Originality, Authenticity, Nature and Transcendence —— An Interpretation of Tao Yuanming's Preface to Xi Ci

My family is poor and I am not self-sufficient in farming. Naive and full of room, no millet in the bottle, born and endowed, not seen its skills. Some relatives and friends even advised Yu to be an officer, but he was pregnant and asked for the Tao. There will be things in all directions. The princes take love as their virtue, and my uncle is poor, so I use it in a small town. At that time, the wind and rain were not calm, and he was afraid to go far. Pengze went home for a hundred miles, and the benefits of the commons were full of wine. So I asked for it. And after a few days, there is a feeling of returning to China as soon as possible. What is this? Nature is nature, not obtained through revision. Although hunger and cold cut, but it is against their own diseases. Everyone who tastes from personnel is selfish. So I was disappointed, generous and deeply ashamed of my lifelong ambition. I still look forward to a glimpse, when I put away my clothes and die overnight. Sung Hoon's sister died in Wuchang, and she was relieved of her post. Mid-autumn festival to winter, more than 80 days in the official. Because things are going well, Life is called "Back to Xi". B I'm four in November.

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My family is poor, so I can't farm by myself. There are many children, there is no food in the rice jar, and everything needed to maintain life has not been solved. Most of my relatives and friends advised me to be an official, and I had the same idea in my heart, but I lacked access to officials. Just in time to catch up with the officials who sent envoys, the local officials took love as their virtue, and my uncle was appointed as the official of the small county because his family was poor (trying to help me). At that time, the society was in turmoil, and I dared not go to a distant place to be an official. Pengze county was a hundred miles away from home, and the grain harvested by the farm was enough to make wine, so he asked to go there. After a few days, I began to feel homesick. Why is this? Nature is allowed to be natural, which is reluctant; Although hunger and cold are urgent, it is against the original intention to be an official, and it hurts both physically and mentally. In the past, when I was an official, I always treated myself to dinner. So I am disappointed and deeply ashamed of my life wishes. Wait another year, then pack up and leave overnight. Soon, my sister who married the Cheng family died in Wuchang. She was anxious to be removed from her official position. I have worked for more than 80 days from the second month of autumn to winter. I resigned and got my wish, so I wrote an article entitled "Looking Back". At this time, it was November of the third year of B (the first year of Jin 'an Emperor Yi Xi). (Translated from Ancient Poetry Network)

When reading Tao Yuanming's Gui Xi Ci, we must not ignore the interpretation of the preface. I think that only in this unpretentious text can we see a Ren Zhentao that is true, frank, frank and detached from the realm of life.

The first sentence "everyone else in the family is poor, and farming is not enough to support themselves." He said, my family is very poor, and the food grown by farming can't feed the whole family. This can be confirmed in his own poem "Returning to the Garden on the Third Day". He wrote, "beans are planted at the foot of the mountain in the south, and the grass is full of bean seedlings." Get up early in the morning to get rid of weeds, and come back with hoes in the moonlight at night. The narrow path covered with vegetation, the night dew wet my clothes. The clothes are not covered, but the wish is not violated. " Not because Tao Yuanming is lazy. He goes out early and comes back late every day. He worked very hard in the fields, but he didn't get a bumper harvest of food. Maybe it's because he didn't grow up well, or maybe as a poet, working in the fields is really not his strong suit. The next sentence is "childish room, there is no millet in the bottle, and I have never seen it." The author wrote a concrete manifestation of not being self-sufficient. Many children are starving at home, but there is no extra food at home. The rice jar at home is empty and there is no means to make a living. I have no ability to make a living. As the pillar of the family, Tao Yuanming may be the only adult man in the family. He should shoulder the heavy responsibility of family. But he doesn't have a skill, and he can't make a living by his own skill like ordinary craftsmen, such as masons and carpenters. Tao Yuanming is a scholar who is not good at farming. How does he make a living? He is in a hurry, and so are his relatives and friends at home. "My closest relatives and friends advised Yu to be an officer," said relatives and friends. Aren't you an official before? You can try to be an official again! Yes, Tao Yuanming said, I also want to be an official, but I can't be an official. What Tao Yuanming said here was sincere and made no secret of his idea of being an official. "After a thousand years, there are hundreds of articles, and every word is not halal." Xin Qiji's reliance on Tao Yuanming is appropriate. He is so frank and natural because his family is poor and he can't wait to get a job and get money. China for thousands of years, I'm afraid not as straightforward as a scholar. Look at Zhuge Liang in the Three Kingdoms period. He was brilliant and wanted to display his ambition for a long time. However, when Liu Bei and his two younger brothers invited him to join their team to start a business together, Zhuge Liang refused again and again until he was invited out of the mountain for the third time. Didn't you want to go out when you invited him twice before? Of course not. Ancient literati love face and are reserved and self-reliant. Until the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, Mr. Lu Xun was still satirizing this feature of China literati. Kong Yiji is a typical example. Obviously, he is too poor to eat, and he has to wear a gown to show his intellectual status. Even the hotel waiter looked down on him. He couldn't let go of his scholar status, put on the shelf of a scholar, and finally starved to death, refusing to support himself by working with his own hands.

