Jiang Feng fishing and sleeping;
Hanshan Temple outside Gusu,
The midnight bell arrived at the passenger ship.
Zhang Ji, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, wrote this poem, which is not only a household name, but also famous overseas, and has an extraordinary position in the history of China's poetry. However, how to correctly understand the unique connotation of the poem has been debated for thousands of years, and even middle school textbooks and even the music industry have participated in this discussion and contention in recent years. At present, there are generally two different interpretations of this poem: one is to describe this poem as a landscape poem, such as the authoritative Dictionary of Appreciation of Tang Poetry and textbooks, and think that this poem depicts the beautiful scenery of autumn in Jiangnan water town and the poet's mood when lying listening to the clock; The other is to understand this poem as a Zen poem, pointing out that this poem creates the artistic conception of the world with the brushwork of the world, and it is a seven-line poem that helps the bell to relieve the troubles of all beings with Zen. This view has attracted much attention and admiration in Suzhou.
The author believes that the above two viewpoints still fail to accurately grasp the style of the poem, misinterpret the artistic conception of the poem far-fetched, and reduce its style and taste to some extent. In fact, this is a typical homesick song. From the inside of the poem, it reflects the author's infinite yearning for his relatives in his hometown. From the outside of the poem, it shows the profound disaster brought to the general public by the "An Shi Rebellion". To understand this poem, we must combine the background of the poet's time and the grammatical characteristics of ancient poetry.
At the end of Tianbao in Tang Dynasty, "An Shi Rebellion" broke out, and Zhang Ji moved from northwest to wuyue (now Shaoxing and Suzhou). According to the available data, it can only be determined that the poet was in this area from the first year to the second year (756~757), but it is difficult to verify when he was a guest in the old Soviet Union. Although the poet wandered in the south of the Yangtze River, he was still worried about the war in the north, and most of the poems in this period showed this mentality. He wrote in the poem "Appreciating Li School Book and Watching You Walk through the City in Autumn Night" ... Diao Dou, a ruthless city policeman, controls Longquan angrily alone. Under the wind, whales fight Luochuan. Undoubtedly, the poem "The Wind Wanders under Qi" refers to Su Zong's accession to the throne in Lingwu, "Whale Wave vs. Luochuan" refers to the fierce battle between the Tang Dynasty army and the rebels in An Lushan, Henan Province, and "Lonely and Angry Defending Longquan" expresses the author's deep patriotic feelings and concern for the people, while the last two sentences reflect the post-war local economic depression. It can be seen that the "Anshi Rebellion" also brought suffering to the people in the south of the Yangtze River.
During his stay in Gusu, Zhang Ji also wrote such a four-character poem "Nagato is a thing": "The tiller uses the building to recruit boats, and the spring grass is green; Try to go to the noon gate to see the county Guo, and there is new smoke in Qingming. " The poem reflects that farmers should be recruited to join the army, the old rural power is lacking, and a large number of fields are barren. It can be seen that the war has caused great damage to the local social economy! Therefore, when we read Night Sleeping by the Maple Bridge, which was written at the same time as this poem (according to textual research, these two poems were left by Zhang Ji when he was in Gusu), we must seriously pay attention to and realize the important influence brought by the war on the poet, especially the homesickness that is hard to give up. Only in this way can we truly understand the rich connotation and spiritual essence contained in a night-mooring near maple bridge.
