Original text and appreciation of "Poems, Songs and Prose·Quanzhou"
Zhang Yanghao
The beauty on the temples is scattered thousands of miles away, and the miasma is the house and the sea is the home.
No matter how high the mountain is, water flows everywhere, and the trees bloom in autumn and winter.
If you get a sentence pearl, you can return it to Puyue, and if you have a cup, you can absorb the clouds of Akagi.
Penglai is so close that I can’t reach it, and I feel ashamed that I committed Doucha in the past.
In the third year of Yanyou's reign (1316), Emperor Renzong of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhang Yanghao, the minister in charge of the Ministry of Rites, was ordered to conquer the south of Quanzhou. The poem "Quanzhou" was written during this trip to the south. Quanzhou (in today's southeastern Fujian Province) was one of the largest commercial ports in the Yuan Dynasty. It is surrounded by mountains and sea, with beautiful scenery and unprecedented prosperity in overseas transportation and trade. Italian traveler Marco Polo once said about Quanzhou in his "Travels": "All Indian ships carrying spices and all other valuable goods came to this port. The amount of merchandise, gems, and pearls imported was incredible." It can be seen that Quanzhou played an important role as an overseas trade center in the early Yuan Dynasty. There is Kaiyuan Temple in the west of Quanzhou. It was built in the second year of Chui Gong (686) in the Tang Dynasty. It is magnificent in scale and powerful. It is one of the largest Buddhist temples in Fujian. Its former charm can still be seen today.
In this poem, the author did not pay attention to the prosperous commercial activities in Quanzhou, nor the historic gardens in Quanzhou, but observed everything here with the unique scrutiny of northerners. The first couplet contains the sentence "Ten thousand miles away, two hairs on the temples are drifting away." After lamenting the arduous journey of thousands of miles and the decline of the gray hair on the temples (the author was 47 years old at the time), he seemed to have little affection for this place. The couplet "Miasma smoke is the house." "Hai is home" outlines the outline of Quanzhou in the Yuan Dynasty with just a few strokes. "Mias" means miasma. The ancients specifically referred to the fog that evaporates from the hot and humid mountains and forests in southern my country and can cause diseases. This reflects the difficulty of northerners adapting to the humid environment in the south. In ancient times, when transportation was inconvenient and most areas in the south had not yet been developed on a large scale, the miasma and wild smoke had always been regarded as a fearful road by the Central Plains people. The author has accurately grasped the scenery and features of Quanzhou, and the impression at a glance has a strong generalization power.
Zhao Lian further develops the local characteristics of Quanzhou. The word "water" is highlighted in the sentence, which captures the characteristics of abundant water in southern cities; the word "warm" is highlighted in the couplet, which captures the warm and humid climate in coastal areas, flowers that bloom all year round, and evergreen trees with eight branches. feature. There are many thorn trees in Quanzhou, and the city of thorn trees is another name for Quanzhou. Erythrina is a deciduous tree of the Leguminosae family. It blooms in yellow, red and purple colors and is available for viewing. It is planted all over the streets and green streets there. "The trees bloom in autumn and winter" is not limited to one kind of Erythrina, but the image provided to the readers in the sentence is certain, that is, this is a place where flowers and trees are lush and not restricted by seasons. The author observes this coastal city with a calm eye, and the description without emotion is the product of the author's meditation.
The neck couplet turns to the description of oneself. "Book of the Later Han·Biography of Mengchang" contains such a story: Hepu (now part of Guangxi) was rich in pearls, and the old county guard was able to search for them. As a result, all the pearls were moved to Jiaozhi. Mengchang came here to serve as the prefect, and he rectified all the previous mistakes, and Pearl returned. This is the allusion of "Hepu Pearl Returns". In the poem, "If you get a sentence, the pearl will return to Hepu Moon", I borrow the superficial meaning of this allusion to show that I have recovered the lost inspiration by reciting a poem like a sentence, like a pearl of Hepu. Is it the strange scenery of Quanzhou that aroused the author's interest in poetry, or was it the guest in a foreign land that inspired the author? We don't know, but the author takes great joy in reciting poems on moonlit nights and occasionally comes up with good lines, which is always true to the habits of a literati. Chicheng is the name of a mountain in what is now Tiantaibei, Zhejiang Province. It is named after the earth is red in color, looks like clouds, and looks like battlements when looking at it. Liuxia refers to the flowing clouds. In Yang Xiong's "Ode to Sweet Spring" in the Han Dynasty: "Suck the clouds like blue clouds, and drink the dew like trees." Liuxia is also the name of the legendary fairy wine. The combination of the three characters "Chicheng Xia" in the poem is very interesting. Sun Chuo of the Jin Dynasty wrote "A Chicheng Xia rises and builds the standard" in "A Journey to Tiantai Mountain", which describes the scenery of Chicheng Mountain. In the poem, the name of the wine is borrowed, which can be used as a reference. The combination with "Hepu Moon" is stable and elegant. The author was in a trance due to drinking, as if he was about to float into a fairyland, drinking fine wine and fine wine, hazy and inseparable from the real world, and gained a certain degree of freedom of thought. However, for a person with a royal destiny, it has become impossible to retire and be proud of the world. The author finally fell into hesitation and hesitation due to repeated inner conflicts and was unable to extricate himself. This is the second chapter of "Chaos Huai" The connotation of the word.
In order to clearly express the consciousness hidden deep in the heart, the last couplet ends with discussion and spits out the lumps in the chest, although there is no lack of self-promotion in it. Penglai is the name of the legendary fairy mountain on the sea. Together with Yingzhou and Fangzhang, it is called the Three God Mountains. It refers to the fairy world in the poem. The legendary Penglai floats on the sea, and Quanzhou is close to the sea. However, the author cannot enter the fairyland from here, so he chants "Penglai is so close that there is no way to reach it." This is only its superficial meaning. Its deeper meaning is that since entering the official career, I have been insulated from the dream of gods, reflecting the irreconcilable contradiction between being born in the world and joining the world. "Guilin Doucha" is used in Zhang Hua's "Natural History" of the Jin Dynasty. In mythology, the Tianhe River is connected to the sea. In the Han Dynasty, someone took a cha (large wooden raft) to the Tianhe River and met the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. When he came back, he asked Yan Junping, and Yan replied: "On a certain year, month and day, a guest star invaded Altair." It happened to be this. When people arrive at Tianhe. There are two interpretations of "I feel ashamed that I committed Doucha" in the poem. The first type: "Fulfillment" refers to an experience in his early years when he went to Beijing to seek an official position, which is still embarrassing to think about.
The second type: "Fulfilling Doucha" still refers to reaching the fairyland. The whole two sentences mean that I am so close to the sea now, but I can't find the Penglai fairyland. Compared with the people who took the chariot directly to the Tianhe River in the Han Dynasty, it is really embarrassing. The poem is incomprehensible, and it is up to the readers to judge which of the two interpretations is more in line with the author's intention. Perhaps this is what makes this poem intriguing.
In this poem "Quanzhou", the first and second couplets narrate and describe the scene, the neck couplet is tied back to itself, the last couplet discusses and expresses feelings, and the four couplets write one thing and note the other. It is full of wonderful changes, and is full of truth in its simplicity. interest. As Liu Xizai's "Yi Gai·Poetry" said: "Rhythmic poetry suffers from both side effects and the single-mindedness of the harp. It is good at both of these things when it is consistent and changes."
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