To annotate ...
(1) Harmony (he): Harmony poetry, that is, writing poems and singing with people. This poem is a rhyme poem. When the ancients used rhyme, the rhyme was the same as the rhymed poem, but the words were different, so it was called "rhyme". Words that use the original rhyme, but in different order, are called "rhyme"; If the rhymes are consistent and the order is the same, it is called "secondary rhyme" or "step rhyme". Ziyou: Su Shi's younger brother Su Zhe, Ziyou. Mianchi: the name of the county seat, located in the west of Mianchi County, Henan Province.
(2) Old monks: refers to the idle monks in Mianchi County temples. Heart-shaped pagoda: Monks don't need a tomb after they die. Generally, they will build a small pagoda and bury their ashes after cremation.
③ The old topic: Su Zhe's poems are self-explanatory: "In the past, Zi Zhan should take action, pass the temple house in Suxian County, and talk about the wall of his old monk's leisure."
④ Past events: It refers to the first year of Jiayou, Song Renzong (1056), when the Su Shi brothers left Sichuan for Beijing for the first time under the leadership of Su Xun and passed by Mianchi County.
⑤ Under this sentence, the author notes: "Last year, the horse died in Erling and rode a donkey to Mianchi." Erling: No.2 Mine, located in the west of Shandong Province, Henan Province, is one of the traffic arteries between Shaanxi and Henan, and is located in the west of Mianchi County. Donkey: A lame donkey or a tired donkey.
Comment and analysis
Rhyme is a rare form in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. After the middle Tang Dynasty, Yuan Zhen, Bai Juyi, Pi Rixiu, Lu Guimeng and others began to develop their styles, and rhyme poems gradually became popular. In Song Dynasty, literati wrote poems with harmony and sang back and forth, often with eight or nine harmonies. Rhyme is not enough, but also two rhymes, which became a very common atmosphere at that time. Yan Yu once sharply criticized this situation in the Southern Song Dynasty, pointing out that "harmony is the most harmful poem" ("Cang Shi Huaping"); Xin, a poet in Yuan Dynasty, made a further concrete analysis. He said: "Fu Er Yun's remuneration is limited to rhyme, and it is irrelevant to get a good rhyme, so it is difficult for maggots to enter;" When something happens, the rhyme can't be strong, go back and forth; It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be embarrassed and talented, to take up non-classes, and to seek flawless Pian Yu. This is also a major disadvantage of the poet. " On the whole, these criticisms are to the point.
But things cannot be generalized. Some poets are brilliant, brilliant. For them, it is not a big constraint to add a layer of rhyme to the original meter of poetry. For example, of the 2,700 poems written by Su Shi in his life, about one third are rhyming poems. We can't help but see that some of them can skillfully control the rhyme and drive away the meter, showing a very high artistic skill. Not only far exceeds the original singing of harmony, but also reaches the first-class level in his own poems. We should fully affirm these poems. In this paper, "He Zi You Mianchi Nostalgia" is one of Su Shi and Yun's famous works.
This poem was written in the sixth year of Song Renzong Jiayou (106 1). When Su Shi came to Beijing for the second time, he got the third grade in the system examination (according to Su Shichuan in the History of Song Dynasty, since the early Song Dynasty, only Wu Yu and Su Shi got the third grade), and was appointed as the judge of Fengxiangfu (now Fengxiang County, Shaanxi Province) in Dali, and left Beijing in November of that year. His younger brother Su Zhe sent him to Zhengzhou, which is different from Simon in Zhengzhou. After Su Zhe returned to Bianjing, he gave Su Shi a poem entitled "Huai Mianchi sent his son to look after his brother". The original poem is as follows:
Farewell to Jacky, * * * long distance afraid of snow mud. Back to cycling, I'm still looking for the bridge, and the pedestrians have gone west. Have you ever been a county magistrate? On the wall of the old monk's house. Traveling alone in a distant place is delicious, but it hisses silently.
Su Zhe was depressed when he wrote this poem. Brother responded to high school, signed a sentence of Beijing official, and left Beijing for his post; However, due to his excessive rhetoric, he pointed out that the affairs of the Duke of Chen were particularly curtailed, and as a result, he was placed in an "inferior" position, and even his official position was not obtained (Su Zhe was originally appointed as the military magistrate of Shangzhou [now Shangxian County, Shaanxi Province], but Wang Anshi, who was in charge of the imperial edict, refused to write words, so he failed to take office), so he had to stay in Beijing to serve his father. This was undoubtedly a blow to Su Zhe, who was only 23 years old at that time. When the two brothers parted, he thought of Mianchi County, and his brother would pass by not far from the west. He remembers that five years ago, they went to Beijing for the first time to take the exam, and once lived in a temple in Mianchi County. In the monk's spare room, the two brothers wrote poems and wrote down their lofty ideals. He remembers that he and his brother were appointed as the principal bookkeeper of Mianchi County after entering the imperial examination, but later they didn't go to their posts because they passed the examination. I wonder if the local people knew about it? Looking back on the past, he was even more disappointed at the moment, so he wrote, "Did you ever know the county magistrate?" The poem "Old Love Monk ** *". On the surface, these two poems are about the memory of Mianchi, but in fact they show his care and attachment to the life path he has traveled, revealing his anguish and hesitation in the face of reality. In other words, on the road of life, Su Zhe seems to look back more than forward. Su Shi's harmony works are written in response to this depressed mood revealed in Su Zhe's original songs.
