Zhiyong, Huaisu, Ouyang Xun, Zhao Ji, Zhao Mengfu, Wen Zhengming, etc. all have calligraphers handed down to this day.
Since "The Thousand-Character Essay" is a rhyme composed of a thousand characters, we will use the traditional teaching method this time. The speaker will interpret the words and explain the text, and the scholars will follow the text to gain insights. The speaker should explain the meaning of the words and text clearly, and the listeners should use their imagination to observe and think as the sentences unfold. There is no standard answer when it comes to understanding ancient Chinese prose. The so-called "books cannot fully convey the meaning, and words cannot fully convey the meaning." It all depends on the reader's comprehension and imagination. If a standard answer is given, students' imagination will be stifled. Without imagination, there would be no creative thinking or invention. This is a series of cause-and-effect relationships.
The advantage of traditional education is that it leaves doors open for you everywhere, instead of teachers taking over and closing doors everywhere. "It is the fault of the teacher if he cannot explain clearly; if he cannot listen clearly, it is the fault of the learner."
The three characters "Thousand Character Essay" are the title of this article, indicating that this article is composed of a thousand Chinese characters. Chinese characters have developed to the point where today there are more than 20,000 square characters. After years of collation by archaeologists and philologists, it was discovered that the oracle bone inscriptions recording the culture of the Yin Shang and pre-Shang dynasties contain three thousand characters. Two thousand of them are special characters for divination, and only one thousand are used in daily life. The Shang Dynasty had a history of 600 years and only had a thousand commonly used characters. Of course, the lack of characters at that time was one thing, but on the other hand it tells us that if you could really control a thousand Chinese characters, it would be amazing.
China has separated language and writing since ancient times. Language is language, writing is writing, and no colloquial writing is used. Because the ancients discovered that language is limited by time and space, different regions and different times use different languages ??for communication. The general rule is that it changes every 30 years. But words can travel through time and space and be passed down forever. When we read this "Thousand-Character Essay" today, we felt like we were back in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, sitting across from the author Zhou Xingsi and listening to his eloquent talk. Everything is so fresh and lifelike.
Zhou Xingsi, also known as Si Zuan, lived in the Xiaoliang period among Song, Qi, Liang and Chen in the Southern Dynasty. He was a very learned man. During the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang Dynasty, he was appointed as a minister of foreign affairs, and Emperor Wu often ordered him to make fuss. The famous articles such as "Bronze Table Inscription" and "Appreciation to Wei" in the history of the Six Dynasties were all written by him.
This article was written during the Datong period of Emperor Wu of Liang Dynasty, that is, between 535 and 543 AD, which is more than 1,400 years ago. Zhong Yao, a calligrapher during the Three Kingdoms period, once wrote a "Thousand-Character Essay", but it was destroyed in the turmoil of the Western Jin Dynasty. Wang Xizhi re-edited another article, but the art, science, and phonology were not good. In order to educate his nephew, Emperor Wu of Liang ordered Zhou Xingsi to compile it again. According to legend, Emperor Wu copied a thousand different characters from the inscription written by Wang Xizhi, and then handed the thousand disorderly pieces of paper to Zhou Xingsi and said, "Qing family is very talented, so you can write a rhyme for me." Zhou Xingsi racked his brains and compiled it in just one night, but when he handed in the article, his hair was already frosty white. (The story is found in "History of Liang")
He could only use the thousand words given by Emperor Wu to organize the article, like a child playing with jigsaw puzzles, and it also had to rhyme, so it was called "Zhou Xingsi Ci Yun". The second is the arrangement order, and the rhyme is to arrange it according to the rhyme part and rhyme. Because it is carried out by the emperor's will, the word "imperial edict" is added in front of it, which means the emperor's decree.
His official rank is Yuanwai Sanqi Shilang, which was an official position established in the Han Dynasty. The Southern and Northern Dynasties were not too long apart from the Han Dynasty, and the Han system was still used. The original intention of Sanqi was to do nothing specific, just to accompany the emperor's advisors and attendants.
The minister was the top leader of the government department "province" (hereinafter referred to as "ministry, hospital") at that time. However, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the minister was a deputy, and the official position of the department was called minister. Membership is an additional position in addition to the normal staff. Because the emperor has decreed, an additional position should be added to the normal staff. Therefore, the minister Zhou Xingsi was called Yuanwai Sanqi Minister.
