On Yuan Mei's Mourning Poems

In the history of China's ancient poetry, there are documents to be found. From the Jin Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty, the custom of mourning without writing poems lasted for thousands of years. This custom mainly means that poets don't write poems when they are in mourning or when their wives are in mourning, and they will never cry for the poems of their loved ones (see my essay Millennium Agreement on the History of Ancient Poetry in China, Literary Heritage,No. 1 issue, 20 15). However, for China ancient poets, creative life is precious. They are "the harmony of the hall, the gift of friends, the feeling of the husband coming to the banquet, and the feeling of the guest, which is fascinating and fascinating. Although there are different ways to be poor, different places to be sad and different places to be happy, if you write your temperament in words, you will get one. From her husband's temperament, she has the same personality for thousands of years "(Essien Gioro Michelle Ye's Preface to the Prosperous Tang Poetry). When this tradition of publicizing poetic culture runs through ancient times and modern times collides with the funeral cultural custom of not giving poems, poets have various attitudes towards the latter. Those who keep it will practice it, and even persuade it to become a poem after mourning. The so-called sorrow is greater than the death of the heart. Customs, after all, rely on personal conscious behavior, which is not comparable to the binding force of etiquette and the coercive force of law. Therefore, many people have violated this custom throughout the ages. Or recognize this custom, but love can't be poetry, so we should take it seriously and go our separate ways. However, such poets are extremely rare, such as Yuan Mei, who solemnly advised people to grieve and wrote poems, publicly declared that he could not rhyme, but privately wrote one song after another without scruple.

First, Yuan Mei's mourning poems.

Yuan Mei forbade people to mourn and write poems, which can be found in his book The Secretariat of History. The main value of this essay lies in that it seems to be an extremely rare monograph on China's ancient poetry-free mourning. May wish to record as follows:

I send you four volumes of poems, all written by Cheng Gong with tears, showing pure filial piety and heartfelt wishes. However, some people dare not be ignorant. The Book of Rites is a "great achievement". It says, "Why do babies cry for their mothers?" The loss of the first step is not only a great achievement, but also a poem with rhyme. According to the law of etiquette, it is like a step, not a poem, but a poem, not a crying father. In ancient times, only Fu Xian and Sun Chuo were poets who cried in clothes. It's time to make it clear in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and it's too late to train. Since the Tang Dynasty, there have been many poets and dutiful sons, and no one has ever heard of anyone crying for two relatives. Poetry is also a solid statement of words. Without words, it can't be poetry, and words can't be children, which is the opposite. Therefore, no painter has ever painted the sky, and there is no father who pulls poetry. Liu Zhou's "Liu He Fu" used to be considered as a big bluff. If you use confused kindness to spread at the end of the sound, you are painting six rivers of talent and so on. Summer and summer, I am free from sorrow, playing the piano silently, but I am sad at the first step, and holding a pen is just rhyme, which is unusual. Servants don't forget this habit for three years, or do it occasionally, and take it before and after, so as not to be laughed at by gentlemen. The first step is forbidden by the ceremony, and the chapter is also self-destructive. Han Changli was born in Shiro and is also a son. His eulogy was unique and had no rhythm. Although this makes up for the loss of his achievements, it also means that he can't bear to write. The first step is the admiration of children, so it's a long story, so it's not named after it. However, if the fruit is named after the ceremony, it is not the wish of the dutiful son, but it is born of the ceremony and is the peace of mind of the dutiful son. Ram said that "benevolence is outside the Tao" and "Shi Lu" said that "poetry is stupid", which is called Yi. The first thing you did was taken away, and you burned it in tears. If you know it publicly, you will take stupid words as right. The first step, not to mention these 300 articles, there are "I", "I" and other works. Those who don't know "I" have poems about the battle of dutiful son, and their relatives also have them. Those who know "I" stab the king.

After being abridged, this book was included in the fifth volume of Suiyuan Poetry. The ancient cultural origin of the custom of not writing mourning poems, especially not writing mourning poems, is illustrated by quoting classics in the book, and its theoretical basis is correct. It summed up the practice of this custom in the long historical process, criticized the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which was late in ethics, violated the ban and broke the precepts, praised many poets who adhered to this custom since the Tang Dynasty, and even misread the Book of Songs with Mao Zhuan. At the beginning of the book, although it is a courtesy to affirm that the mourning of the father of a secretariat official is a kind of filial piety, at the end, it is impolite to dismiss this so-called filial piety as invincible "benevolence" and the poems it gives as "stupid" poems that violate the ethics. The seriousness of the problem can be seen. The reasoning in the book is aboveboard, the analysis is thorough and meticulous, and the tone is serious, and the other party is not allowed to have a say at all. I really don't know how a secretariat feels after reading it. It is not clear whether the "silly" poem is "crying and burning" or staying in the dark.

