Before interpreting the floating clouds in the Book of Songs, it is necessary for us to understand the thinking and emotional characteristics of human beings in the era of the Book of Songs. In the era of the Book of Songs, the relationship between ancestors and nature was harmonious, and ancestors relied more on nature than on transformation. As natural things, human beings are constrained by various natural phenomena, such as sunrise and sunset, blustery clouds, rain and dew, thunder and lightning, the alternation of seasons and the change of objects, which shock their hearts. Their survival is closely related to nature. So the ancestors tried to explain these natural phenomena. They take care of the world around them in a primitive way of thinking. Because the perceptual representation obtained from the objective world has not yet risen to a concept, concreteness, that is, never leaving the concrete perceptual image in the process of thinking, has become a very important feature of original thinking. These appearances are not simple objective appearances. Levi Brewer used the word "collective representation" in his book Primitive Thinking. He said: "The so-called collective representations ... these representations are passed down from generation to generation in this collective; They left a deep impression on every member of the collective, and at the same time, according to different situations, every member of the collective has feelings of respect, fear, worship and so on. " [1] and said: "An individual often obtains these collective representations that can have the deepest impression on his emotions in some cases." [2] Then, in the consciousness of our ancestors, nature is not a purely real object, but a representation with mysterious attributes at the same time. Natural objects and phenomena are considered to have mysterious abilities. When they perceive some natural objects and natural phenomena, they never break away from this mysterious attribute. "For primitive thinking, it is difficult to have naked facts and objects. Any object imagined by this kind of thinking is wrapped in mysterious factors: any object perceived by it, whether ordinary or unusual, will cause more or less strong emotions, and the nature of this emotion itself is predetermined by tradition. Because, except for those emotions that are purely personal and depend on the direct reaction of organisms, there is nothing more social than emotions in primitive people. Similarly, the nature of perception, feeling and experience of members of underdeveloped society must be fixed as long as the organizational system of society and collective remains unchanged. " [3] concreteness, mystery and sociality have become the remarkable characteristics of primitive thinking and emotion.
Take the cloud as an example. "Zuo Zhuan" Zhao Gong seventeen years: "In the past, the Huangdi family was named after the cloud, so it was named after the cloud master." Fu Ganyun said, "The Yellow Emperor was ordered to win the trust of Jingyun, so he took Yun as a clerk and Yun as an official. Almost spring officials are Qingyun, summer officials are Jinyun, Qiu Guan is Baiyun, and winter officials are Huang Yun. " "Three Classics of Mountains and Seas, West Times" said that Kunlun Mountain "contains many white jade, which is raw jade paste and its source is heated. Whether the Yellow Emperor eats or not. " Jade cream is also called Baiyun. "And from the perspective of historical research, the word Xuanyuan seems to be considered as' Yun Xuan'. The word' Xuan' is often used as' Xuan'. Mystery, heaven and earth. Iron axis and staff are universal. The word' member' in ancient Chinese is also the word' cloud'. [4] It can be inferred that the Huangdi tribe has a very close relationship with the cloud, and perhaps the cloud was once the totem of the Huangdi tribe. In this way, since the legendary primitive tribal period, the cloud has been deeply imprinted on human consciousness with its magical image. According to ancient records, our ancestors attached great importance to the observation of clouds and gases around the sun. " Distinguish good luck, drought, abundance and famine through five kinds of clouds. "("Zhou Li Zhang Bao History ") Zheng Note:" Things, color also. Depending on the color of the clouds next to the sun. "Therefore, there are always" Lingtai ","Looking at the Clouds "(the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, the Sacrifice to the Suburb, and the Book of Historical Records and Zen) on the edge of the ancient palace:" The sun Lord worships the mountains ... the clouds that greet the sunrise. " "The records of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty show that Shang Dynasty not only offered sacrifices to clouds, but also adopted the highest etiquette specifications, using' gold' as a ritual vessel for offering sacrifices to gods. In fact, in China's ancient religious thoughts, the position of cloud god is second only to that of sun god. Wei Shuyun: "Cloud is the foundation of heaven and earth. ("Journey of River Map and Land") and "Book of Changes" say: "Heaven and earth are so beautiful that everything is mellow." Duan Yucai pointed out that the word "rhyme" is a combination of the word "rhyme" and the word "rhyme" is a disyllabic rhyme. (Notes on Explaining Words in Shuowen) (ibid., p. 158- 159) In the word "Gan", there is also "sex and rain, tangible materials", which symbolizes sex and rain and depicts a relationship between Yin and Yang. In a word, cloud, as an important phenomenon in nature, entered human vision and consciousness in distant ancient times. Written in Qing Yun Ge before the Book of Songs, it sang: "Qingyun is rotten, so change it. Sun and Moon Guanghua, Dan Fudan. "Sincere praise and appreciation of nature and simple understanding of natural laws are all in it. This is a direct and simple expression of feelings that have been suppressed in the hearts of ancestors.
