Yuan Tianju 216-6-2 :8:51 Li Bai read
When talking about Li Bai, he will naturally think of his poems that have been passed down through the ages. However, apart from poems, there is another topic that has always attracted people, and that is how he died. It is precisely because of the mystery of his death that people are more interested.
He spent most of his life roaming. In the first year of Tianbao (742 BC), Wu Yun, a Taoist priest, recommended him to Chang 'an to worship the Hanlin. The style of the article was famous for a while, which was quite appreciated by Xuanzong. Later, because he couldn't meet the dignitaries, he abandoned his official position after only three years in Beijing, and continued his wandering life. In the second year after the Anshi Rebellion, he was angry and difficult, and once joined the shogunate of Yong Wang Li. Unfortunately, Yong Wang and Su Zong fought for the throne. After the defeat, Li Bai was dragged into exile in Yelang (now in Guizhou) and was pardoned on the way. In his later years, he drifted to the southeast, attached to Dangtu county magistrate Li Yangbing, and died soon.
Li Bai's poems are mainly lyrical. After Qu Yuan, he was the first one who could really absorb its rich nutrition from the folk literature and art at that time and Yuefu folk songs since Qin, Han and Wei, and concentrated on improving it to form his unique style. He has extraordinary artistic talent and majestic artistic power. All the amazing, exciting and thought-provoking phenomena come to the end. Du Fu's comment is that "the pen falls to shock the wind and rain, and the poem makes the gods cry". Li Bai is the most outstanding romantic poet in China after Qu Yuan, and is known as the "Poet Fairy". As well-known as Du Fu, he is known as "Li Du" in the world, and Han Yu also said: "Li Du's articles are there, and the flames are ever-growing". However, the cause of death of such a talented and famous poet is controversial.
One view is that Li Bai died of illness. Li Yangbing, the uncle of Li Bai and Dangtu, wrote in his anthology Preface to Caotang Collection: "Bing Yang tried string songs in Dangtu, but his heart was not good. I don't abandon me in my spare time. I take care of you in a flat boat. When I am in danger, I am in a hurry. I have thousands of drafts, and my hand collection has not been repaired. I will give you a brief note on my pillow for the order. " In the Tang Dynasty, Li Hua's Preface to the Epitaph of Li Jun, a scholar of Hanlin, said: "In the southeast of Gushu, there is the tomb of Li Bai, a Tang Dynasty scholar ... (Li Bai) was sixty-two years old, and died with a dying song." Twenty-nine years after Li Bai's death, Liu Quanbai wrote "Li Junyuan, a Bachelor of Hanlin in the Tang Dynasty" in Zhenyuan, Tang Dezong (791), and also said: "Your name is Bai, and the imperial edict was returned to the mountain at the beginning of Tianbao. I swam here occasionally and died of illness, because I was buried here. All white young people are known for their poems, and if they are hanged here, the desolate tomb will be destroyed, and their voices and voices will be remembered, and their sorrow will not stop. " More than 1 years after Li Bai's death, Pi Rixiu, a famous scholar, also said in "Seven Love Poems" that "I was threatened by corruption, and I was drunk to the extreme." The so-called "dying of illness", "dying with a dying song" and "dying of illness" in ancient literature clearly tell people that Li Bai was sick and died.
Guo Moruo, a contemporary scholar, was inspired by the "threat disease" recorded in the literature, and made research and speculation from a medical point of view. He thought that Li Bai had traveled to Jinling at the age of 61 and traveled between Xuancheng and Liyang counties. Li Guangbi East Town is near Huai River, and Li Bai made up his mind to join the army. Unfortunately, he went to Jinling to get sick and returned halfway. This is the initial stage of "hypochondriac disease" and should be regarded as empyema. A year later, Li Bai took care of his illness in Dangtu, and his empyema became chronic, and he perforated his chest wall, which was fatal from "putrefaction" and eventually died in Dangtu. However, this is only speculation.
However, another view holds that Li Bai did not die of illness, but drowned after being drunk. Li Yangbing's preface to the collection of thatched cottage said that he was in urgent need, Liu Quanbai said that he died of illness, and Fan Chuanzheng said that he died here in the preface to Li Gongxin's tombstone. It was not until Pi Rixiu's Seven Love Poems that a "threat disease" suddenly appeared. Li Bai never mentioned it himself, and neither did those who wrote the preface and tombstone for him. Pi Rixiu lived more than 1 years after Li Bai died. How did he know that Li Bai died of the "threat disease"? It is inappropriate for Guo Moruo to infer Li Bai's death from this.
Li Bai is famous for his drinking habit all his life, because he is known as the "drunken fairy". When you play with Li Bai's poems, you can smell a strong smell of wine. The poet's "Into the Wine" includes "cook a sheep, kill a cow, whet the appetite, and make me, of three hundred bowls, one long drink!". "Giving Jiang Yang to slaughter Lu Diao" has "Laughing and getting drunk, having fun for a lifetime". "To Liu Dushi" has "four seats full of talk, and a thousand sacrifices a day". "Xun Cenxun sees the search, Yuan Danqiu treats the wine with poetry and sees the move" has "opening the face and drinking wine, and the joy suddenly becomes drunk". The third part of "drinking Alone with the Moon IV" is "I lost my heaven and earth when I was drunk, but I was lonely and didn't know I was there, which was the most enjoyable". Could Li Bai's death be related to his drinking?
In the Five Dynasties, Wang Dingbao recorded in "The Words of the Tang Dynasty": "(Li Bai) swam in the quarrying river in a robe of Gong Jin, and he was proud of himself, and he died because he was drunk and caught the moon." This statement that Li Bai was drunk and drowned is not recorded in the official history, but it is often seen in literati singing.
