Cao Zhi is smart and hardworking, and writes many poems and articles. Cao Cao naturally dotes on him. Only my brother Cao Pi is jealous of Cao Zhi.
After Cao Cao's death, Cao Pi proclaimed himself emperor. One day, Cao Zhi went to visit his brother. When Cao Pi saw it, he said angrily, "Although you and I are brothers, we are polite and respectful. In the future, you are not allowed to rely on your own talents and knowledge, and you are not allowed to talk about the ceremony of the monarch and the minister! "
Cao Zhi bowed his head and carefully replied, "Yes!"
Cao Pi added, "When your father was alive, he often boasted in front of people with poems and articles. I ask you, were those poems written by others? "
Cao Zhi replied, "I have never asked anyone to do it for me. I made it myself. "
So Cao Pi said with a straight face, "Good! Now I ask you to write a poem. You walk seven steps in the temple, and after seven steps, you must write this poem. If you take seven steps and the poem has not been written, you will be severely punished! "
Cao Zhiming knew that Cao Pi wanted to use this as an excuse to harm him, but with his own talent, he was sure to write a poem after seven steps, so he replied unhurriedly: "Please give me a topic!"
Cao Pi thought about it and said to Cao Zhi, "You and I are brothers, so we used the word' brother' as the topic. However, the word' brother' is not allowed in the poem! "
Cao Zhiliu thought about it and replied, "Yes." As long as you step onto the golden throne, take one step and read one sentence, the poem will be written before the seven steps are finished. The poem "Seven Steps Poetry" goes like this:
Boil beans and burn beans, and the beans cry in the pot.
We are born from the same root. What's the hurry?
Translated into today's vernacular, it is like this:
Boil beans and burn bean stalks,
The beans in the pot cried sadly:
We grew up on the same root,
Why do you have to torture each other and push so hard?
For thousands of years, "Seven Steps Poetry" has made people hold deep sympathy for Cao Zhi for thousands of years, and at the same time, they are more disgusted with Cao Pi, and Cao Pi has also attracted the abuse of future generations because of this poem.
One thousand years later, in modern times, two literary masters generously composed poems, giving the Seven-step Poetry a new purpose.
The first is a literary master, Lu Xun, who wrote an anti-seven-step poem entitled "redress for tofu":
Boil beans and burn beans, and the beans cry under the kettle;
I know you well, just to teach!
This poem was written on June 5th 1925 and published in Beijing Daily Supplement on June 7th. Attached to the essay "Chewing Words (III)".
The historical background of this poem is:1in the spring of 925, the headmistress of Beijing Normal University was in cahoots with the Duan government, specializing in persecuting progressive students. The students were fed up and stood up to defend themselves. It is a tendency of female normal college students that Liu Hezhen, Xu Guangping and others initiate and organize student self-government meetings to fight.
In order to create public opinion, Wang, the acting director of the Philosophy Education Department, was ordered to express his opinions to the national education circle in the morning paper on June 2 (1925), praising the achievements and accusing the anti-Yang students, calling them "anti-Yang students today, learning from each other" and describing the oppression of progressive students as "brothers learning from each other".
Lu Xun was a teacher at the Women's Normal University. He showed deep sympathy for the persecuted young students, hated others, and sneered at the whimsy of helping the literati king. He attacked the child's shield with a spear, so he wrote this "Anti-Seven-Step Poetry" to rehabilitate "Tofu".
The poem "Running the Chair" refers to Yang Yinyu's banquet for female judges of Normal University at Xi 'an Hotel in Beijing on May 7th. 1925. At this banquet, we discussed the dismissal of six leaders of student self-government associations, including Liu Hezhen and Xu Guangping. Wang He also attended the banquet. Lu Xun used this "anti-poem" to cast a wonderful irony and whip on Yang and Wang.
On July 7th, the sixth anniversary of the Anti-Japanese War, 1943, a famous writer, writer, poet, playwright, archaeologist, thinker and ancient philologist in modern China, did not quite agree with the view of "restraining pi and promoting ambition". He is Guo Moruo.
Guo Moruo wrote a historical essay "On Cao Zhi" for Cao Piming.
At the end of On Cao Zhi, he also wrote an anti-seven-step poem, which is contrary to Cao Zhi's seven-step poem:
Boil beans, burn beans, beans will turn to ash when cooked.
Mature is precious at the dinner table, and ashes are fertile in the field.
If you don't live for the same root, why give up on yourself?
In Guo Moruo's view, on the one hand, we can feel that the frying of glutinous rice is a kind of fire; If you stand on the one hand, isn't it a manifestation of the spirit of sacrifice?
Beans set themselves on fire only to fulfill the same root, and there is a spirit of dedication and sacrifice of "turning mud into dust" and "turning spring mud into flower protection". Isn't this a vivid portrayal of brothers' mutual help and friendship?
Guo Moruo's exposition has integrated the spirit of the new era, but from the literary point of view, it has not surpassed Cao Zhi's original work.