With the gradual improvement of language and thinking ability, the understanding of ourselves and the outside world is deepening and increasing, and the emotional world of human beings is increasingly rich. As a result, "People have seven emotions, and it is unnatural to express their aspirations according to things" (Liu Xie's Poems of Carving Dragons with Literary Mind), and poems expressing aspirations also came into being. The Book of Songs, as a collection of ancient poems, is the artistic crystallization that human beings express their feelings and reflect reality with simple language and simple form. Cloud, with its unique physical situation and mysterious mythical color, has been absorbed into poetry by ancestors, and has become a poetic image used by poets in the history of China poetry, and has been constantly innovating. In the Book of Songs, clouds are either used as a metaphor or as fun. People often compare clouds, which means that something is rich and beautiful. For example, in the poem "Gentlemen Grow Old with the Wind", it is said that Xuanjiang is like a cloud, and Mao Chuan said, "Like a cloud, the words are beautiful and long." "Zheng Feng Out of its East Gate": "Out of its East Gate, there are women like clouds. Although it is like a floating cloud, think about it. " Mao Chuan: "Like a cloud, there are many." Jian Zheng: "A cloud, like a gust of wind, has no brains." "Qi Feng Wozen": "Qi Zigui, followed by a cloud." Mao Chuan: "Like a cloud, words are full." "Daya Hanyi": "After the Han Dynasty married, the daughters followed, like a cloud." "Like a cloud" also means many people. All poems refer to the beauty and beauty of women except the poem "A gentleman is harmonious but different, and grows old together". Taking the cloud as a metaphor may be because some natural attributes of the cloud have a certain corresponding relationship with the psychology formed by human beings in their long-term production and life practice. As mentioned above, early human thinking has concrete characteristics and belongs to image thinking. They can't abstract the essential characteristics of things, and they don't have enough concepts to express what they perceive, so they have to use known concrete things as the medium of expression, "or metaphor, or metaphor, or quasi-psychology, or metaphor." (Wen Xin Diao Long Bi Xing) In daily life, human beings have long noticed thick clouds, magnificent and beautiful clouds, delicate and charming clouds and endless clouds blown by the wind. Moreover, taking the image of nature as a metaphor is a natural thing for early humans who maintained a close and harmonious relationship with nature.
