—— An appreciation of Shi Shuo Xin Yu
Deng Ai stutters, which is called "Ai Ai ...". King Wen of Jin said in a play, "What kind of love is Qingyun's' Ai Ai ……'?" Yes, he said, "A phoenix is like a phoenix, so it is a phoenix."
-Shi Shuo Xin Yu Speech
Shi Shuo Xin Yu is a collection of romantic stories in Wei and Jin Dynasties, and Shi Shuo Xin Yu is a textbook for scholars. The protagonists of this story today are Deng Ai and Deng Shizai. When Wargo was a child, his family was very poor, and he lived by herding cattle for others. Once he happened to read the inscription by Chen Ai, the head of Taiqiu, "Words are the norm for the world, but deeds are the norm", and he was greatly encouraged, so he gave himself a word for scholars. Later, it was found that there were people with the same name in the clan, so it was inconvenient to call them Shi Zai. This word "load" has some meaning of "a gentleman carries things with virtue", which shows that Wargo was an ambitious young man since he was a child. Different from his cowherd colleagues, Wargo's eyes will not only look for clear water and fresh grass, but also observe the terrain and topography of famous mountains and rivers. He often points to where he can ambush and station grain-this strange behavior has not been laughed at. However, gold is gold after all, and the polishing of gravel and the erosion of running water can only make it more dazzling. Finally, one day, Wargo led an army to destroy Shu, fulfilling half of Meng De's last wish.
Celebrities in Wei and Jin Dynasties are generally somewhat different from ordinary people. In that era when the descendants of wealthy families were full of names and liked to use single words, the phenomenon of duplicate names emerged one after another. There are several Wang's with the same name in Linyi, the first giant in the world, such as Wang Rong and Chen Wang. If they are mixed up with Wang's in Taiyuan, there will be more with the same name, such as those two Wang Huns. At this time, a person's special nature or hobby has become his best business card. Wang Ji, who loves horses, He Yi, who loves money, and Du Yu, who loves Zuo Zhuan, are all famous for their hobbies. There are also a few people who are not very glorious and become famous with their own defects. Lu Yun couldn't stop laughing and fell into the river and almost drowned; Zhou E can't wake up when he is drunk, and he is called "three-day servant shooting"; Wargo stutters when he opens his mouth, and his speech is not fluent. This is the case.
Wargo stutters and often calls herself "Ai Ai". Someone who was good at it merged it with the "period" of Zhou Chang, a stuttering general in the Western Han Dynasty, and created a well-known idiom "Ai Ai in the Period". It's hard to say before making a fortune, but there are not many people who dare to laugh in person after making a fortune. This time, Si Mazhao, whose heart is well known, made progress despite difficulties. Si Mazhao was a powerful minister of Wei, who had long put the power of the emperor of Wei on the air, so his relationship with Wargo was called a colleague, but it was actually a monarch and a minister. One day, the emperor was so bored that he suddenly remembered to make fun of Deng Ai and asked, "Xiao Deng, you often say' Ai Ai'. How many Ai Deng are you calling?"
At this time, Wargo is facing a very difficult situation. Ignore it, and it will spoil the emperor's pleasure. There may be no Ai at any time. Answer truthfully, it hurts your self-esteem. However, Deng Shizai, who is clumsy and wise, replied, "Feng Xi Feng Xi", so it is a phoenix. "
This sentence comes from The Analects of Confucius: "Chu is crazy about songs and Confucius says,' Phoenix is phoenix! What is the decline of He De? If you can't see it, you can still chase it. " "Just a dozen words, frequently cited by later generations to the point where it is difficult to count, including the famous book Zhuangzi Xiaoyao Tour", "I heard about Jieyu, but it was too big to do so, but I didn't go against it"; Li Bai's "Lushan Ballad" and "I am the madman of the Chu country, who sang a mad song disputing Confucius"; And Tao Yuanming's famous sentence "If you realize what you have not seen in the past, you can trace what you have learned" in his farewell speech. The ancients thought that the phoenix was a divine bird, which only appeared in the prosperous times, so it was said that "the dragon and the phoenix became auspicious". Jieyu used phoenix as a metaphor for Confucius, mocking him as a "saint" but constantly running around in troubled times, which really greatly degraded his status. Deng Ai compared his "Ai Ai" with "Feng Xi Feng Xi", which not only skillfully resolved the personal attacks from the authorities, but also improved his social status by comparing himself with the phoenix invisibly. It is really a rare wonderful right.
There are many witty question-and-answer stories recorded in Shi Shuo Xin Yu, and even some people who are not "scholars" can occasionally make a surprising remark or two, which makes people sit up and take notice. Zheng Xuan, a famous Confucian scholar at the end of the Han Dynasty, was knowledgeable, and the maid in the family was also well influenced by culture. Once, a handmaid angered Zheng Xuan and was punished for standing in the mud. Another handmaid came to see a joke and asked with glee, "Why are you in the mud?" Why are you standing in the mud? This sentence comes from The Book of Songs, Li Feng and Decline: "Decline, Hu Bugui? Wei Jun's bow, Hu Wei is in the mud? " In the face of the "demonstration" article thrown by her companion, the punished handmaid replied without hesitation that "I was angry when I spoke ill"-"I ran over to complain, and I happened to meet him in anger", which was also from The Book of Songs and Gao Feng, and the title of the article was Bai Zhou. The ingenuity of this sentence lies in answering embarrassing questions in poetic language, and answering quotations is highly consistent with the source of the questions, which is really elegant. I don't know if Zheng Xuan broke into tears after hearing about it. Anyway, the beautiful talk of "poetry maidservant" has been passed down as a much-told story and has been passed down to this day.
From this, we think of the relationship between literary language and life language. It is said that literary language is a stranger to life language, and both of them have their own functions, so we should stay out of it. A lot of life language in literary works will appear vulgar and boring to read; The literary language in life will be regarded as poor, pedantic and unsophisticated. However, if you use another language in the right place, it will often add a touch of bright color to the original discourse system and make it shine. I remember once angrily asking whether the first-year students had copied their homework, and the result was an understatement: "If you want to add a crime, why don't you stick to it?" Suddenly all the anger disappeared and I admired it secretly for a long time. Of course, if you want to be able to quote quotations and quips properly in your speech without profound cultural literacy, it is tantamount to cooking without rice.