Tao Yuanming has no self-reliance of ordinary literati at all. He was poor, so he went to the fields to farm by himself. As farming is not self-sufficient, he said that he still wanted to be an official. "There will be a matter of the quartet, governors take love as virtue, and uncles are poor, so they are used in small cities. At that time, the wind and rain were not calm, and he was afraid to go far. Pengze went home for a hundred miles, and the benefits of the commons were full of wine. So I will take the initiative to ask. " And just have a chance, my uncle recommended his small county to be an official. Considering that he was still in the war, he didn't want to be an official far away from home, and pengze county was close to home. He thought for a moment that the salary of a county magistrate was enough to buy himself wine. So I went. Tao Yuanming is really a spiritual person. He didn't say that an official's salary can support me and my family, but he said that "the benefits of the commons are enough to drink." Here in Tao Yuanming, it is more important to have your own wine to drink than to support your family. This is really a person with ideas beyond ordinary people. Maybe we will criticize him as an irresponsible person. His wife and children are hungry and cold at home, but he still wants to drink. Is it too much? But this is what he really thought when he decided to take office. He wrote him down. Therefore, Tao Yuanming is a terrible person who is not afraid of being scolded by others. In the Biography of Mr. May 6th, he also expressed the nature of his good wine: "Sex is addicted to alcohol, and family poverty can't always get it." I know when I am old, but I still buy wine. If you drink, you will get drunk. I was drunk and retired, and I didn't hesitate to stay. "He is so capricious and natural to live. It's rude to go to a friend's house to drink when you are poor. He always drinks to his heart's content After drinking, he also ignored the etiquette between relatives and friends and left smartly.

Ordinary people are poor and suddenly have a job, so they will definitely cherish this hard-won job, not to mention a decent job that makes money easily. But look at Tao Yuanming. He said, "every few days, there is a feeling of going home as soon as possible." Not long after he became an official, he had the idea of resigning and going home. As soon as he missed him, he began to miss his rural life. Why? Did his subordinates fail to stop his deployment when he became an official or did his superiors embarrass him? Or is the entertainment in officialdom annoying him? Or did you deduct his salary? No, these are not. If it is because of these secular reasons, he is not Tao Yuanming. He said: "Nature is nature, not hard work. Although hunger and cold cut, but it is against their own diseases. Everyone who tastes from personnel is selfish. Therefore, I am very generous and deeply ashamed of my life ambitions. " I love nature by nature, and I won't be artificial and force myself. Most people will say, can't you be a man and a husband at home, and can't you be wronged for the sake of several children to be raised? You can only say that hunger and cold are imminent, but going against your nature will make you feel physical and mental pain. I became an official because I was enslaved by trivial things like eating and drinking. I think this will make me feel particularly annoyed and deeply disappoint my lifelong ambition. My ambition is not to be an official, but to let go of my nature and live freely in the unrestrained nature. Naturally, I can't stand the flattery and intrigue of officialdom. I love nature by nature, and I am like a caged bird in officialdom. I want to get rid of this cage and be free again. It's the only way to meet my nature.

You are sure to criticize him. Even food and clothing can't be satisfied, let alone ideal. Yes, in the eyes of ordinary people, a person who does not have enough to eat and clothes is not qualified to talk about ideals. Ideals are like flowers in the water and the moon in the mirror. They are illusory and cannot be eaten as food or worn as clothes. Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, divides people's needs into five levels from low to high, namely, physiological needs, security needs, social needs, respect needs and self-realization needs. The five needs of ordinary people are gradual, and only when the lower-level needs are met will the higher-level needs be generated. However, Tao Yuanming had the highest level of needs when the lowest level of physiological needs could not be met. Ye Jiaying, an expert in the study of classical poetry, once commented on Tao Yuanming, saying that he was a truly self-fulfilling man among the ancient literati in China. I'm impressed. Of course, it reminds me of Confucius' favorite disciple Yan Hui. Confucius once praised him, saying, "One scoop of food and one scoop of drink, in a mean alley, people can't bear to worry, so they won't change their interest when they go back. Xian zai hui also! " I thought that Tao Yuanming's life could be compared with Yan Hui's.

Of course, Tao Yuanming is not a fairy, he is still a man of flesh and blood, a husband and a father, so when he made this choice to resign, it was still very painful. He once expressed his guilt to his sons, and he failed to let them live a well-fed life in Ziyanshu. It is precisely because of this that we are sincerely moved by it.

"I still hope to have a barnyard grass and die at night. Sung Hoon's sister died in Wuchang. She fell in love with Junben, so she was relieved of her post. " I plan to resign, hoping to wait until the crops are ripe and get paid, and then leave at night. However, Tao Yuanming still couldn't wait to get his salary, so he found a dead sister and hurried to attend the funeral, so he resigned as the county magistrate of Pengze. Tao Yuanming's last official career only lasted more than 80 days. After this official career, he never came out to be an official. In order to show his determination to resign and retire, he specially wrote this article "Returning to Xi Ci".

From this preface, we see the image of Tao Yuanming, which is full of contradictions and natural and frank. Su Dongpo once commented on Tao Yuanming: "If you want to be an official, you will be an official, not disrespectful; If you want to be hidden, you will be hidden instead of looking for it. When you are hungry, you will buckle the door and beg for food; When you are full, welcome guests with chicken and millet. Ancient and modern sages are precious. " People attach importance to truth, so does poetry, which comes from people's truth, which is the main reason why Tao poetry has enduring charm.

20 18/09/ 15