If we only take the image as a metaphor, the themes of many chapters in The Book of Songs will not be so puzzling and cause so much controversy. In The Book of Songs, images are often fun, and such fun is directly related to the theme of the poem, or the theme is implied in fun. This kind of image, that is, argot, Mr. Wen Yiduo said in The Book of Songs on Fish: "The so-called images and symbols in the West are all of the same kind, but in China terminology, they are all obscure." He also said: "Hidden in the Six Classics is equivalent to the" image "in the Book of Changes and the" xing "in the poem; ..... Just like elegant social poems, political poems and amorous feelings poems, these poems must be disguised under the supervision of various taboos ... The application scope of argot is almost unimaginable in the lives of ancient people. That's because it has a selective social function. In the diplomatic field (especially the social interaction between young men and women), it is a measure of intelligence test. " Mr. Zhao Peilin called it "prototype image": "The habitual association between objects and concepts in poetry originates from religious life and is a stable psychological model. From the artistic form and expression form of poetry, it is an image-the original image." (Zhao's Origin of Xing, page 70) In short, the meaning of this image in poetry is hidden and not obvious. It is a collective unconscious, and it is a symbolic image of religion, philosophy, art and literature. With Yun Qi as the star, there are Xiaoya flowers in the Book of Songs: "Ying Ying white clouds, showing fragrant grass, walking hard, children still exist." There is also a song "Cao Feng and others", which contains: "Xi Hui Wei Xi, Nanshan Chao Xi; Hey, I'm hungry. " Mao Chuan: "Hui, Wei, Yun Xing Wang. ..... Hey, it's also a cloud. Biography: "When you are in the morning, the clouds are rising. "Shu is a cloud, so this chapter is also based on it. According to Wen Yiduo's incisive textual research and exposition in the Legend of Goddess in the Prosperous Tang Dynasty, we can know that "hunger", or "hunger towards the DPRK", actually refers to the failure of men and women's great desires and is an ancient idiom. So "seasonal girl's hunger" refers to a girl in the mature stage of youth who can't bear the hunger of lust. And about "Xi Hui Wei Xi, Nanshan Chaoji" and "Feng Feng? There is also a saying in the novel, "Facing the west, worshiping the rain". Yun Sheng is so extreme that it rains, so the two are the same thing. 《? In the preface to Mao, it is said to be "stabbing a woman". The poem says: "It's like a man who is married, has no faith and doesn't know his own destiny." The meanings of "pregnant" and "hungry women in the season" are roughly the same, so the themes of the two poems are roughly the same. Wen Yiduo also quoted Song Yuzhi's "Gao Tang Mi", proving that "Nanshan Su Chao" is actually a mythical figure like Wushan Chaoyun. After seeing the king of Chu, Wushan Chaoyun "recommended a pillow mat" and sent someone to see a man for the unbearable lust of an adulteress and Cao Nv among others. His behavior is essentially the same. Then, it also contains the meaning of debauchery, which becomes the code word of sexual relations between men and women. Therefore, "Xi Huiwei, Nanshan Dynasty" and the theme of this poem are compared in a sense. The reason or significance of this image is generally accepted by everyone, not the specific special feelings and experiences in a specific environment, so it can be applied to many occasions. In fact, this code word is also used in Yi. Yi Gan: "Clouds have rain, goods have manifold", which means that Yun Geng sows rain and turns everything into life. "Cohesion" also means "heaven and earth are intertwined, everything is mellow, men and women are refined, and everything is transformed", and it also means that men and women have intercourse. Since then, the word "sex" has become more stable after Song Yu's "high" hype, and it is widely known as the argot of sexual relations. When explaining this phenomenon, Mr. Fu Daobin said: "The ancient argot of taking sex as sex originated from the understanding that the intersection of heaven and earth produced everything." Cohesion "said:" Hard and soft wear each other, gossip swings each other, drums are thunderous, and things are moistened silently. "Han Wang Chong explained:' The sky is above and the ground is below; Everything is born in the middle, while the lower air is steaming up and the upper air is descending. "(On the balance of nature) These are all the life behaviors of Yakumo's Eight Rains as sympathy between heaven and earth, which in turn are metaphors of making peace between men and women, and they are common folk psychology at that time." (Fu Daobin, Reproductive Worship Culture in China, Hubei People's Publishing House 1990.
30 1 page) Looking at the places where clouds or rain are written in the Book of Songs, except for describing natural phenomena in the form of fu, all androgyny in the form of xing is related to love. This is also the manifestation of the socialization characteristics of ancient human thinking.
In a word, in the Book of Songs, cloud, as a metaphor or as a kind of interest, has a universal implication and is deposited in the collective unconscious. Its appearance is always related to a specific theme-sex and love.