A thought-provoking question is put forward at the beginning of "He Shi Bi": "What is life like everywhere?" What is a person's life like, either making a living or seeking an official position? Su Shi replied with a vivid and novel metaphor: "It should be like flying snow." In Su Shi's view, life is a long journey, and the places and experiences in life are like a short stay in Hong Fei's thousand-mile trip, leaving some paw prints on the way in the snow and mud. These mottled traces record the course of life and contain unforgettable memories, which often evoke people's nostalgia; However, after all, it is not the end of life, nor is it the destination of life. When Hongyan takes off again, that is, when people embark on a new journey of life, they will eventually be left behind. "Fingers and claws accidentally left in the mud, and Hong Fei was counting things!" Obviously, the author used this to comfort and encourage his younger brother. No matter whether the road of life is smooth or dangerous, no matter whether the future is known or unknown, he must go forward like a swan with a thousand miles of ambition. On the road of life, he should not hesitate, let alone look back! This is the profound philosophy of life contained in the metaphor of "red claws of snow mud" and the main theme of Su Shi's poem.
Some people have commented on this poem before, thinking that the metaphor of "snow mud claws" shows the nihility of life impermanence. We feel that if we understand this metaphor in isolation, this statement may not be unreasonable. However, as long as we make a careful comparison of Su Shi's poems by contacting their experiences and situations at that time, it is not difficult to find that Su Shi's comments are aimed at Su Zhe's depressed mood, and his optimistic and positive attitude towards life is in obvious contrast with Su Zhe's concern for the past. Therefore, we have no reason to belittle the positive and enterprising significance of the metaphor of "snow mud claws" at will, and we can only understand it from the negative side.
The last four sentences of the poem further explain the meaning of "snow mud claw" and are closely related to the previous ones.
In the third part, the author told his younger brother: After Zhengzhou was separated, I passed Mianchi, and the old monk who was with us died in Fengxian, only to see a new tower for burying his ashes; At that time, the wall where we wrote poems was also damaged by peeling, so we couldn't see the old poems. The author here is nothing more than saying that old monks, old problems and countless other past events are accidental "snow claws" left on the road of life, which gradually fade away with the passage of time. This is the law of nature and the law of life. So, what's the need to miss them too much?
At the end of the poem, the author asks his brother, do you remember? When we went to Beijing for the exam, we passed by Lushan Mountain in the west of Mianchi County and trudged on the rugged mountain road. Matthew was tired, so we had to ride a donkey. The road was long, people were trapped, and the donkey was so tired that it kept braying. Do you remember this scene? The whole poem ends with this question. The author didn't say the following words, but we can completely infer the implication of the author: human life is such a difficult and long road, and it's nothing strange that failure and frustration are all inherent in the title. The meaning of life is to walk firmly on this rugged road and meet tomorrow without hesitation! We think this understanding is in line with the spiritual essence of the whole poem.
Su Shi was only twenty-six when he wrote this poem, but his thoughts were quite mature. From this poem, we can see his profound understanding of life and optimistic and positive attitude towards life in his early years. It is these two points that constitute the most important ideological characteristics of Su Shi's early poems.
This poem is also quite successful in art. Ji Yun once commented on this poem in the Qing Dynasty: "The first four sentences are one-way entry, and the Tang people are old-fashioned; And the artistic conception is easy, then Dongpo is true. " (See Ji Yun's Notes on Su Wenzhong's Poems (hereinafter referred to as Ji Shi) Volume III) What is "one-way entry into the law"? A single line is a loose sentence, not a dual. According to the requirements of metrical poetry, three or four sentences should be opposed, and the meaning, syntax and level should be opposed. However, in the Tang Dynasty, many poets often deliberately broke this rule. For example, in Cui Hao's famous poem The Yellow Crane Tower, the first four sentences are: "A long time ago, the yellow crane carried saints to heaven, but now there is nothing left but the Yellow Crane Tower. Yellow cranes no longer come, and white clouds no longer fly. "Literally, three or four sentences seem to be opposite, but in a sense, these two sentences are not relative, but come down in one continuous line. This is the two sentences of Su Shi in One-way Entry." If you accidentally leave your fingers and claws on the mud, how can you count things? "Also belong to this situation.
The writing method of "single entry" is used to express ideas more freely. The metaphor of "red claw snow mud" shows a complete artistic conception. If three or four sentences are arranged in the form of dialogue in order to match the rhythm, the author's whole idea may be difficult to express thoroughly, or it seems to be barely parked, which affects the momentum of writing, which is unacceptable to the author. For Shi, a great poet, the law of art can only provide him with a stage to show his talents, but can't be a shackle that binds his thoughts. Once this happens, he will not hesitate to break these restrictions. In this poem, he used "one-way entry", which is "the old style of Tang Dynasty", and he skillfully broke through the shackles of meter. Not only did he express his meaning perfectly, but he also wrote freely, which made him "let go of the parade" (A Review of Su Shi, Volume III). We have to admire the author's artistic skills.
This poem also highlights another feature of Su Shi-being good at metaphor. The poet Yu Xie once quoted Han Ju's Lingyang Room Language as an example of Su Shi's "good metaphor". What's it like running around all your life? In the past, people have made various metaphors about this problem, such as the duckweed floating on the water when the wind blows. However, they only express the wandering life experience of intellectuals in feudal times with the external characteristics of helplessness and rootlessness, and the significance is often negative. Su Shi's metaphor of "snow mud claw" is intended to express the inner spirit through the external image of things; This metaphor is not only vivid and novel, but also contains positive thoughts on the eternal topic of the relationship between reality and life, reveals a profound philosophy of life, and injects deep feelings into the author, which is much more meaningful than metaphors such as "Ping Piao" and "Peng Chuan". Therefore, the metaphor of "snow mud and red claws" is often cited as an aphorism, which forms an idiom and has been passed down to this day. Therefore, this poem by Su Shi has become one of his most famous masterpieces.