The sound of the loom came one after another, and Miss Mulan was weaving at the door. The loom stopped making no sound, and only the girl could be heard sighing.
Ask the girl what she is missing, ask the girl what she is thinking about. The girl did not miss anything, the girl did not recall anything. I saw the recruitment documents last night and knew that the king was recruiting soldiers on a large scale. There were so many volumes of recruitment documents, and my father's name was on each volume. The father has no grown-up son, and Mulan has no brother. Mulan is willing to buy saddles and horses, and from then on go on the expedition for her father.
Go to the east market to buy a horse, the west market to buy a saddle and saddle pads, the south market to buy bits and reins, and the north market to buy a long whip (horsewhip) ). I bid farewell to my parents in the morning and set off on the road, and camped by the Yellow River at night. I couldn't hear the parents calling for their daughter, but I could hear the roar of the Yellow River. Say goodbye to the Yellow River in the morning and hit the road, and arrive at the foot of Black Mountain (Yanshan Mountain) in the evening. You can't hear the voices of parents calling for their daughters, but you can hear the chirping of Yanshan Hu soldiers and horses.
Marching thousands of miles to fight on the battlefield, crossing passes and mountains as fast as flying over them. The sound of the watch came from the cold wind in the north, and the cold moonlight reflected the soldiers' armor. The soldiers went through countless life-and-death battles, some sacrificed their lives, and some returned victorious ten years later.
When he came back to see the emperor, the emperor sat in the palace (discussing merit and giving rewards). Mulan was ranked the highest in the list of meritorious deeds, and received a reward of more than a thousand gold. The emperor asked Mulan what she wanted. Mulan did not want to be an official in Shangshu Province. She wanted to ride a thousand-mile horse and send me back to my hometown.
The parents heard that their daughter was back, and helped each other out of the city (to greet Mulan). When the elder sister heard that her younger sister was back, she started dressing up across the door. When the little brother heard that his sister was back, he sharpened his knife to kill pigs and sheep. Open the door on the east side of my boudoir, sit on the bed on the west side of my boudoir, take off the war robe I wore during the war, put on my girl's clothes, arrange my hair as soft as clouds in front of the window, and do some makeup on my forehead in front of the mirror. Stick a good flower yellow on it. When I went out to meet my friends in the same camp, they were all very surprised: We have been together for twelve years and we didn’t even know Mulan was a girl.
When the rabbit is suspended in the air by its ears, the male rabbit's feet often move, while the female rabbit's eyes often squint (so it is easy to distinguish). When two rabbits, male and female, run side by side, how can you tell which is the male rabbit and which is the female rabbit?
A long narrative folk song from the Northern Dynasties. There are different records and disputes about its production year and author since the Song Dynasty. It first appeared in "Wenyuan Yinghua" and was titled "Mulan Song", which was attributed to Wei Yuanfu in the Tang Dynasty. "Guwenyuan" is titled "Poetry of Mulan", which is regarded as "Poetry of the Tang Dynasty". Cheng Dachang's "Yan Fanlu" of the Song Dynasty believed that Mulan "was born either in the Sui Dynasty or the Tang Dynasty" according to the poem "Khan Da Dian Bing"; while in the Southern Song Dynasty Yan Yu's "Canglang Shihua" believed that "the new energy spreads to Jin Tuo, and the cold air spreads to Jin Tuo". "Illuminated iron clothes" and the like, "already seem too white, must not be poems of Han and Wei Dynasties". Since then, people in all dynasties have maintained that it was "composed by people from the Sui and Tang Dynasties", but Huang Tingjian of the Song Dynasty pointed out that this poem was not written by Wei Yuanfu, but that Wei "obtained it from the people" ("After the Inscription of Yuefu's "Mulan Poems""). The "Collection of Yuefu Poems" is included in "Lianggujiao Horizontal Blowing Music" and is also titled "Mulan Poetry", which is said to be an "ancient poem". It also quotes Chen Shizhijiang's "Ancient and Modern Music Records" as saying: "Mulan is unknown." According to the "Old Book of Tang Dynasty". "The Biography of Wei Yuanfu" records that Wei served as the observation envoy to western Zhejiang and the military envoy to Huainan (Huang Tingjian wrongly said that Wei served as the military envoy to Shuofang). According to the "Old Tang Book·Music Records", it can be seen that there are "Xianbei songs between Yan and Wei" in the Yuefu songs of the Liang Dynasty and the Northern Dynasty, and there are many "Khan's words". Therefore, "Mulan Poetry" may have originally been a Xianbei song. It was spread in the south of the Yangtze River and translated into Chinese. It was included in the Yuefu of the Liang Dynasty, and later scattered among the people. In the Tang Dynasty, Wei Yuanfu rediscovered it and planned to compose a song "Mulan Song" ("Wenyuan Yinghua"). As for the dual verses such as "Shuo Qi", they are already common in Qi and Liang poetry, and they are naturally traces of literati processing. Therefore, most modern scholars believe that "Mulan Poetry" was produced in the Northern Wei Dynasty and was created among the people.
