Guanju is the first poem in The Book of Songs, the first collection of poems in ancient China before Qin Dynasty.
Excerpt from the original text: The pigeons in Guanguan are in Hezhou. A beautiful and virtuous woman is a good spouse of a gentleman. Mix shepherd's purse and salvage it from left to right. A beautiful and virtuous woman wakes up to pursue her.
Guan Guan and Ming's white dove accompanied Xiaozhou by the river. That beautiful and virtuous woman is a good spouse of a gentleman. Uneven shepherd's purse, from left to right. That beautiful and virtuous woman wants to pursue her when she wakes up.
This poem can be regarded as a model to show the virtues of husband and wife, mainly because of these characteristics: first, the love it writes has a clear marriage purpose from the beginning, and finally comes down to a happy marriage, rather than a short encounter or a temporary passion between young men and women. This kind of love, which clearly points to marriage and shows responsibility, is more recognized by society.
Secondly, it describes both men and women as "gentlemen" and "ladies", indicating that this is a combination associated with virtue. "Gentleman" has both status and virtue, while "My Fair Lady" also means beauty in appearance and goodness in virtue. The combination of "gentleman" and "lady" here represents an ideal of marriage.
Third, it is the restraint of love behavior written in poetry. After careful reading, it can be noted that although this poem is about the man's pursuit of the woman, it does not involve direct contact between the two sides at all. Of course, the "lady" didn't move, and the "gentleman" was just "tossing and turning" there alone. Things like climbing walls and breaking willows didn't seem to be thought of at all, and love was very disciplined.
This kind of love is not only true affection (which is very important for love poems), but also shows peace and moderation, which will not be too intense for readers. All these characteristics are probably related to the fact that this poem was originally a noble wedding song. On that occasion, an atmosphere of restraint and joy commensurate with the status of the host is needed.
Confucius saw a kind of beauty of neutralization with wide significance, which advocated his attitude towards life of self-denial and self-respect, and attached importance to moral cultivation. Preface to Mao Poetry promoted it as a moral textbook that can "make the world right". The perspectives of the two are somewhat different, but there are still fundamental similarities.