Yuan Mei so solemnly exhorted others to convince anyone that he would not "spread stories at the end of the tone with confusing goodwill" and engage in double standards. Indeed, in some public occasions, Yuan Mei seems to be a faithful believer in this custom. Fang Junyi's Book of Painting and Calligraphy in the Dream Garden, Volume 24, quotes Yuan Mei's inscription: "Old people worry about career waste. You can't swim by wax alone, and you can't write rhymes. You can stop Zuo Jun's invitation by writing a few lines at the end of the paper. On the day before the New Year's Eve of the Reform Movement of Qianlong, Yuan Mei wrote the title of Qiantang Book Ridge. " "Thorn man" refers to a person who lives in bereavement. So, Yuan Mei's words and deeds are consistent.

Second, Yuan Mei himself wrote mourning poems.

In private, however, Yuan Mei not only writes poems, but also has no scruples.

In June of the seventeenth year of Qianlong, Yuan Meiding's father was worried. According to Wang, he should be in mourning for 25 months, while according to Zheng Xuanzhi, he should be in mourning for 27 months. Even if the former is adopted, if the custom of not writing poems during mourning is observed, you should put down your pen from June of that year to July of the nineteenth year of Qianlong. In February, the Reform Movement of 1898 in the forty-third year of Qianlong, Yuan Meiding was worried about her mother. Similarly, she should have been in mourning from February of that year to March of Gengzi in the forty-fifth year of Qianlong. However, by studying the poems of Kokura Yamamura, we can see that Yuan Mei's mourning poems are unusual.

The eighth volume of Poems was written in Renshen in the seventeenth year of Qianlong. At the end of the volume, there are two poems, namely, boating in Yangjiakou of the Yellow River, shallow sand blowing against the wind for three days, Tao Xipu needs to go to Chang 'an when he returns to the garden, and Farewell to the Mountain. The previous poem was written on his way home from the south after he heard the news of his father's death in Shaanxi, so there is a saying: "When you leave people, look at the spring flowers, and Qin Guan Wan Li walks the sand." What is the partial jurisdiction of Hebo? Away from home. "Later poems were written after returning to the garden. That is to say, after hearing about his funeral, Yuan Mei wrote a poem on his way to the funeral. Volume 9 was in Gui You in the eighteenth year of Qianlong, and * * * received 8 poems1the first 38 questions, all of which are in mourning this year. Volume 10 was written in the 19th year of Qianlong. According to rough statistics, before the author's funeral in July, * * * had fifty-five songs and twenty-six questions.

Isn't "Follow the History of Stabbing" written after Yuan Mei's father died at the age of 37, and turned to observe the custom of mourning without writing poems, so it is very demanding of others? Not exactly. Yuan Mei is sixty-three years old and Ding Mu is worried. The twenty-fifth volume of Poetry was written in Shen Bing in the forty-first year of Qianlong, Ding You in the forty-second year, and the Reform Movement of 1898 in the forty-third year. But after the funeral in February 1898, there were 17 poems and 24 poems. The 26th volume of Poems was written by Gengzi in 44 years of Qianlong, but it can be verified that there were 93 poems and 175 poems before Gengzi's funeral in March of that year.

The age of all the works of Fang Shan's Poems in Kokura is basically the same, with few omissions, which should be attributed to Yuan Mei himself. Twenty-four volumes, in particular, are works compiled by the author himself and earned before the age of 60. At the end of the volume, there is a "complete collection of four poems compiled from the topic". One of the words goes like this: "The world is not born once, but it can be compiled into 60 volumes." The so-called 60 volumes, rounded, are actually only 54 volumes, including 24 volumes of Collected Works of Ogura Mountain House, 24 volumes of Collected Poems of Ogura Mountain House and 6 volumes of Collected Works of Ogura Mountain House. The above-mentioned contributions made by the author during his father's funeral can be seen impressively in his poems, and the number of poems is not less than usual. In other words, it is undeniable that Yuan Mei's mourning poems are unusual. The author himself made no secret, calmly described the work of mourning for relatives and friends, and said that "I only feel good in recent years when I write poetry, and I miss drunkenness every day" ("Sitting alone in the South Building" Part II). Even in the preface and verse of the poem, the author directly indicates the year. For example, in the preface of the ninth volume "Selected Poems of the People's Chef Hippo", it is said: "The people of Chef Hippo will be successful only if they are long and thin with Long Qie dragons and pavilions in the garden. He died on July 1 1. " The first two sentences of "Autumn Rain Sigh" say: "It rains in September, and my feet are numb on the 16th." Let people know at a glance that it is a masterpiece of Gan Long 18. The ancients didn't want to break the silence of mourning and had the impulse to write poems, so they had the practice of chasing books after mourning. There is a small preface in the poem "Parrot" by Qiu Jun, an Amin poet: "Whoever controls the family and benefits from the parrot ... is relieved to take care of it. Not only for mourning, but also for chasing books. "(Rewriting Qiongtai Draft, Volume 5) None of Yuan Mei's poems was written after his funeral, and he didn't want to do it at all. If you deal with a man as he deals with you, why don't you "take the former and take the latter, so as not to be laughed at by the gentleman" when you ask Yuan Mei in the play? Why is it that "the first step is forbidden and the chapter is self-destructive"?

