The moon is setting, the sky is full of crows and frost, the river maples and fishing fires are facing melancholy; outside the city of Suzhou, Hanshan Temple, the midnight bell rings for the passenger ship. This eternal masterpiece by Zhang Ji, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, is not only well-known to every household, but also famous overseas, occupying an extraordinary position in the Chinese poetry circle. However, how to correctly understand the unique connotation of the poem has been controversial for thousands of years. In recent years, even middle school textbooks and even the music circle have participated in discussions and debates in this regard. At present, there are generally two different interpretations of this poem: one is to describe the poem as a scenery poem. For example, the authoritative "Tang Poetry Appreciation Dictionary" and textbooks believe that the poem depicts the beautiful autumn night in the Jiangnan water town. The scenery and the poet's feelings when lying down and listening to the clock; the other is to understand this poem as a Zen poem, pointing out that the poem uses mundane writing techniques to create an otherworldly artistic conception, which is based on the use of Zen with the help of "bells". It is a seven-part poem that uses the mind to relieve the worries of all living beings. This concept has attracted much attention and praise in Suzhou. The author believes that the above two views basically still fail to accurately grasp the style of the poem, and distort the artistic conception of the poem in a far-fetched way, thus reducing its style and taste to a certain extent. In fact, this is a typical homesick song. From the inside of the poem, it reflects the author's infinite longing for his relatives in his hometown; while from the outside, it shows the serious disaster that the "Anshi Rebellion" brought to the people. To understand this poem, we must combine the background of the poet's time and the grammatical characteristics of ancient poetry. In the last years of Tianbao in the Tang Dynasty, the "Anshi Rebellion" broke out, and Zhang Ji moved from the northwest to the Yuewu (today's Shaoxing and Suzhou) area. According to the existing data, we can only know for sure that the poet stayed in this area in the first to second years of Zhide (756-757). As for when he visited Gusu as a guest, it is difficult to verify. Although the poet was living in the south of the Yangtze River, he was still concerned about the war in the north. Most of his poems of this period revealed this mentality. He wrote this in the poem "Rewarding Li Shuji for the Book of Compilation in Yuecheng on an Autumn Night": "...The police in the cold city are fighting fiercely, and I hug the dragon spring in anger. The wind chariot sits under the bridge, and the whales and waves fight in Luochuan. Measuring millet in the sky, Give money in exchange for lack of water..." In the poem, "the wind chariot rests under Qiqi" undoubtedly refers to Suzong's accession to the throne in Lingwu, and "whale waves fight against Luochuan" refers to the fierce battle between the Tang Dynasty army and the Anlushan rebels in Henan. "Embracing Longquan in anger" expresses the author's deep patriotism and concern for the people. The last two sentences reflect the depressed situation of the local economy after the war. It can be seen that the "Anshi Rebellion" also brought suffering to the people of Jiangnan. When Zhang Ji was staying in Gusu, he also wrote such a Qijue "Changmen Jishi": "The farmers recruit boats to chase the buildings, and the spring grass is green and green; try to go to Wumen to peek at the county, and there are new smoke in several places during the Qingming Festival. "The poem reflects that farmers are recruiting for the army, there is a lack of old motivation in the countryside, and a lot of farmland is deserted. It can be seen how serious the damage caused by the war to the local social economy! Therefore, when we read "Mooring at Maple Bridge at Night" which was written in the same period as this poem (according to verification, Zhang Ji also left these two poems when he was in Gusu), we must pay careful attention and realize the impact that the war had on the poet. The important influence of the novel, especially the inseparable feeling of homesickness, is the only way to truly understand the rich connotation and spiritual essence contained in "Night Mooring at Maple Bridge". The first sentence "The moon fell and the crows cried and the sky was filled with frost" has always been controversial, but there is basically the same view on the word "moon falls". It is believed that the first quarter moon rose early at that time and had already set in the middle of the night. The author discovered that there is an essential difference between the words "moonset" and "luoyue" in ancient poems: "moonset" means that the moon has been lost, which means that the moon can no longer be seen at that time; while "luoyue" means that the moon has been lost. It indicates that the moon is gradually sinking, indicating that the moon can still be seen at that time. For example, Zhang Ruoxu's two sentences