Appreciation of The Book of Songs Nan Zhou Mahuang
Notes on The Book of Songs Nan Zhou Mahuang
Question: songs sung by working women when picking bananas.
original text
Picking slugs 1,
Thin characters are adopted (2)
Pick slugs,
There are three thin words.
Pick slugs,
Thin word four.
Pick slugs,
Fine words are slippery.
Pick slugs,
My humble sixth sentence.
Pick slugs,
The seventh word is thin.
translate
Pick, pick, pick slugs,
Pick, pick, pick.
Pick, pick, pick slugs,
Pick, pick, pick.
Pick, pick, pick slugs.
Take it off piece by piece.
Pick, pick, pick slugs,
Smooth one by one.
Pick, pick, pick slugs,
Lift the front of your watch and put it in your pocket.
Pick, pick, pick slugs,
Roll up your skirt and come back.
To annotate ...
1. Mining: both mining and mining. This is a good example.
2. Thin words: words are meaningless.
3. yes: take it.
4. Wen (Du Bu Duo): Answer it.
5. luó Luo: Grab things with your hands and take them down.
6. Sister: Take things with your skirt.
7. Xie (xié association): Turn the skirt upside down and put it in the belt to get something.
Make an appreciative comment
"Grupo" (or "no") is a banana, a ballad that people sang before picking a car at that time.
There are many folk songs in the Book of Songs in the form of overlapping sentences, but there is no other one with so many overlapping sentences as in the Book of Songs. Take the first chapter as an example: the word "Cai Cai" can be interpreted as "Cai Cai" or "various kinds" according to the situation of each article in the Book of Songs. Some people think that the former explanation is too repetitive, so they choose the second one. But it is unreasonable to say that plantain is "diverse", or it should be "collected". In the second sentence, "Bo Yan" is a meaningless auxiliary word, and the meaning of "just know" has not changed much from the previous sentence. The third sentence repeats the first sentence, and the fourth sentence repeats the second sentence, changing only one word. So the whole first chapter, in fact, only said two sentences: pick slugs, pick. Not bad. The second and third chapters are still the repetition of the first chapter, but the verbs in the second and fourth sentences of each chapter are changed. In other words, there are three chapters and twelve sentences in the whole poem. Only the six verbs, Cai, You, Duo, Le, Bian and Gui, are constantly changing, and the rest are overlapping, which is really special.
But this seemingly monotonous overlap has its special effect. In the constant overlap, a simple, lively and reciprocating sense of music is produced. At the same time, in the change of six verbs, it shows the process of taking more and more until returning home with full load. People who don't write crickets at all in the poem can clearly feel their cheerful mood when they read it-this mood is conveyed in the musical rhythm of the poem. Fang Yurun, a Qing man, said in the Primitive Book of Songs: "The reader recited this poem calmly and suddenly listened to the Tian family woman. Plain wilderness, sunny, group songs answer, lingering sound. If it is far away, it will be intermittent. I don't know how its feelings move, why is God so lonely? " Although this statement has more fictional elements, the experience is still very accurate. This simple ballad is really suitable for many people to sing together; If you sing alone, you will feel that the taste is wrong. Yuan Mei once scoffed, saying, "Three hundred articles, such as' picking slugs and picking fine words', should not be imitated by future generations. Today's people attach the Bible and admire it. Zhang (Zuo Zhou Shang Bi Xia) Zhai's play is like a cloud:' Light a candle, and point it out in thin words. Cut out the candles and the lyrics. "The listener is definitely coming down." It is certainly good to say that the Book of Songs should not be imitated blindly, but the examples he cited are really neither fish nor fowl. It is natural for a group of people to pick up slugs in the wild, and they are in high spirits. Poetry can express this joy. And a man there cut and cut the candle core and sang "cut and cut the candle, cut it in fine print". There is no explanation other than mental illness. This is completely absurd created by literati, not to say that Cricket is not worthy of admiration or must not be imitated.
The question is: What was the use of grubs and plantains collected at that time? Mao said that this grass "should be pregnant (pregnant)" can cure infertility; Another way of saying this is that this grass can cure leprosy and other malignant diseases. These two statements have no basis in traditional Chinese medicine. Now Chinese medicine uses this herb as medicine because it has the functions of clearing away heat, improving eyesight and relieving cough. It is said that grass seeds can cure hypertension. It doesn't matter. We can hardly say that people in the Book of Songs believe that plantain can treat infertility or leprosy. But even so, there is something incomprehensible about this poem: infertility or leprosy at home is extremely distressing. Where can a large group of people sing happily while carrying a car? Looking at this explanation from Fang Yurun's imaginary scene, I feel that something is wrong.
So we think we should give the novel another more reasonable explanation. It is worth noting that Hao Yixing, a scholar in Qing Dynasty, said in Er Ya Yi Shu: "Savages also cook it." This "savage" refers to the poor in the countryside. It can be seen that in the Qing Dynasty, there were still poor people who used it as food. According to Korean friends, it is their common custom to eat plantains. In spring, pick its tender leaves, scald them with boiling water, and cook them into soup, which is very delicious. Koreans (including people in China and the Korean Peninsula) are greatly influenced by the ancient customs of the Han nationality, and the Korean language retains many pronunciations of ancient Chinese. It can be inferred that plantain was widely used as food in ancient China, but this custom gradually declined, only occasionally seen among the "savages" mentioned by Hao Yixing, but it is still very common among Korean folks.
With this interpretation, I find it easy to understand. According to Tian Rucheng and The Journey to the West in Ming Dynasty, "On March 3rd, both men and women wore shepherd's purse flowers. As the saying goes, wearing flowers in March, peaches and plums are shy and prosperous. " Shepherd's purse flower is really ugly, because shepherd's purse is the favorite wild vegetable of Jiangnan people and the gospel of the poor, so people even have a preference for its flowers. Plantago is more common and easier to get than shepherd's purse. Must have been more popular with ordinary people many years ago? As Fang Yurun said, every spring, there must be groups of women happily picking its young leaves and singing the song of "picking slugs" on the plain and in sunny weather? That's really a refreshing sight. Although life is a difficult thing, there is always a lot of pleasure in it.