The first sentence "Cold Night" has always been controversial, but the views on the word "the moon sets" are basically the same. It is believed that the first quarter moon rose early at that time and sank at midnight. However, the author found that there are essential differences between the two words in ancient poetry: "Moon setting" means that the moon has been lost, which means that the moon could not be seen at that time; The "falling moon" means that the moon is gradually sinking, which means that the moon can still be seen at that time. For example, Zhang's two sentences in Moonlit Night on the Spring River, such as "the moon sets on the west slope of the pond" and "the moon rocks are all over the river", illustrate the scene of "the moon sets", and Wang Wei's "lonely smoke in the desert, the long river sets the yen" also shows the magnificent landscape when the sun sets; Liu Yuxi's words in "Treading the Lyrics" (Part III), "When the moon sets, the clouds and rain disperse, and the wandering children pick up the buds of strangers", show that when it is about to rain, the gathered people are scattered everywhere, and only the children who are playing are still picking up the buds left by people in panic. "The setting of the moon" obviously means that the moon has been covered by dark clouds, and the poet can no longer see the moon; Wang Wei's famous phrase, "A hundred birds are surprised when the moon rises, but it flows in spring", also describes the scene when the moon suddenly emerges from the clouds and actually scares the mountain birds. Therefore, the word "falling moon" in Zhang Jishi's poems should mean that there was no moon at that time, and people generally misunderstand "falling moon" as "falling moon".
However, can the "raven" in the poem be understood as "the clouds are gathering and the wind is howling" just like "stepping on the lyrics"? I think it seems inappropriate, because it has nothing to do with the "frosty sky" behind it. The "black body" here actually refers to the local water old black, that is, the cormorant used for fishing after domestication. Du Fu's poem "Domestic niggers eat yellow croaker every meal", in which niggers refer to cormorants. Shen Kuo made a special comment on this in the 274th article of Meng Qian Bi Tan. Cormorants are very common in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. They often snore at night and are called "making more noise" by fishermen. It is conceivable that when dozens or hundreds of cormorants gather on the river, their cries will inevitably last for a long time, which makes people feel depressed and deeply sad. As for the interpretation of "black crow" as crow or black magpie in later generations, I'm afraid it doesn't conform to their living habits and is not close to the customs of Jiangnan water towns. The description of "the sky is full of frost" does not conform to the reality of natural landscape, because frost generally appears on the ground, and many people have questioned this sentence. In fact, what the poet wants to express here is that he has been standing in the bow for a long time because he can't sleep, and his body and face have been polluted by frost unconsciously. Isn't the vast night sky outside him filled with frost? !
This sentence describes what the poet saw, heard and felt on a passenger ship on a cold night without the moon, but what caused him to return to the bow in a sleepy sleep? It is not difficult to imagine that as a wanderer stranded in another country to escape the war, he will not worry about the safety of the country and miss his relatives in his distant hometown. Based on this, the poet actually used a metaphor in this sentence: "The moon sets" symbolizes the fall of Chang 'an and the decline of the Tang Dynasty; "Full Body" vividly depicts the rampant rebels in Anshi Rebellion. Frost all over the sky reflects the depression and tension caused by the war in the whole country.
The second sentence, "Jiang Feng fishing and sleeping", has always been the main point of understanding the poem and the most controversial place. "Jiangfeng" undoubtedly refers to the maple trees by the river, and "fishing fire" necessarily refers to the fishing fire on the ship, but the key is how to understand the difficulty of "worrying about sleeping". We need to borrow modern hydrogeological knowledge to find the answer: Generally speaking, maple trees planted by the river are always vertical at first, but because the soil on its downhill slope has been eroded by the river for many years, it will gradually lead to a large amount of soil loss near the river, and the trees will constantly lean towards the river under the action of gravity, even seriously damaged or even parallel to the water surface, forming a strange landscape lying across the river. This phenomenon can still be seen in some old Hanoi near Suzhou.
With this understanding, it is not difficult for us to understand the true meaning of "worrying about sleep". It turned out that what the poet saw on the boat was the maple tree leaning against the river and its "reflection" in the water. At the same time, he also saw the fishing lamp hanging obliquely on the boat and its "reflection" in the water, and found that they were all snuggling up to sleep. This situation only forms an indescribable contrast with the poet's loneliness. How can you not let him feel deeply? A word "sadness" just tells the continuous grief of his hometown relatives in his heart. It can be seen that in this sentence, the poet used the brushwork of "Bi Xing" to compare Jiang Feng's "sleeping together" with his "loneliness", and transferred his sadness to them, realizing the silent blending and agreement between the poet and the scenery, which has considerable artistic appeal!