"Poetry of Mulan" records that Mulan disguised herself as a man, joined the army on her father's behalf, made meritorious deeds on the battlefield, and was unwilling to become an official after returning to the court. This obviously also impacted the prejudice of favoring sons over daughters in feudal society. It has "strange things and strange poems" (Shen Deqian's "The Source of Ancient Poems"), is full of romance, and has a relatively strong and simple style, basically maintaining the characteristics of folk songs.
The ideological content and artistic techniques of "Mulan Poetry" will have a profound impact on later generations. The Song Dynasty music history "Taiping Huanyu Ji" records that Huanggang County in Huangzhou (now Huangpi, Hubei Province) has eight Mulan sceneries including Mulan Mountain, Mulan Grassland, Mulan Lake, and Mulan Tianchi, and cites Du Mu's "Mulan Temple" as evidence. Later, according to local chronicles, temples were built to worship Mulan in places such as Bozhou in present-day Anhui, Shangqiu in Henan, and Wanxian in Hebei, reflecting the profound influence of "Poetry on Mulan". To this day, the image of Mulan on stage and screen still inspires people's patriotic sentiments. At the same time, long before Wei Yuanfu drafted it, Du Fu's poem "The Thatched Cottage" described the joyful scene of moving to a thatched cottage, and had obviously learned from the expression technique used in "Mulan Poems" to describe the family's welcome to Mulan's return.
"Mulan Poetry" has the unique style of Yuefu folk songs. The question and answer used at the beginning is common in folk songs.
The language of "Mulan Poems" is vivid and simple, with very few carvings and axes: "When the younger brother hears the sister coming, he sharpens his knife to the pigs and sheep." It has been passed down for thousands of years and is still a popular spoken language; in addition to "Wanted to go to war" Except for the six lines of text, which are relatively elegant, the rest retain the form and style of folk songs. The use of chain, question and answer, parallelism, overlap and other forms are roughly the same as folk songs. Moreover, the language is rich and colorful. As far as the original rhyme is concerned, most of the longer Yuefu poems change rhymes every few sentences, and rarely finish the rhyme to the end. This can make the syllables of the songs sung complex and varied. "Mulan Poetry" changes seven rhymes in one sentence, which can also be said to be seven kinds of music: "Chirp again chirp... the woman has no memory"; "Buying a saddle in the West Market... But I hear the splashing of the Yellow River. "; "Staying at the top of the Black Mountain at dusk...but I heard the chirping of barbarians on Yanshan Mountain"; "Going thousands of miles to the army...the strong man returns after ten years"; "The emperor is sitting in the hall...I don't know that Mulan is a girl"; "The female rabbit's eyes are blurred... "Can you tell whether I am male or female?" This is equivalent to seven songs under one title. The difference is that here is a complete song. The number of sentences in each rhyme of many folk songs is relatively neat, but the number of sentences in "Mulan Poems" is rather uneven. Precisely because it was sung by musicians, it has been included in Yuefu songs throughout the ages, and even now, there are still Pingtan artists singing "Mulan Poetry".
