The hazy beauty in "The Book of Songs" - the so-called beauty is on the side of the water

"Guo Feng·Qin Feng·Jian Jia"

Jian Jia is green and the white dew is frost.

The so-called beauty is on the water side.

If you follow it, the road is long and blocked.

If you follow it, you will find yourself in the middle of the water.

The leaves are luxuriant, and the white dew is still there.

The so-called Yiren is on the water.

Follow it back and forth, but the road will be blocked and you will be able to advance.

If you go back and swim from it, you will feel like you are swimming in the water.

The jianjia is collected, and the white dew has not stopped.

The so-called beauty is in the river.

Follow it back, but the road is blocked and to the right.

Travel back and swim in the water

How many flavors can the human tongue taste? Everyone knows it without thinking: sweet, sour, spicy and salty.

So how many flavors of poetry are there? I guess no one knows. If you insist on answering this question, I'm afraid there are only two flavors: good and bad.

However, in the Tang Dynasty, there was a poetry critic named Sikong Tu, who tasted twenty-four flavors in his twenty-four poems. It really shocked us. This also shows that the evolution of human beings does not mean that human abilities have been comprehensively improved. We think that people today are smarter than the ancients. In fact, it is just the feeling that technological progress brings to us. At the spiritual level and aesthetic level, we are not as elegant as the ancients at all.

Go into the museum and take a closer look at the bronzes and jades from the Zhou Dynasty. These cultural relics are nearly three thousand years old, but their workmanship and creativity are much better than today. Comparing them carefully, you will find that you seem to have lived In an era of infinite vulgarity.

Many things today are much weaker than in ancient times. Although we have cars, our ability to travel long distances is not as good as our ancestors; with air conditioning, our ability to withstand severe cold and heat is not as good as our ancestors. ; We have machines, and our hands-on ability is not as good as our ancestors.

When we use cell phone cameras to record beauty, our ability to feel beauty in our hearts is even less than that of our ancestors. The more we rely on external things, the more our own abilities will be weakened and degraded. Therefore, the ancients could taste the flavor of the twenty-four poems, but we can only distinguish between good and bad poems.

The decline in aesthetic ability is closely related to the changes in our current language environment. The ancients spoke vernacular in daily life, but they used classical Chinese in literary creation, but today we only have vernacular. It should be noted that classical Chinese is an aesthetic need, while vernacular is a daily and practical language.

Mr. Hu Shi is a master who advocates vernacular. He once asked a question when he was teaching students. The title was this: "A friend invites you to become an official, but you don't want to. Ask "Draw up a simple telegram in classical Chinese", a classmate came up with it: "I have little talent and little knowledge, I am afraid that I will not be competent, and I will not obey my orders." Mr. Hu Shi laughed and said it would be better to use vernacular, just three words: "Can't do it."

Those new young people who once applauded Mr. Hu Shi never expected that this seemingly concise and clear vernacular would make the Chinese language as gentle as jade, elegant, tactful and implicit. The beauty is lost.

When we can only use simple language to appreciate poetry, such as good or bad, beautiful or not, a lot of beauty will slip away from this broad net, because We cannot capture beautiful details.

After talking about the taste of poetry, let’s take a look at "Jianjia". From the title of the poem, it is easy to see that this is a ballad from the Qin Dynasty during the Western Zhou Dynasty. The "Jianjia" in the poem refers to reeds, which are densely packed with reeds. By the river, extending into the distance, like a curtain of mist swaying in the wind.

The jianjia is green and the white dew is frost. The so-called beauty is on the water side. The first sentence of the poem has a rising structure, just like Guan Ju, but from this beginning, I feel the slightest chill. In the autumn morning, the mood is bleak. The sentence "white dew is frost" gives the whole poem a cold color. It is sentimental before it becomes a melody, which makes people's hearts tremble.

The tone, mood and tone of the whole poem are perfectly captured by these four words. The white frost condensed on the reeds has not yet melted away, just like the young man's heart knot that can never be opened. .

The sun rises slowly, and the white frost on the reeds slowly changes, from frost to frost to frost, and finally disappears without a trace. This process is like a song The lyrics of the folk song: "Do you know what it feels like to miss someone, it's like drinking a glass of ice-cold water and then shedding tears one by one for a long, long time."

If it is mutual love, the two people can always find a kind of happiness and dignity in each other's appreciation, but if it is unrequited love, it will be difficult. A cold expression from the other party will It may make you abandon your armor and surrender. There is no equality between you.

In this game of unrequited love, the woman you love is always Faye Wong. Her unusual beauty is an unforgivable sin, and you are just a protector at best. You can get close to her, but you can never reach her secret garden.

"The so-called beauty is on the side of the water." The geographical distance can be measured with your footsteps, but what about the spiritual distance? No matter whether you try to swim upstream or swim downstream, it will all be in vain.

The shadow of your secret love is always erratic, appearing in the water where you can never reach it.

The more we talk about it, the more bleak it becomes. Let’s turn back and talk about beauty. If you were asked to name ten words or sentences about beauty, what would you say? Don't care: beauty, pretty, goddess, white and rich... I guess that's all in our vocabulary, but in Chinese classical poetry, there are too many sentences to describe a woman's beauty.

In "The Book of Songs. Wei Feng. Shuo Ren", Zhuang Jiang, the wife of Duke Zhuang of Wei, was written about her smile: "The smile is beautiful and beautiful, and the beautiful eyes are looking forward to it." Girls have been written about throughout the ages. A sentence about smile should not exceed these eight words.

During the Western Han Dynasty, the musician Li Yannian described his sister to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty: "There is a beauty in the north, peerless and independent, who can charm a city with a smile, and a country with another smile." Mrs. Li's beauty is so great. power.

During the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi described Yang Guifei in the song of Everlasting Regret: "Looking back and smiling, she is full of beauty, the pink and white in the sixth palace have no color." With such beauty, it is no wonder that the imperial concubine is so favored.

These sentences are the best in writing about beautiful women in ancient China. I still feel dizzy and suffocating when I read them today. But compared with "the so-called beauty is on the side of the water", it all loses its color. There are no adjectives in these eight words, and not a single word mentions the girl's appearance. But she is on the side of the water, so you can get everything in one stop. People's worship.

Sikong Tu once said: "Without a word, you can achieve all the romance." Without saying a word, all the beauty is presented silently.

The beauty of Zhuang Jiang is a charming smile, the beauty of Mrs. Li is the beauty of the country, and the beauty of Yang Guifei is looking back and smiling, but all the beauty has nothing to do with us. However, " As soon as the saying "beautiful people are on the other side of the water" appears, no matter whether we are ancient or modern people, we will imagine the most beautiful shadow. They will put the one she once couldn't have on the other side of the river. This beautiful fantasy is rich and belongs to us.

Poetry is the flower of language. The beauty of "Jianjia" does not stop there. There are several words in the poem: Jianjia Cangcang, Jianjia Lvqiqi, Jianjia Caicai. We can translate them into lush. , but these words themselves are also creating a sound effect. The leaves of the reeds rub against each other, making a sound in the autumn morning: green, lush, and picking. This kind of sound is a perfect match when accompanied by a sad young man on a lonely autumn day.

Let’s look at the rhyme of the first sentence, Cang, Shuang, Fang, Chang, Yang. When reading these words, we will unconsciously extend the ending sound. In the process of this extension, we My thoughts will drift into the distance.