in "Moonlight Night on the Spring River", "The moon falls on the river pond and turns to the west again" and "The falling moon shakes the trees all over the river with love" illustrate the scene of the "falling moon". Another example is Wang Wei's "Lonely Smoke in the Desert." "The straight, long river sets the sun" also shows the magnificent landscape when the setting sun sets; and Liu Yuxi's two sentences in "Treading Lyrics" (Part 3) "The moon sets, the crows cry, the clouds and rain disperse, and the wandering children pick up flowers on the street" show that at that time When the clouds were gathering and it was about to rain, the partygoers fled in all directions. Only the children playing were still picking up the flowers that had been lost in the panic. The "moonset" obviously means that the moon has been covered by dark clouds, and the poet can no longer see the moon; Wang Wei's famous line "The moonrise frightens the flying birds, and the time is singing in the spring stream" also depicts the moon rising from the clouds from another angle. The sudden appearance actually frightened the mountain bird. Therefore, the word "moonfall" in Zhang Jizai's poem should refer to the fact that there was no moon at that time, and people generally misunderstood "moonfall" as "falling moon". However, can the "crow of the crow" in the poem be understood as "dark clouds and howling wind" as in "Tai Lyrics"? The author thinks it seems inappropriate, because it cannot be connected with the "frost-filled sky" that follows. "Wudi" here actually refers to the local Shui Lao Wu, a cormorant that was domesticated and used for fishing. Du Fu wrote a poem, "Every family raises black ghosts and eats yellow croaker every day." The black ghost in it refers to the cormorant. Shen Kuo made a special comment on this in Chapter 274 of "Mengxi Bi Tan". Cormorants are common in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. They often make low, turbid, snoring sounds when sleeping at night, and are described by fishermen as "making the night watch." It is conceivable that when dozens or hundreds of cormorants gather on the river, their cries will inevitably last forever, making people feel depressed and deeply melancholy. As for later generations interpreting "Wu Ciao" literally as a crow or a black magpie, this may not be in line with their living habits, and it is not close to the customs of the Jiangnan water town.
The description of "the sky is covered with frost" does not seem to match the reality of the natural landscape, because frost usually appears on the ground, so many people have raised doubts about this sentence. In fact, what the poet wants to express here is that he has been standing on the bow of the boat for a long time because he could not sleep. His body and face were unknowingly contaminated by frost. Could it be that the vast night air outside him was also filled with frost. Is the sky covered with frost? ! This sentence describes what the poet saw, heard, and felt on the passenger ship on a cold moonless night. But what was the reason that caused him to toss and turn in sleep and get on the bow of the ship again? It is not difficult to imagine that as a wanderer who traveled to avoid war, he would not help worrying about the safety of the country and could not but miss his relatives in his distant hometown. Based on this, the poet actually used metaphors in this sentence: "Moonfall" metaphorically represents the fall of Chang'an and the decline of the Tang Dynasty; "Wu Cry" clearly depicts the rampage of the Anlushan rebels; "Frost" "Man Tian" reflects the depression and tension caused by the war to the entire country. The second sentence "Jiang Feng fishes and fires to Chou Mian" has always been the key point in understanding the poem, and it is also the most controversial point. "Jiang Maple" undoubtedly refers to the maple trees on the riverside, and "fishing fire" must refer to the fishing fire on the boat, but the key is how to understand the difficulty of "Dui Chou Mian". This requires borrowing modern hydrogeological knowledge to find the answer: Generally speaking, maple trees planted along the river are always vertical at first. However, because the soil on the lower slope has been lateral erosion by the river for many years, it slowly Slowly, it will lead to a large amount of soil loss near the river. The tree body will continue to tilt towards the river under the action of gravity. In serious damage, it will even become parallel to the water surface, forming a strange scene of lying on the river. Today, near Suzhou This phenomenon can still be witnessed in some old Hanoi. With this understanding, it is not difficult for us to understand the true meaning of "to worry about sleep". It turns out that what the poet saw on the boat was the maple tree leaning on the river and its "reflection" in the water. At the same time, he also saw the fishing lantern hanging slanted on the boat and its "reflection" in the water, and found that they were both nestling " Sleeping opposite each other." This situation formed an indescribable contrast with the poet's loneliness. How could he not be deeply moved? The