As soon as the poem begins, it draws the reader into the scene it describes. The "machine sound" Mulan usually makes when weaving has been replaced by her sighs. The reason is that the Khan "calls out troops on the battlefield", his father's name is in the military, and there is no eldest son in the family. How can Mulan not be anxious and depressed? But she finally made the brave decision of "willing to be a pommel horse for the city and fight for her father from now on".
Mulan’s joining the army was forced and illegal. Once she made the decision to "join the army", her attitude was positive, which vividly demonstrated her initiative and determination from the busy scene of her shopping for luggage. Mulan is away from home for the first time, and the mountains and rivers in a foreign land will touch her homesickness. The description of this in the poem is sincere and very touching. Joining the army gave Mulan the same opportunity as men to display her wisdom and talents. Ten years of war tests transformed her from a kind, enthusiastic, and capable young girl into a "strong man" with military exploits. What a great story. What a huge change!
The war was won, and peace was won. The environment has changed, where will Mulan go? She had unspeakable difficulties. In the grand ceremony of merit and reward, because she was a woman, she did not deserve the honor she deserved. She had no choice but to resign and be knighted and embark on the only way to disarm and return home. The anonymous author believes that this is a matter of course. Therefore, Mulan's joy of family reunion is described in a cheerful tone, allowing her to appear as a woman in front of her companions after "taking care of her hair at the window and wearing yellow flowers in the mirror." What is valuable about the author is that at the end, he uses the metaphor of rabbits running together and it is difficult to distinguish between male and female, which shows that if women have the opportunity to display their ambitions, their wisdom, courage and talents are no less than men.
This description of Mulan's joining the army and returning home shows the author's progressive ideological tendency. The problem lies in how we correctly analyze the social phenomenon reflected by the author. Some people believe that Mulan's return to her hometown reflects her lack of fame and wealth and reflects the true nature of working people who love labor. I think this view is incorrect.
In ancient Chinese feudal society, "women are like men." In addition to Mulan, there is also Huang Chonggu. Xie Fangde narrated their deeds as anecdotes in Bihu Miscellaneous Notes. Mulan is a heroine who was killed on the battlefield. She "returned without being ennobled"; Huang Chonggu was a woman from the Shu Kingdom during the Five Dynasties. She disguised herself as a man and worked as a servant in the mansion of Shu Prime Minister Zhou Xiang. Because she was "a smart official and fearful of subordinates", she was favored by Zhou Xiang, who "desired a wife and a daughter". This made Huang Chong dumbfounded, so he had no choice but to explain that he was a woman and leave.
Women disguising themselves as men was considered an abnormal phenomenon under the feudal system. "Men govern the outside and women govern the interior" is a precept of feudal etiquette. Mulan can secretly join the army on her father's behalf during critical times, giving full play to her potential ingenuity and talent. Otherwise, the notoriety of the so-called "Chicken Sichen" will fall on her. Neither Mulan nor the author of "Mulan Poems" could change this fate.
The shackles imposed on women by feudal etiquette are difficult to break free from. Wang Jun, a female poet in the Qing Dynasty, felt that she could not show her talents like Mulan and Chonggu in "Partridge Sky" ("Mulan Chonggu had no luck"), so she had to let the heroine in her tanci "Prosperous Dream" She stepped onto the artistic stage ("so that she can translate her thoughts into dreams") to express her life ideals buried in her chest.
It can be seen that Mulan’s return to her hometown is by no means a matter of not wanting fame and wealth, nor a matter of loving labor, but an inevitable outcome of the oppression and discrimination against women in feudal society.
It is impossible for the author of "Mulan Poetry" to realize this clearly. However, the tortuous life path from peace to war to peace that he walked through Mulan unconsciously reflected the miracle Mulan created under special conditions and sang its praises enthusiastically. This is the author's loyalty to real life, and it is also connected with the thoughts and feelings of the working people.