Poverty always brings a lot of embarrassment. Here is the story of the poor scholar Chen Shidao.
One winter, Chen Shidao went to the royal ancestral hall in the suburbs late at night to guard the spirit, because there was no leather coat to protect himself from the cold, his wife went back to his mother's house to borrow one from his sister -- Chen Shu was the daughter of Guo Shuo, and Guo Shu was a famous "wise eye picker" in the political arena of the Northern Song Dynasty, and Chen Shidao, who was poor in the family, and Zhao Tingzhi, the son of an official eunuch, were in the east bed of his family.
When he learned that his wife had borrowed the leather clothes of Zhao Tingzhi, who was close to his shirt but was in the same situation, Chen Shidao immediately felt insulted and was furious with his wife: "Don't you know that I am not wearing the Qu family clothes!" In the winter of the third year of Yuan Fu, Chen Shidao participated in the sacrifice in the suburbs, and he died of illness without cotton clothes to withstand the cold. According to reports, after Chen Shidao's death, his family had no money to bury, and the imperial court specially gave 200 silk horses for those who came and went to buy them before they could be buried.
Chen Shidao, a native of Pengcheng, Jiangxi, is a self-proclaimed Houshan resident. He was one of the representatives of the Jiangxi poetry school of the Song Dynasty and was one of the Three Sects. His poems during his lifetime were very famous, on a par with Huang Tingjian, and were known as "Huang Chen". Although his poetry is very famous, his poetry is not his strong point. Therefore, later generations have written less about his poetry, but the author is very conceited and proud of his lyrics.
Chen Shidao's daily life was poor and embarrassing, even so poor that he could not support his family, and he had to let his wife take three children to his father-in-law. His poems such as "Sending Inside", "Sending Uncle Guo Dafu", "Dong'a", "Sending Uncle Guo Dafu to Nishikawa To Be Punished", "Farewell to the Third Son", and "Show the Third Son" describe the pain of "poor and unworthy separation" with his relatives.
In the spring of one year, Chen Shidao's neighbor invited him to go out with him several times, but the poet's family was too poor to be in the mood, so he found a reason and wrote a poem to politely reject the neighbor.
"Spring Nostalgia for the Neighborhood"
[Song Dynasty] Chen Shidao
The broken wall is composed of rain snails, and the old house has no monks and swallow writers.
Yu wanted to go out and laugh, but he felt that his sideburns were dusty.
The wind turned the cobwebs on three sides, and the thunder bees took advantage of the two.
Repeatedly lost the southern neighbor spring covenant, only now there is no flowering.
Chen Shidao wrote this poem in the spring of the third year of the Song Dynasty (1100), when he was involved in the Yuanyou party dispute and resigned from his post and returned to Pengcheng. The poet is frustrated and sleepy at this time, which is expressed in the poem, and at the same time, the poem reflects the poet's life character and the literary character of "finding sentences behind closed doors".
The first link "broken wall with rain snails into words, the old house has no monks and swallow writers." The two sentences, the extremely written about the ruin and desolation of the dwelling place, shows that the poet is content with poverty and self-preservation. The first sentence says that after the rain, the broken wall of the home left snail crawling marks everywhere, as if many seal characters were written on the wall. In ancient times, some people called snails "seal sorrows", the white slime left by snails crawling past was called "snail seals", and the Song poet Mao Huan's "Yulou Spring" has the sentence "Mud and silver four-walled coil snail seal, bright moon and autumn full courtyard". The second sentence of "the old house has no monks" yunyun means that the house is old and unbearable, and no one but me is willing to live there, only the old swallows have also taken mud to the beams to build a nest and settle down. From these two simple and unpretentious sentences, it is not difficult to imagine the cold and embarrassing situation of the poet's residence.
The jaws "left to go out and laugh, but they feel that they are dusty." In two sentences, the writer also wanted to get rid of the current predicament and try to go out to find a position to support his family, but the lessons of the past were vividly remembered: in his youth, because Wang Anshi used the study of scripture and righteousness to take the exam, Chen Shidao did not take the exam. At the age of twenty-eight, the ruling minister Zhang Huan asked the author to meet him, intending to recommend it, but Chen Shidao refused. Later, he became a state professor, but was impeached and dismissed. Every setback is because you can't go with the flow. Although Chen Shidao is now in poverty, he still maintains his own discipline. A "dislike" word writes out his thoughts and feelings of purity and self-preservation.
Neck joint", the wind turned the spider web open on three sides, and the thunder bee took advantage of the two. The cobwebs in the corners of the house and the bees in the cornices form local scenery under the conditions of "wind turning" and "thunder", while "opening three sides" and "taking advantage of two yards" are some allegorical pen and ink. The poet first writes that the wind turns over the cobwebs, but the webs are open on three sides, and the insects still have a place to avoid. The second time I write about the thunder bees, the bees still have the Lord, and they are clustered together in an orderly manner, like a platoon. However, people in the dust net are on all sides of the net, implicated by the party disaster, and it is difficult to have room for maneuver. Although I have been running for many years in the past, I still have a sense of poverty, unlike bees who still have the opportunity to take advantage of it. In the sense of the language, he expressed his deep sigh at the rugged road of the world.
Tail Lian "repeatedly lost the southern neighbor spring covenant, only now there is no flowering." In two sentences, the poet shows that he has plainly failed to live up to the spring under the actual circumstances, although the neighbor has been invited by the spring several times, but he has lost the opportunity because he has not been able to attend the appointment, and now there will be no more unopened flowers, because the spring has gone, and there is no reason to want to reward. The poem ends here, the words are exhausted and intriguing!
Looking at this poem, it reflects the new taste of Song poetry, which secretly moves the scroll in a seemingly pure, very authentic white depiction image, making it seem very trivial, but in fact it has a lot of potential. This poem is exquisite, the emotion is deep, and the mood is novel. The structure jumps and staggers, and the scene and narrative are separated. Everywhere reflects the poet's meticulous and innovative ideas. Therefore, the Yuan Dynasty Fang Hui commented on this poem: "The beauty of the light is hidden, the work is vain, and the power can be exorcised from heaven to earth, and the mountain poems after that." ”