word "sorrow" expresses the lingering sorrow in his heart for his relatives in his hometown. It can be seen that the poet used Bixing's writing technique in this sentence, contrasting Jiang Feng Yuhuo's "double sleeping" with his "alone and lonely", and then transferred his own sadness to them, achieving the goal of The silent blend and fit between the poet and the scenery has considerable artistic appeal! The three or four sentences "Hanshan Temple outside Gusu City, and the passenger ship rang at midnight" must be explained together, because the poet used the "reverse order" writing method here. Generally speaking, the poet should hear the bell first and then think of it - this is the bell from Hanshan Temple. That is to say, the normal logical clue should be "The bell rings at midnight to the passenger ship, the cold outside Gusu City Mountain Temple”. It is not difficult to find that the poet deliberately recounted the order of the two in reverse order. It should be admitted that this "reverse order" not only conforms to the homesickness of the poet at that time, but also creates a special artistic conception. It can be imagined that late at night, the poet who has been unable to sleep for a long time suddenly heard the bells from Hanshan Temple. What would be his strongest feeling and mood at this time? It is easy to understand that his most urgent wish is that the melodious bells can be heard by relatives in his hometown. Therefore, the correct interpretation of these two poems should be as follows: Hanshan Temple outside Suzhou City, although your midnight bell is so long and loud, it is a pity that it can only be heard by the tourists on the passenger ship, how I am I hope that this bell can pass through the mountains, across the rivers, across the plains, and finally float over the hometown, so that relatives can hear it together - it is the greeting and call from the distant wanderers... It must be pointed out , the hometown of the poet Zhang Ji is in Xiangyang, Hubei Province, located to the west of Fengqiao where the poet was located at that time. Fengqiao is to the west of Hanshan Temple, and Hanshan Temple is to the west of Gusu City. Therefore, from these two lines of poetry, we can find that the author's creative ideas develop from east to west along the lines of "Gusu City - Hanshan Temple - Passenger Ship (Maple Bridge) - Hometown" , and this order just caters to the poet's logical thinking when he was homesick at that time. If we follow the normal "hear the bell first, then think of Hanshan Temple, then contact Gusu City, and finally remember my hometown", it will obviously not truly reflect the homesickness that the poet wants to express. Just like this, once the bell closely connects oneself with his hometown, the author's "reverse order" in the sentence also achieves the effect of deepening and unifying. It should be noted that "reverse order" is a commonly used grammar in ancient poetry. For example, the two sentences "Willows reflect spring mountains, pear blossoms hide evening birds" in Wang Wei's "Spring Day" contain this "reverse order" structure. , and another example is the famous couplet "The fragrant rice pecks at the remaining parrot grains, and the phoenix perches on the old birch branches" in Du Fu's "Eight Poems of Autumn" also uses this grammatical technique. In fact, the title of the poem "Mooring at Maple Bridge at Night" itself seems to imply this "inverted" rhetorical style. Because, according to normal creative thinking, it seems more appropriate to name it "Mooring at Maple Bridge at Night", such as Du Mu's "Mooring at Qinhuai at Night". The author believes that the poet's "inversion" technique here can still play the role of finishing touch and deepening the theme.
"Night mooring" can be extended and interpreted here as "a boat moored at night", and the entire poem title can also be understood as "a boat moored at Maple Bridge at night". The profound meaning is self-evident: wandering in the chaos of war In the years, why is the poet himself not just a small boat drifting around? ! For thousands of years, people have been accustomed to using the word "moon" to express their deep longing for their relatives and friends, such as "The bright moon rises over the sea, the world is at this time", "Looking up at the bright moon, bowing down to miss my hometown" and so on. There are countless good sentences, but how to express the homesickness of a wanderer on a moonless night? The poet Zhang Jizheng uniquely used "bells" to convey his strong nostalgia. This organic combination of "quietness and sound, virtuality and reality, distance and nearness" closely connects the country's security and personal nostalgia. Finally, a typical artistic realm of blending scenes is created, which is more intriguing, exciting, and thought-provoking than the previous one! ——This is the charm of "Night Mooring at Maple Bridge" that has been sung for thousands of years! The bells of Hanshan Temple not only express the poet's deep longing for his hometown relatives, but also contain his cry for the peace and tranquility of the country... May the bells of Hanshan Temple be louder, longer and wider! ! !