From: Huang Tingjian, two pieces? Song dynasty
Occasionally, when I have nothing to do, I will talk about two games of military school chess.
My heart is like spider silk swimming in the blue sky, and my body is like dead branches.
I wish to die in the east, and the world can be divided.
Who said I still love the sun? I never know.
Occasionally, I have no official business, and I met a friend who was also resting to be a guest. Two people sat together to play Go and discuss the following chess moves. Missing is like a spider silk floating in the sky, but there is a thin thread that has not been cut; The body is like a person who is absorbed in catching cicadas under a tree full of cicada shells and becomes a dead branch, motionless.
This chess game is like Xiao Yi, the king of eastern Hunan, with only one living eye left. It's time to eat. But the whole situation is evenly matched, so I should be able to hold on. Who says we people cherish time? Obviously, I played chess until dawn and didn't notice the passage of time.
The extended information was written in Ye (shè) county in the fourth year of Xining (A.D. 1072). Huang Tingjian presented a set of poems to the county magistrate, asking the first mate to understand this mood and satirize humor and self-mockery. Ren Gonggradually, then the magistrate of Yexian County, was the author's boss at that time.
The poem uses the allusion of Zhuangzi: an old man who sticks cicadas with bamboo sticks is good at holding his breath at the moment, and his outstretched hand is like a dead branch. And the chess player who is playing chess is so motionless and absorbed. At this moment, time seems to have stopped. This tells us that if we focus on one thing, we can achieve a superb situation. This connection transforms static into dynamic and intangible into tangible. We seem to be quietly observing the activities of chess players' thoughts.
This poem vividly describes the scene of the poet playing chess with his chess friends. He thinks that Go is more attractive than the pleasure of mountains and rivers, and it is also better than chatting with ordinary people. The opponent was so absorbed in the chessboard that he forgot the time. Huang Tingjian's attitude of grasping the most critical step in playing chess is quite different from Wang Anshi's attitude of doing things step by step with one heart and one mind.