Among all kinds of couplets, the one that most people are most interested in is probably the so-called "absolute". It definitely has two characteristics: First, it has been passed down among the people for a long time. Some have already understood it correctly, while others have not yet understood it correctly. And "getting it right" does not mean "getting it right". Second, it is very difficult. Anything that can be called "absolute" always has some special conditions.
To give an example that many people know, "Yansuo Pond Willow" belongs to the first couplet with special restrictions. The radicals of these five characters include the "Five Elements" of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The second line should also have the "Five Elements" to be appropriate. This first couplet has been circulated among the people for a long time. I don’t know how many people have used their brains to think about the second couplet, but few of them are right.
Some people compare it with "Ashes Zhenhai Tower" (Zhenmei Tower in Guangzhou), which can be compared in terms of form (both have five elements), but it is meaningless. Moreover, "Smoke locks willows on the pond" is a beautiful five-character poem, while "Ashes pile up Zhenhai Tower" is only "reasonable". The elegance and vulgarity between the two cannot be judged.
Later, someone changed the word "ash" into the word "Pao", which became "Paodui Zhenhai Tower".
The "cannon pile" is much better than the "ash pile", but it is still not good enough. Because the momentum of the word "dui" is too weak, what is the purpose of "piling" many cannons in the Zhenhai Tower? If it is used to bombard enemies, the word "pile" is very bad.
Some people refer to it as "Gunjiang Zhenjiang City". Zhenjiang and Guguazhou are opposite each other across the river. The situation is dangerous, so they call it "Gunjiang City", which is quite imposing. But there are still flaws. Because the characters "suo" and "jia" both have oblique tones, and the characters "tang" and "jiang" both have flat tones. Two of the five characters do not have oblique tones, so this cannot be regarded as a qualified couplet.
In fact, "The smoke locks the willows in the pond" is a poem by the predecessors, which can be seen in "Zhongzhou Thatched Cottage Collection" written by Chen Zisheng in the late Ming Dynasty. Chen Zisheng used as many as four couplets for "Smoke locks willows in the pond".
Chen Zisheng (1614-1692, from Nanhai, Guangdong) was the younger brother of Chen Zizhuang, a famous loyal minister in the late Ming Dynasty (his biography can be found in "History of the Ming Dynasty 278"). His courtesy name was Qiao Sheng. He served in the official etiquette department of the Ming Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty, he was not an official. I recently came across this collection of poems from a friend and realized that this so-called "absolute" has been circulating for at least 300 years. Over the past 300 years, I don’t know how many people have been thinking hard about the second couplet in order to “make sense” of it, but they don’t know its origin, which is also a strange thing.
Volume 16 of "Zhongzhou Thatched Cottage Relics" contains "Liu Bo Qu" and the preface says: "The guest used smoke to lock the pond, Liu, with five characters and five lines, with the remainder as a couplet, so it became Liu Bo Qu II. First of all, those who do good deeds should be corrected. "
One of the words:
The smoke locks the willows in the pond, and the lamp hangs on the threshold of the brocade.
When Huibo first tries out the dance, he hears the song when he breaks the willow tree.
The second cloud:
Lamps hang over the brocade sill waves, and smoke locks the willows in the pond.
I dreamed of the five lakes and the Mekong River, and the mouth of the Langjia embankment.
The annotation under the sentence "Lamp hangs down over the brocade threshold" says "hang" means "fill". I think the author had difficulty deciding which of these two words was better, so he placed them side by side.
Chen Yusheng's "Lamp hanging down the brocade sill" versus "Smoke locking willows on the pond" is very poetic. "Lamp hanging down" is "realistic"; if it is easy to "fill in the lamp", it is "imaginary writing". "Lamp" refers to lights, which are covered with waves, and the word "fill" is used to show its "heavy"; this is similar to the so-called symbolic technique in modern literature. However, if the "righteous way" is followed, the word "chu" is still better.
Although this couplet - the lamp hangs over the brocade threshold - also has the "five elements", Chen Zisheng is still not satisfied, because the words "lamp" and "smoke" both come from " "Fire", he felt that he was short of work. This was the strictness that the ancients required of themselves. So there is another "Sequel to the Song of Locking Willows and Killing Hongs" which says:
The smoke locks the willows in the pond, and the beacon sells the willows.
The spring water is gone in Dongzhi, and the south wing is complaining about the autumn wind.
