1. "The Pavilion of Silence" by Huang Tingjian of the Northern Song Dynasty: "Zhuang Zhou dreamed that he was a butterfly, but the butterfly did not know Zhuang Zhou."
Translation: Zhuang Zhou dreamed that he became a butterfly, but the butterfly did not know that Zhuang Zhou existed. Zhou is such a person.
2. "Nian Nujiao·He Zhao Guoxingzhi Lu Yun" by Xin Qiji of the Northern Song Dynasty: "How can I be like Zhuang Zhou in body, with butterflies in dreams, and in the human world under flowers."
Translation: How is it? Only then can one be like Zhuang Zhou, who can become a butterfly in a dream and live among the flowers in the human world.
3. "The Romance of the West Chamber" by Wang Shifu of the Yuan Dynasty: "What woke me up were the trembling bamboo shadows, walking dragons and snakes, and the fluttering Zhuangzhou dream butterflies."
Translation: What woke me up It is the shadow of the towering bamboo, like a dragon or a snake, floating as if Zhuang Zhou dreamed that he had become a butterfly.
4. Li Shangyin of the Tang Dynasty's "Seventy-two Sentences of Occasionally Completed Rhymes for Four Houses": "After having great military achievements, I wrote several articles, and took pity on me, dreaming of butterflies in autumn."
Translation: He had made great achievements on the battlefield, but he also cared about civil affairs and appreciated my talent. He sympathized with my situation at this time, and in his memorial to the emperor, he requested that I be appointed as a staff member. (This is Zhuang Zhou's self-explanation, saying that he was talented but was in trouble. Fortunately, Lu appreciated it and invited him to serve in the shogunate.)
5. Southern Song Dynasty? Lu You's "Book of Eating Porridge and Playing in the Morning after Sickness": "Butterfly Zhuang Zhou" Anzai, the master is just joking about it."
Translation: Zhuang Zhou dreamed of butterflies. This kind of thing doesn't exist. It's just a joke.
6. "Jin Se" by Li Shangyin of the Tang Dynasty "Zhuang Sheng was fascinated by butterflies in his dawn dream, and looked at the emperor's spring heart with cuckoos."
Translation: Zhuang Zhou danced gracefully and turned into a butterfly in his sleep, looking at the emperor. Put your hatred on Du Juan.
Extended information
"Zhuang Zhou's Dream of Butterflies" is derived from "Zhuang Zi·Equality of Things", which is a philosophical proposition put forward by Zhuang Zi, the main representative of the Taoist school during the Warring States Period. In it, Zhuangzi uses romantic imagination and beautiful writing to describe and discuss the events of changing into a butterfly in a dream and the butterfly returning to himself after waking up from the dream. He proposes that it is impossible for people to accurately distinguish between reality and illusion, as well as life and death. materialized perspective.
Although the story is extremely short, it has become a representative of Zhuangzi's poetic philosophy because it permeates the essence of Zhuangzi's poetic philosophy. Because it contains romantic thoughts and emotions and rich philosophical thinking about life, it aroused the screams of many literati and poets in later generations, and became a topic they often chanted.
The story of "Zhuang Zhou Dreams of Butterflies" has profound connotations, romantic feelings and broad aesthetic imagination, and is loved by later generations of literati. It is an important image for various life perceptions and experiences, such as homesickness and country love, tranquility and leisure.
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