The full text of "The Thousand Character Essay" is divided into four parts. The first part starts from the birth of the universe and the creation of the world, and talks about the sun, moon and stars, weather and phenology, and the natural resources on the earth. It talks about the history of China in the ancient and ancient times after the emergence of human beings. Finally, it ends with the emergence of human social organization and the royal political system. This part of the content is both self-contained and the foundation for the following three parts, which is very important.
Original text:
The sky and the earth are dark and yellow, and the universe is primitive. The sun and the moon are ① and ②, and the stars and stars are ③. Cold comes and summer comes, autumn harvests and winter hides.
Notes ① Ying: The moonlight is full. ②昃(za): The sun sets in the west. ③Su (xiù) (ancient) Chinese astronomers call the collection of certain stars in the sky "Su".
Translation
The sky is blue-black, the earth is yellow, and the universe was formed in a state of chaos and ignorance. The sun is straight and tilted, the moon is full and waning, and the stars are all over the boundless space.
Detailed explanation
The sky and the earth are dark and yellow, and the universe is primitive.
The sentence "Heaven and Earth are dark and yellow" comes from the "Book of Changes". "The Book of Changes" says "Tian Xuan Di Huang", but here it is changed to "Tian Di Xuan Huang" for the sake of rhyme. This kind of quotation without changing the ancient characters is called Ming Yin. "The Great Universe" comes from Huainanzi and Taixuan Jing. "Huainanzi" says, "The four directions above and below are called Yu, and throughout the ages they have been called Zhou." The author of "Tai Xuan Jing" was Yang Xiong of the Western Han Dynasty. He said something about "the prehistoric era" in "Tai Xuan Jing". The words of the two sutras combined are "the beginning of the universe". This way of quoting the sutras is called hidden quotation, so these two sentences are both classics.
The two words "Heaven and Earth" have multiple meanings in ancient Chinese, and include many concepts. The familiar sky and earth are just one of them. If you want to understand the meaning of the two words "Heaven and Earth", you must read the "Book of Changes". The "Book of Changes" is the first of the Five Classics. It talks about the way of heaven and earth and the changes of yin and yang. Chinese traditional culture, the "Four Books" and various schools of thought are all developed from the root of the "Book of Changes" , learning Chinese culture without reading the "Book of Changes" is putting the cart before the horse.
"The Book of Changes" says: "Metaphysically, it is called the Tao, and metaphysically, it is called the weapon." Before the birth of the universe, the universe was in a state of chaos. Modern physics calls it the super-density infinitely collapsing particles before the big bang. Chinese culture calls it Tai Chi. 15 billion years ago, this ultra-dense particle instantly produced a big explosion, forming the current material universe. The tangible matter condensed into stars, which is the earth; the invisible space expanded to form space, which is the sky. "Book of Changes" says: The light and pure ones rise to the sky, and the cloudy and turbid ones descend to the earth. Isn’t it both figurative and concrete? But this is the physical world, the world of the material world. In the "Book of Changes" culture, it belongs to the physical "world of things", that is, the material world. Metaphysics is the world of non-material Tao, which cannot be discussed with our current intelligence, so Confucius said: "There is no need to care about the existence outside the Liuhe". "Existence" means acknowledging that it does exist, "regardless" means not discussing it for the time being, because we are not smart enough and we will quarrel whenever we talk about it. Why bother!
To tell the truth to people with high wisdom, the metaphysical is the sky, and the metaphysical is the earth. For people who are not smart enough, I can only say simple words: space is the sky and the earth is the earth. The two words "Heaven and Earth" are also the same. Deep people have deep understandings, and shallow people have shallow explanations. Each one has its own place.
Xuan, in terms of color, refers to a color that is dark blue and almost black, called Xuan. In a sense, it refers to something lofty and unfathomable, which is called mysterious. The color of the sky visible to the naked eye is blue. How can we say it is black? Blue is the color of water, the color of the ocean. When sunlight hits the surface of the ocean, the light reflects up, and the sky we see is blue. But now when astronauts go to space and take a look, it's pitch black, with only stars emitting little glimmers of light. It's indeed black, so Tianxuan is right in terms of color. In addition, the way of heaven is high and far away. As Lao Tzu said, the metaphysical principles of the way of heaven are mysterious and mysterious, unfathomable and cannot be understood by our current wisdom. This is the metaphysical way of heaven that is profound and unpredictable, so it is called Tianxuan.