Three or four sentences, "Hanshan Temple outside Gusu City, the bell rings at midnight to the passenger ship" must be explained together, because the poet used the word "reverse order" here. Generally speaking, the poet should think of it after hearing the bell-it is the bell from Hanshan Temple, which means that the normal logical clue should be "Midnight bell to the passenger ship, Hanshan Temple outside Gusu City". It is not difficult to find that the poet intentionally reversed the order of the two. It should be admitted that this "reverse order" not only conforms to the homesickness of the poets at that time, but also creates a special artistic conception. As you can imagine, it was late at night, and the poet who had been trapped for a long time suddenly heard bursts of bells from Hanshan Temple. What is his strongest feeling and mood at this time? It is easy to understand that his most urgent wish is that the melodious bursts of bells can be heard by relatives in his hometown. Therefore, the correct interpretation of these two poems should be as follows: Hanshan Temple outside Gusu, although your midnight bell is so long and sonorous, it is a pity that only passengers on passenger ships can hear it. How I wish this bell could cross the mountains, rivers and plains, and finally float over my hometown, so that my relatives can listen together-that is the greetings and calls of travelers from afar. ...
It must be pointed out that the hometown of the poet Zhang Ji is in Xiangyang, Hubei Province, which is located to the west of Qiao Feng where the poet was at that time. Qiao Feng is in the west of Hanshan Temple, which is in the west of Gusu City. Therefore, from these two poems, we can find that-> > the author's creative thinking is just in line with "Gusu City->"; Hanshan Temple-> Passenger Ship (Qiao Feng)-> Hometown developed from east to west, which just catered to the poet's logical thinking when he was homesick. If we follow the normal thinking of "hearing the bell first, then thinking of Hanshan Temple, then contacting Gusu City, and finally thinking of hometown", it is obviously impossible to truly reflect the homesickness that the poet wants to express. Just like this, once Zhong closely linked himself with his hometown, the author's "reverse order" in the sentence reached the effect of deepening and unifying. It should be noted that "reverse order" is a common grammar in ancient poetry. For example, in Wang Wei's Spring Above, the phrase "the willow color reflects the spring, and the pear flower hides the evening" contains this "reverse order" structure, and Du Fu's Eight Poems of Autumn Prosperity also uses this grammatical technique. In fact, the title of a night-mooring near maple bridge itself seems to imply this "inverted" rhetorical style. Because, according to the normal creative thinking, it seems more appropriate to name it "Night Garden Qiao Feng", such as Du Mu's Night Garden Qinhuai. The author thinks that the poet's "inverted sentence" technique here can still play the role of making the finishing point and deepening the theme. "Sleeping at night" can be extended to "the boat that sleeps at night", and the whole poem can be understood as "the boat that sleeps in Qiao Feng at night", and its meaning is self-evident: in the wandering years of war, isn't the poet himself a boat drifting around? !
For thousands of years, people have used the "moon" to express their deep thoughts about their relatives and friends. For example, "When the sea rises and the moon rises, the horizon is * * *", "Looking up, I found that it was moonlight, and then sinking, I suddenly thought of home". However, on a moonless night, how can we express the homesickness of the wanderer? The poet Zhang Ji used "Zhong" to express his strong homesickness. This organic combination of "silence and sound, emptiness and reality, far and near" closely links national security with personal homesickness, and finally creates a typical artistic realm of blending scenes, which is more intriguing, exciting and thought-provoking than the previous one! This is the charm of night parking near Fengqiao, which has been sung for thousands of years!
The bell of Hanshan Temple not only expresses the poet's deep yearning for his relatives in his hometown, but also full of his cry for national peace and tranquility ... May the bell of Hanshan Temple be louder, longer and wider! ! !