In the early Northern Song Dynasty, Mei Yaochen's poem "Giving Gong Fu under the Quarrying Moon" said most clearly: "When you are drunk, you love hanging on the bottom of the river, and you can turn over the moon with your hands." Drunk, I loved the bright moon shadow in the river on the boat, teased the moon shadow in the river with my hand and turned over and drowned. This is not a metaphor, but a real writing. So, what does Su Dongpo, a great writer in the Song Dynasty think? In the Song Dynasty, Chen Shan's "A New Talk about Qin lice" recorded: "Po (Su Dongpo) once again gave a poem to Pan Gu:' Once you look for Li Bai in a sea of people, you can't see the ink fairy in the world.' "Obviously, he also thinks that Li Bai was drunk and drowned. Xin Wenfang, a scholar in the Yuan Dynasty, said in the Biography of Talented Persons in Tang Dynasty: "(Li) White Night Festival is so yellow and old, and he spent a lot of time in Niuzhuji, catching the moon by wine, sinking into the water, and thanking Jia Qingshan at the first time. This tomb is in the clouds." In the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Cheng's series Poems on Lotus Hall also said: "Song Hupu, a native of Jiannan in central Fujian, once carved a stone to cross the river and hung Li Bai with a poem:' To protest against the hatred of Jin Luan, a bad cicada slouched at the head of this river. At that time, he was drunk and searched for the moon, but now he is cold and Wan Li.' When Su Shi saw it, he suspected what the Tang people did, but he was not impressed.
in the southern song dynasty, Zhu mu's Fang Yu sheng LAN (volume 15) Taiping prefecture? After studying the two theories of Li Bai's death and drowning, the Tomb of the Ancestral Temple questioned: "But the theory of catching the moon is not hanged in ancient times, so Shi Shi is a taboo?" Restrain the novel from being absurd and the poem from being curious, so as to make new ideas? " Then, Li Bai may not have drowned as these people recorded? If it was drowning, why didn't people record it?
Guo Qihong, a modern scholar, argued that Li Bai was drowned. He wrote in the article "Textual research on Li Bai's death": "In feudal times, drowning was considered as a' violent death' rather than a' natural death'. According to ancient rituals, it was ominous, so relatives and friends could not mourn, and it also hindered the future of future generations. In order to cover up the truth, it was often regarded as a death. Therefore, relatives and friends who are both taboo and unwilling to falsify are hesitant to write, and they have to blink. " Liu Quan Bai wrote "The Story of the Moon" more than 2 years after Li Bai's death. At that time, Li Bai's son Boqin was still in Dangtu, so Liu Quanbai was afraid that it would hinder the future of Boqin and his descendants and wrote "Death" for him. Others are also evasive for this reason.
An Qi, a scholar, holds the same view. He wrote in the section "Li Bai's Death" in A Survey of Li Bai: "Is the unofficial history completely unreliable? Judging from Li Bai's almost crazy mental state at that time, this situation (referring to drowning) is possible. " In his works, he also described the scene of Li Bai's dying: "The night is already deep; People are already drunk; The song is over; Tears have been exhausted; Li Bai's life has also reached the last moment. At this time, jathyapple is in the middle of the sky, the water waves are quiet, and the moon is reflected in the river, like a white jade plate. A breeze passes by, and it is scattered into ten thousand silver lights. How beautiful! How bright! How tempting! ..... Li Bai, who was drunk on the ship's rail, stretched out his hands and rushed towards a silver brilliance ... The boatman saw in a trance that Mr. Li, who had just invited him to have three drinks, had gone with the flow on the back of a whale, gone far and gone forever. "
As An Qi described, in the legend, Li Bai not only drowned, but also ascended to heaven by riding a whale after his death. The theory of riding a whale was first seen in the late Tang poet Guan Xiu's "Watching the Forest in Li Han": "It's good to ride a whale in Du Gongbu." In the Northern Song Dynasty, the literati sang the link between whale riding and catching the moon. For example, Mei Yaochen also wrote in "Giving a Gift under the Quarrying Moon": "You should not be hungry and spit, so it is easy to ride a whale to the sky." Guo Xiangzheng wrote in "Quarrying the Stone": "Riding a whale to catch the moon will never return, and there will be green grass in Hanlin Tomb." Li Junmin in the Jin Dynasty's "Map of Li Taibai": "After a few years in the world, the hero in the poem is a wine fairy. You don't have to ride a whale to heaven because you are quarrying for the first month of the river. " Of course, this is just the beautiful imagination of literati, and we don't have to believe it.
Du Fu seemed to have a premonition that Li Bai might drown. On the occasion of "three nights of frequent dreams" of Li Bai, he wrote "Two Dreams of Li Bai" and repeatedly raised his own concerns: "by river and lake-the storms, the wrecks, the fears that are borne on a little boat." "there were waters to cross, they were wild and tossing, if you fell, there were dragons and rivermonsters," Du Fu knew that Li Bai was addicted to alcohol, and he also knew that Li Bai was "ill at dusk on the riverside" in his later years. But neither drunkenness nor illness worried him, only the possibility of the boat falling. This kind of worry can't be said that there is no reason. At least, it can be said that it is the experience gained by Du Fu's practice of associating with Li Bai in previous years. Is Li Bai's death really justified by Du Fu's worries?
It is impossible to confirm whether Li Bai died of illness or drowned, and the cause of his death can only become an eternal mystery.