The original text was carved on the Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which was not so convenient. In order to be concise and clean, the ancient characters and characters were separated from each other from the beginning. Poetry is divorced from the oral creation stage, that is, when there is such a thing as "writing poetry", the language of poetry is becoming more and more written. However, due to the need of vivid description or the poet's whim, there are still many oral languages used for writing. These spoken languages and even dialects, from words (mostly assisted by language) to phrases, have not become common words in classical Chinese, nor can they be found in elegant ancient Chinese. At that time, people passed from mouth to mouth, and everyone who heard it understood. Over time, "the ancient and modern characters are different, and the four sides talk about differences" (Wang Chong's Lun Heng) seems to be literal and plain, or literal and familiar, but with different meanings. If readers don't know what they mean or look for meaning from the text, it will lead to estrangement and misunderstanding. These words, called "poems and songs", should also belong to what we call "literacy". "Brothers and sisters are all in the soil, and because she shines so brightly on the clan" (Bai Juyi's Song of Eternal Sorrow) means gratifying and enviable, but it doesn't mean "pity" in today's spoken language. "Sooner or later" (Li Shangyin's heavy affection) means "sooner or later", which contains the meaning of hope, so it cannot be interpreted as "sooner or later". "The mud basin is shallow and small, and the frog learns in the middle of the night" (Han Yu's Pot Pool), and "sage learning" is a prophet, like a psychic revealing a saint, which seems to be absent today.
Compared with the commonly used words in classical Chinese, the words are more flexible, such as the word "whose family":
Who is the cloud? This can be the eternal saying of who is named, which can be inferred. Home and price are the same, similar to a word to measure a certain situation. Whose family, like Suzhou and Hangzhou today, is still floating clouds. Du Fu's Youth Travel said: "Who is the white-faced person immediately? He would dismount and sit on the bed. I don't know who the surname is, pointing to the silver bottle for wine. " This young word is angry, but it is also a slap in the face, or something is wrong. Twelve clouds in the Journey to the West: "Who is a yellow-tongued child? How dare you scold me!" It means the same thing. If it is interpreted as husband or son, the tone is not appropriate. "Peony Pavilion One Dream" said: "What a good day, who will be happy!" This young word, with a strong tone, is very sad. Whose yard is the yard cloud, which means it is still the yard, so it is opposite to Naihetian. This is not a guess. The last sentence says "it seems to be paid for the broken well and the broken wall", and the following cloud says "it's all in vain to enjoy all the twelve pavilions", all of which are proof. If the solution is a house, it will be slow and unnecessary. (Zhang Xiang's preface to the interpretation of poems, songs and words)
This kind of words are widely found in Tang poetry and Song poetry, especially in Yuanqu (because Ququ is particularly vulgar), and most of the predecessors focused on canon and reality, but not much was involved. At first, The Story of the West Chamber emphasized dialects, but it was not a special book. Zhang Xiang, a close friend, specially collected and explained, and worked hard for more than ten years to form a book "Poetry and Songs", which provided convenience for readers to find answers. What he did was to collect the same words in poems and songs, synthesize all the evidence, and explain them by exegetical methods such as "understanding rhyme", "recognizing font", "playing", "pondering plot" and "comparing meaning". If one meaning is not enough, it will be ambiguous. It is an informative, rigorous and valuable reference book, which is enough for readers to appreciate ancient poems.
Speaking of literacy, I thought of a question by the way. That is, learning ancient poetry is a sad pass, which has neither meter (sentence pattern, rhythm) nor rhyme. These problems can be solved by studying for a short time, pondering over examples or checking rhyme. The most difficult and basic level is the vocabulary of poetry, that is, "literacy". That is a person who is not good at classicism, which was not a problem before, but it can't be compared with readers who don't read classical poetry very much today. Du Fu emphasized that both Selected Works and Sacrifice to Rex by Li Shangyin contained a problem of vocabulary recognition. When you read more and get familiar with it, a lot of poems and words will be deposited in your subconscious. Once poetry is full of enthusiasm and your mind is excited, these words will come alive and be used by you. That's the so-called literature, which comes out indiscriminately. This is not the time to write poetry, but the time to turn over books and piece together to play its role.