Rehmannia glutinosa also has two meanings. Our Chinese culture, especially traditional culture, refers to the culture before Pre-Qin, that is, the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, especially the culture of the Zhou Dynasty. In ancient times, Xia, Shang and Zhou all established their kingdoms and capitals in the Yellow River Basin. If China's traditional culture is narrowed down, it should be said to be the culture of the Yellow River Basin. The Yellow River is the mother river. It originates from the Kunlun Mountains (Yegu Zonglie Basin), converges into the Xingxiu Sea, passes through the Jishi Mountain, passes through nine twists and turns, and flows down from the northwest plateau. At the same time, it brings down loess to form an impact plain. The color of the water is yellow, the color of the soil is also yellow, and the crops such as millet and millet are all yellow, so it is said that the ground is yellow.
Another meaning is that celestial bodies in the universe, including the earth, are all products of the Big Bang, and are all hot matter in their initial state. The earth condenses its temperature into the magma in the core and continuously replenishes it with the help of the sun. Only with temperature can there be life phenomena. In chromatographic analysis, black is a cold color and yellow is a warm color. Rehmannia glutinosa also praises the warm earth for its growth and nurturing effects, so the Chinese also honor the earth as "mother".
The heaven is high and the earth is deep, and yellow also represents the depth of the earth. Superstitious people say: "After death, people return to the underworld, and crossing the Naihe Bridge is the way to the underworld." Although the words are unbelievable, they simply refer to another profound world unknown to living people.
It can be seen that it is not easy to understand the four words "Heaven and Earth Xuanhuang".
The Universe
"Huainanzi" says that the four directions above and below are called Yu. The four directions above and below are also called Liuhe, so Yu is the concept of space. From ancient times to the present, it is called the universe, which is the continuation of history and the concept of time.
Ying means full, which is for the moon; 廄 means tilt, which is for the sun. On the fifteenth day of the moon, the full moon is called waxing, and it is also called Wang. Wang means that the sun and the moon look at each other. On the fifteenth day of every lunar month, before the sun sets, the full moon has already risen. One day and one month, one white and one yellow, facing each other, it is magnificent. On the first day of each month, the moon body without moonlight is called Shuo, and on the last day of each month, there is no moonlight, which is called Hui. From the third to the seventh day of the lunar month, the crescent moon slowly comes out. It is C-shaped at first, like a sickle, which is called the crescent moon. On the eighth day of the lunar month, it becomes a reverse D shape, which is called upper string. The fifteenth day is the full moon, then it is D-shaped, it is the waning moon, and finally it is the waning moon, and then it is dark. This is when the moon and the sun are in the same straight line, and the apparent surface areas of the two coincide. The moon completely blocks the sun and the moonlight is invisible.
Zhe means that the sun is tilted to the west. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west every day. It is at its highest position at noon. Once it passes noon, it is called Zhe. China's own astronomy pays attention to the ecliptic, the ecliptic and the equator, which are the most basic orbits of celestial bodies.
Chinese people like to choose an auspicious day when they go out to do things. So what is the ecliptic? The ecliptic is the path formed by the sun's orbit around the earth. Some people jumped up when they heard it, nonsense! Not scientific. How does the sun revolve around the earth? It's the earth that revolves around the sun. We say it depends on where the base point is. If we use the earth as the base point and the sun as the reference object, and observe the movement of the sun on the earth, it is true that the sun revolves around the earth. The sun rises in the east in the morning and sets in the west in the evening. The phenomenon we see is sunrise and sunset. Let’s put it another way: the orbit of apparent movement formed by observing the movement of the sun on the earth is called the ecliptic. You name it, it's the same thing.
The zodiac has a 360-degree cycle and is divided into twelve equal parts, called the 12 zodiac signs or 12 palaces. From Zi to Hai, the first house is 30 degrees, and it moves through one house every month. After completing the twelfth house, the sun rotates once.
What is Baidao? The white path is the orbit formed by observing the moon revolving around the earth on the earth, which is called the white path. The Earth's equator is an imaginary parallel line drawn between the North and South Pole, dividing the Earth into two parts: the southern hemisphere and the northern hemisphere. The astronomical equator is the projection of the earth's equator on the celestial sphere. Using this as a mark, there is a corresponding Kyushu division on the celestial sphere.