Using "beacon sales to block the willows" is very artistic, but it is because of Chen Zisheng's own requirements. It was too strict, and the words "烽" and "火" were still next to the word "fire". He was not satisfied, so he wrote "The smoke locks the sinking of the lamp," saying:
The smoke locks the willows in the pond, and the bell sinks into the pavilion. Lamp.
The heart is densely red, and the willow eyes are green and clear.
The "Five Elements" on both sides of "Zhong Shen Tai Pavilion Lamp" and "Smoke Lock Pond Willow" have nothing in common. It can be said that it is a lot of thought, but the poetic meaning is a bit forced, and it seems not as natural as the two couplets of "Lengchui" and "Fengshu".
There is also a previous couplet in "Qing Bai Lei Chao". After Chen Zisheng's four couplets (including the sentence "Deng fills"), another couplet that matches well is:
Deng Shen Village Temple Bell
The sentence "Leng Shen" has a very good artistic conception, which is a way of writing "with virtuality and reality". "Shen" (profound) not only describes the location of the village temple, but also the visual experience of the light. "Temple bell" is a description of hearing. This sentence can be interpreted as "the light can be vaguely seen in the far-reaching village and temple bells." In terms of artistic conception, it seems to be better than Chen Yusheng's "Lamp hanging on the brocade threshold." But if According to Chen Zisheng's strict requirements, "lamp" and "smoke" are still placed next to the word "fire", but I don't think it is necessary to focus on the "radical" of the word to avoid overlap.
The second couplet of "Willows Locked in Ponds by Smoke" has undergone new developments since liberation, and some of them incorporate new things into the couplet, which is worth mentioning.
In the mid-1960s, a couplet I saw in the "Yangcheng Evening News" was:
Chinese tea boils and chisels wall springs
This couplet is said to be It was drafted by a professor named Yan from Peking University. I have forgotten the name of the author of this couplet. The "Five Elements" of the first couplet "Yangsuo Pondliu" are all on the left side, and the "Five Elements" of "Tea Cooking and Chisel Wall Spring" are all at the foot of the word (the four points under the word "cooking" symbolize the appearance of blazing flames, so they are listed here in the dictionary. The word belongs to the "fire" part). It is said that "Zhubi Spring" is also a real place. This sentence uses inverted syntax, that is, the water of "Zhebi Spring" is used to cook tea. Yes. But if it strictly complies with the art of couplets, "Zhebiquan" is a proper noun, and it is a bit reluctant to use it as a common noun for "Pond Willow".
There was a Mr. Luo Guangbin in Hong Kong last year. Imitating the "Chen Zi Sheng Style", the poem also uses the form of a poem couplet to describe "The Willows Locked in the Pond", which is quite characteristic of the scenery of Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and the couplets are also in line with the "standard". One of the poems is titled "Appreciation in the Rotating Hall", and the poem goes:
The willows in the pond are smoked, and the iron plate is grilled in Hong Kong City.
The rotating hall is filled with ants, and the scenery is free.
The "rotating hall" is Hong Kong Taihe. The revolving restaurant in the center (a 60-story building); "Green Slave" refers to the green foam on the surface of the wine, which is also used as a proxy for the wine; "Teppanyaki" refers to the Japanese-style roasted beef tenderloin. "Banshao" has the flavor of bamboo branches, which is interesting in "slang". It is opposite to "Yansuo Pond Willow", which is also called baht (the five elements are all in the radical).
The second title is The poem "Night Banquet at the White Swan Hotel" goes:
The willows in the pond are covered with smoke, and the lamps are decorated with brocade pillars.
Inviting guests to Zhuhai at night.
< p>The White Swan Hotel is located on the flat land beside the water in Shamian, Guangzhou. The sand surface was originally a sandbar, and it was filled in to become the current sand surface. The author has a note: "On the right side of the White Swan Hotel opposite Ezhang, there is a garden. There are artificially created small rockeries, stone ponds, and willow trees. Jinzhu lamps are very beautiful in decoration, and the lighting near the White Swan Hotel is exactly like this. "Another couplet by Luo Guangbin is "Hong Kong shop lighthouse sign", which also has a novel meaning.
The novelty is that there is local scenery; the ships on the Hong Kong sea are like shuttles, and all the harbors A lighthouse sign must be installed to prevent ships from running aground.