The above is only for Yuan Mei's general mourning poems. As for his poems about weeping for his father, Yuan Mei also has them. "Poetry Supplement" Volume II has the cloud "Stop the rain from Xi 'an to Shanzhou":

One collar of linen and two tears, I don't want to return it like this. On the empty wooden swing swaying in the wind, I am worried about a grass. The road is deep and muddy, and the horse is late with the coffin. The mountains and rivers are dripping with rain, like weeping for Yang Zhu and Luqi.

On the way to the funeral, I got a linen shirt and two lines of tears in the rain. Although this poem is not crying about my dad, it is crying about my dad. This description is not limited to this. After this funeral, I returned to the garden, and there was a poem "Send Zhuang Rong Fu Jun Five Lines and Hundred Rhymes". In the poem, there is a cloud: "Mayi Pass Luo Yu, Ge Lvhu is in the frost. Bury the hub in the middle of the road and break the horse. Spring grass is fine and white clouds are blue. When you go back to an empty house and cry, the machine is even more sad. Buju is close to the city, and the negative soil comes out of Pinggang. I hate Fu for different reasons, and the song continues. " Compared with the previous poems, it adds two meanings: going back to the house to mourn and being buried. The two poems can be described as crying together. If a secretariat blames him for lamenting his father's poems, Yuan Mei really doesn't know what to say.

The most incomprehensible thing is that it is also a poem in the Book of Songs, namely Stork or Xiongnu. When Yuan Mei forbade people to mourn, the former was a poem that stabbed you Wang, while the latter was a poem by a dutiful son, not a funeral work. In his own crying poems, both of them became allusions to mourning poems. The so-called "worry is a grass in Polygonum cuspidatum", "Spring grass in Polygonum cuspidatum is fine, and white clouds hurt the body" and so on. This is a typical pragmatism.

If Yuan Mei is completely engaged in double standards, it doesn't seem to be true. His "Secretariat" seems serious, but in fact it secretly teaches the strategy of breaking the ban and breaking the precepts. For example, "one step is in clothes, don't write poetry, don't write poetry, don't cry for your father", which means that you can't stand it, and you can dress ordinary poems; For example, "if I do something occasionally, I will take it first and then, and I will not be ridiculed by the gentleman, but I will be surprised by the first step, that is, I will ban it with courtesy and discipline myself", which is simply to teach people to cheat. However, this is Yuan Mei's logic on this issue. In fact, his behavior went further.

Is it impossible for Yuan Mei to just mourn and not write poetry? Even if he mourns and doesn't enjoy himself, this is the bottom line in the eyes of the owners, and he can't do it. When he mourns his father, he often goes to the park to play, sing and attend weddings. The ninth volume of Poems contains "Folding Flowers for Tao Xipu's Works", in which friends accept their maid A Zhao as their concubine; There is "Lu Bingxing Jinshi Marriage Song", which sings that Lu married his wife and sister in Suiyuan. This is a night garden decorated with lanterns and colorful decorations. Very lively. During the funeral service, Yuan Mei didn't waste his trip. The ninth volume of Poems includes "On August 29th, Qingjiang went to Yin Gui Temple and returned to Gu Lin Temple". What's more, Yuan Mei's proud Suiyuan was renovated for the first time in the second year after his father's death. At the end of volume 12 of Kokura Mountain Residence, Gui You July was recorded. Yuan Mei held a banquet and sang songs during his mother's funeral, which was a big rate.