A cycle of the moon's waxing and waning changes is the earliest lunar calendar used in China, and the moon refers to the moon. Recording the length of time based on the changes in the moonlight is the lunar calendar, or lunar calendar for short. The Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties each had their own calendars. The one we use now is the Xia calendar, which is the lunar calendar of the Xia Dynasty.
Chen Su Lie Zhang
This sentence comes from "Huainanzi". The book "Huainanzi" was written by Liu An, the king of Huainan, and his disciple *** in the early Western Han Dynasty. Liu An is the great-grandson of Liu Bang, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, and the son of Liu Chang, King Li of the Han Dynasty. There is a sentence in "Huainanzi": "Heaven sets up the sun and moon, sets out the stars, regulates yin and yang, and regulates the four o'clock." It can be seen that Zhou Xingsi, the author of "The Thousand Character Essay", was very familiar with the Five Classics and various schools of thought, and could pick them up at his fingertips.
In a broad sense, Chen is the general term for stars, commonly known as stars. Chen in the narrow sense is Beichen, which refers to the Big Dipper. The Big Dipper belongs to the Ursa Major constellation in modern astronomy and can be used to identify directions and determine seasons. Chen also refers to the Chen palace in the twelve zodiac signs where the sun travels (Zichou Yin Mao Chen Si Wu Wei Shen You Xu Hai).
In a broad sense, Su refers to the stars. What is the difference between stars and constellations? A single star is called a star, and a cluster of stars or a group of stars with more than one is called a star. When we look at the stars in the sky, they are basically constellations and star clusters. They are lumps and lumps. It is impossible to count how many there are. They can only be called one constellation or a constellation. The most prosperous era of Chinese astronomy was the Sui and Tang Dynasties. At that time, the star field was divided into three major circles, also called the Three Yuans: Taiwei Yuan, Ziwei Yuan, and Tianshi Yuan. The domain is divided into three sets of courtyards. Then divide the star field into four parts according to east, west, north and south, like cutting a watermelon, and select seven groups of stars for each block, each group is a star. The so-called stars are immobile stars, just like the sun. They are like this today, they will be like this tomorrow, and they will still be like this in ten thousand years. They will never change and are easy to observe and compare. Each side has seven groups of stars, four seven and twenty-eight. The total is twenty-eight groups, which is the twenty-eight constellations.
Westerners don’t call them stars, they call them constellations. A constellation is a group of stars, such as Ursa Major, Andromeda, Pisces, etc. Western astronomy originally had 48 constellations, and later the Greeks added 40 more, for a total of 88 constellations, all named after characters, animals, vessels, etc. in Western mythology and legends, such as Sagittarius, Horizon, Taurus, etc. , different from our Chinese ones.
According to the ancient Chinese: Canglong in the East, White Tiger in the West, Suzaku in the South, and Xuanwu in the North. In fact, after connecting the 28 constellations, it looks like these four animals. For example, the Eastern Canglong has seven groups of stars in one star, "the horns are high, the corners are high, the heart is low, the heart is low, and the tail is low". When they are connected with a line, it looks like a dragon that looks back and curls up, and is galloping. The dragon lives in the east, spring is in the season, and the hair is gentle. We are the descendants of the eastern dragon, and the descendants of the dragon. We should never forget the birthplace of the Chinese people.
The seven constellations of the Southern Vermilion Bird, "Ghost in the Well, Willow Stars, Zhang Yi Zhen", look like a peacock spreading its wings. The white tiger of the West, "Kui Louwei Pleiades and Bishu Ginseng", when connected, looks like an open-mouthed tiger. In the Northern Xuanwu, the "Bullfighting Girl's Virtual Chamber Wall" is divided into two groups, one group resembles a snake and the other resembles a turtle.
The ancients were very familiar with the stars since childhood, and could write poems at their fingertips. For example, Su Shi's "Ode to the Former Red Cliff" "A little while ago, the moon rose above the east mountain, wandering among the bullfights." Bullfighting is the two constellations of Xuanwu in the north. When the moon moves between Bullfighting, it means it is midnight. With the development of modern science and technology, we know nothing about astronomy. Foreigners find it strange that Chinese children who participate in summer camps organized by international organizations cannot use stars to identify directions at night.
