The story of homophonic pun in ancient poetry

China's classical poems pay the most attention to implicit beauty, and being good at using Chinese homophones is also an important way to create implicit beauty.

In addition to what we all know, "Sunny" homophonic love "Love" is sunny when the sun rises in the east and it rains in the west, but sunny on the road ". The common homophonic pun is the "lotus" of lotus seeds.

Huang Fusong, a poet in the late Tang Dynasty, wrote this sentence: "It is shameful to throw lotus seeds from the water for no reason." The lotus picking girl saw a handsome boy! The girl's heart was pounding, but she didn't dare to confess, so she threw some lotus seeds at the handsome boy. Lotus seed homonym "pity" means pity. The ancients said that "pity" is not sympathy, but loveliness, so "lotus seed" means "Reiko Kobayakawa", which is translated into modern vernacular: love you, love you! A girl throws lotus seeds, and others know how she feels inside. No wonder she has to be shy for a long time.

For example, hibiscus flowers of hibiscus flowers! Homophonic "husband's capacity", that is, the appearance of her husband, there is such a sentence in Nineteen Ancient Poems: "Wading for hibiscus! Lanzedo fragrant grass. Who is eager to leave? Thinking far away. " It is the homonym of hibiscus, which expresses the left-behind wife's yearning for her long-distance husband.

Another example is Li Shangyin's untitled poem: "Spring silkworms die, and night candles burn their wick". "Silk" is a homonym, expressing the lovesickness in love till death do us part.

There is also the sentence in China's first translated love poem, Ren Yue Song in the Spring and Autumn Period: "There are trees on the mountain and branches on the wood. I don't know if I like you. " Vietnamese women's understanding and affection for the son of Chu are expressed by the "branches" of branches and homophonic "knowledge": even the vegetation on the mountain knows my affection for you, son, do you know?

The implicit beauty created by this homophonic pun, that is, what the ancients called "borrowing words", is of course the unique charm of Chinese characters.

-Yu Yang's Yu Yang Shuo Ci