Whether he is mourning or not, Yuan Mei just blames others for his loss. In the book "Relieving clothes and having fun with my brother", I said: "When I heard that my brother will release clothes one day, the guests in the city will have strong congratulations. As a custom in Yunnan, this day is to set wine and enjoy music, and the rest will be heard suddenly. ..... The husband's failure was not a painful experience for the former king. The loss of a dutiful son is sincere in the form of China people. His daily life is not uneasy, so it is for it, and it is for festivals. If the prisoner is not tied up, the victim will have to leave the day before. Therefore, the ceremony said,' Except for family mourning' is obviously not excluded if it is excluded. "What do you want others to do to you, you can do to others. I wonder why Yuan Mei is so hard on others. Isn't it more impolite for him to have fun with his brother besides mourning? That's pot calling the kettle black. I dare you not to enjoy yourself during the funeral. How can we talk about the so-called sorrow of a dutiful son?

Yuan Mei's behavior of giving a banquet and writing poems during his funeral at home is judged by his harsh words, and the contradictions among them are incalculable. But we can observe his words and deeds from this, but we can't judge whether he is right or wrong from this, saying that he is frivolous and extravagant, and even in the name of teaching sinners.

Third, the poet of the soul and the poet who has no poetry and mourns the customs.

Today, it seems that there is no difference between believers who are devout in mourning customs and those who violate prohibitions and commandments. We are all shocked by the former's behavior of mourning parents by shortening their lives in poetry creation, because "how can a baby lose its mother halfway?" (Miscellaneous Notes of the Book of Rites) Therefore, this is the purest and simplest way for the poet to mourn for the son of man, and we also understand the humanistic feelings of the latter in mourning with poetry, because this is also a long tradition in the history of ancient poetry in China, and the pain of losing his mother is only an extreme expression of grief. Therefore, we can find a more common cultural phenomenon: all poets who advocate Confucian morality, etiquette and benevolence are often devout followers of the custom of not giving poems in mourning; All poets who admire the natural spirit in their poems but follow Confucian moral etiquette are also listed here; Those poets who admire the spirit of poetry, but don't believe in Confucian moral etiquette in their hearts, and even don't want to restrain themselves with various rules and regulations, are often people who violate this custom. Poets Jiang Shiquan, Zhao Yi and Yuan Mei, who are known as "three outstanding figures in Qianlong", belong to these three different types respectively.

Jiang Shiquan's poetics (Preface to Wu Xiucai's Poems in Zhong Shu) is based on "loyalty, filial piety, righteousness and loyalty", and advocates that "virtue is linked with poetry, and courtesy is linked with righteousness" (Preface to Poems in Bian Suiyuan). Mourning without saying anything is the proper meaning of Confucian morality, etiquette and benevolence, so Jiang did not make a mourning poem. After 40 years of work, the Chiang family struggled. Forty-two years later, after Ding You's funeral, there was a poem "Vote for the Old". The organizer said: "Two years ago, Mr. Yi Wei and Mr. Bing Shen were worried, so there was no poem." Can be said to be practical.

It is well known that Zhao Yi's theory on the subject spirit of poetry is consistent with Yuan Mei's, but Zhao Yi also attaches importance to the poet's morality. His "On Chen Dongpu's Poems of Dunzhuo Pavilion" refers to Chen Dongpu's theory of Du Poetry, so it can "trace elegance and coquettish, rooted in loyalty and filial piety" and advocate loyalty and filial piety as the root of poetry, which shows its purport. How can we ignore the fact that mourning is related to the Great Filial Piety? So, in the forty-two years of Qianlong, Ding You, his mother died of illness, and Zhao Yi was buried with him. Until the forty-fourth year of Qianlong, when he took the shovel in September, there were two seven laws, namely, "After taking the shovel, relatives and friends advised him to go to the official to write poetry", which shows that he wrote poetry only after being persuaded by relatives and friends. On the subject spirit of poetry does not hinder its mourning and ceremony.

Yuan Mei is very different from Jiang and Zhao. His words did not contradict Confucius and Mencius, so he quoted classics to prohibit people from mourning, feasting and writing poems. However, the conflict between his heart and Confucian morality and etiquette induced the forbidden people to make a false response to avoid giving people an opportunity. What caused this conflict was Yuan Mei's pursuit of authenticity in all aspects. Once Yuan Mei was in mourning, this pursuit and his habit of writing poems in luxury were enough to make him forget the warnings to others and enjoy and write poems calmly. The contradiction between his words and deeds can be reasonably explained.

Jiang Shiquan and Zhao Yi don't write poems in mourning, while Yuan Mei writes poems in mourning according to his temperament, each of which has its own cultural origin and theoretical basis. It is really impossible to stick to one end and give generously. In view of this, the original title of this article is "Mourning for Yuan Mei", but the spoken word "Shuo" has the meaning of accusation, so it is easy to take "Shuo" as "words".

(Author: College of Literature, Yangzhou University)