Column means arrangement, which means to lay it out; Zhang means to spread out the cloth, which means to spread it out and hang it up. When the two sentences are combined, the literal meaning is:
The sun rises and sets. The moon is full and eclipsed, and it is eclipsed and full again.
The stars twinkled and spread out, filling the starry sky.
Cold comes and summer comes, autumn harvests and winter hides.
Translation: The cycle of cold and heat changes, coming and going, going and coming again; harvesting crops in autumn and storing food in winter. The accumulated leap years are combined into one month and placed in the leap year; the ancients used Liulu and Liulu to regulate yin and yang.
Detailed explanation
Cold comes and summer comes, autumn harvests and winter stores.
The literal meaning of these two sentences is easy to understand. Cold and summer refer to the changes in climate, and autumn and winter refer to the passage of the four seasons. The previous sentence is a quotation. Although it is just four words, it comes from the "Book of Changes". "Book of Changes" says: "When the cold comes, the summer goes away, and when the heat goes away, the cold comes. If you want to push away the cold and heat, you will get older." Harvest in autumn and store in winter is an abbreviated sentence, the full name is "spring grows and summer grows, autumn harvests and winter stores". Climate and phenology have always been important issues in agricultural countries, but nomads do not care about them and do not pay much attention to them. Climate focuses on the temperature, humidity and light hours on the earth; phenology is concerned with the rhythm of the growth and decline of organisms, focusing on the relationship between organisms and nature.
The earth’s orbit around the sun is elliptical. In a year, there is the closest perihelion (140 million kilometers) to the sun and the farthest aphelion (160 million kilometers), resulting in four seasons of sunshine. The lengths are different; the earth's axis is crooked, and its rotation causes uneven sunshine intensity in various regions, which results in changes in cold and heat.
The reason why the concept of 28 constellations is introduced in astronomy is to use the 28 constellations in the ecliptic as coordinates to study the relationship between the five planets, the sun, the moon and the earth, and the eight celestial bodies. Although the 28 constellations are all stars, they are all at least 40 trillion kilometers (4.3 light years) away from us. Precisely because their light is dim and constant, they can be used as backgrounds and coordinates to observe the movements of the five stars, the sun and the moon. .
If two or three stars among the seven stars change in opposition, stay, or conjunction, that is, the rotation angle, arrangement, and distance are different, it will cause gravitational changes on the earth and form different weather conditions. . The moon has a light mass, a fast rotation speed, and a small gravity. It cannot rely on gravity alone to mobilize rain clouds. Several other stars can use their gravity to mobilize rain clouds and cause heavy rain on the earth. Usually there will be heavy rain in the direction of the earth pointed by the resultant vector of the angle between two or more stars, and the clouds in the area within the angle will be sucked away, causing drought.
Therefore, ancient heavenly officials often used changes in the five stars and seven stars to predict weather changes.
How to determine the areas where droughts and floods occur? This brings us to the concept of the Kyushu divide in astronomy. China has had the saying of Kyushu since ancient times. The Gaoxin family of Emperor Ku founded Jiuzhou, and it was increased to 12 states during Emperor Shun's reign. After Dayu controlled the floods, it was determined to be Jiuzhou, and Jiuding was cast to permanently define Jiuzhou. Jiuzhou is Yanji Qingxu, Yang Jingyu Liang Yong. Each state corresponds to a division of the star field in the sky, called the Kyushu division. The division pointed by the vector line of angles between multiple stars, the corresponding Kyushu on the earth will have disasters such as drought, floods, hail, or volcanoes and earthquakes. Later generations developed astrology from this branch, which is another matter and has nothing to do with traditional science and technology.
Mercury is used to determine the four seasons, because Mercury's revolution period is 88 days, which is close to the number of days in a quarter. The time it takes for Mercury to make one revolution in the sky is exactly one quarter. Because it is an inner planet in the solar system and always swings to the left and right of the sun, it is easy to observe. The Big Dipper is also used to determine the four seasons. This will be discussed in detail in the last part of this article, the sentence "Xuanji Xuanhe".
Venus is used for timing and determining time. Venus is also called the Taibai Star. When it is seen in the west after dusk, it is called the Changgeng Star. When it is seen in the east before dawn, it is called the Morning Star, which means that it is about to dawn.