The Complete Works of Xu Zhimo's Classical Prose

Chapter 23
You mean old man, you don't even invite guests to have a cup of tea!But who is not satisfied with such a rare opportunity?The ancient Davinjian, Shakespeare, Gerd, and Byron will not come back!Hardy!How far and how high is a name!The one with the bald back and bent legs just now is Hardy?too weird!There was a moon that night, and five hours after I left the Hardys, I stood before the door of Ecksett Church, playing with my own shadow, full of wonder.

Originally published in May 1928, "New Moon", Volume 3, Issue 1

keats nightingale song
There is Keats's "Nightingale Song" in the poem, which is as magical as the nightingale in the bird.Unless you have heard it with your own ears, you will not easily believe that there is a kind of crazy bird in the woods, which sings only late in the night, and pours out her wonderful music in the dark. They all vomited out of her veins along with the singing; unless you have chewed it yourself, it is not easy for you to believe that a 23-year-old youth sat under a plum tree after breakfast one day and quickly wrote an eighth poem in less than three hours. A long song of eighty lines, the music in this song is as incomprehensible as the song of the nightingale, and it is also a miracle in the universe. Even if one day the British Empire is broken into unrecognizable fragments, "The Song of the Nightingale" will still be Keep its incomparable value: the stars thousands of miles away are always bright, the nightingales in the woods will come and sing when the time comes, and Keats's nightingale songs will always be in the memory of mankind.

Keats lived at Wentworth Place in London that year.The London of a hundred years ago was very different from the British capital of today. At that time, the contamination of "civilization" was not deep, so Huaji Huashi stood on the Wisdom Bridge, and he could safely sing the praises of London in the early morning. Blessedness breathes in "smoke-free air", and when looking out, you can still see "fields, hills, stones, and wilderness, all the way to the horizon."People at that time, I guess, must have been relatively unsavage, close to humanity, and loved nature, so they could hear the sky full of larks during the day and the music of nightingales at night.Had Keats been born 100 years later and lived in London, where nightingales are extinct, his other works dare not say, at least this nightingale song would not have been successful, for human enjoyment indefinitely.Speaking of it, I feel really miserable. In the south of us, historical sites and works of art have become a lonely Leifeng Pagoda on the West Lake. The literature of Leifeng Pagoda has not been seen for thousands of years. Ying Ying has bid farewell to Bo Xin!Perhaps our spirits are made of hemp skin and sawdust, or else the common cry of pain and trouble in this age is not the most inspiring natural music; but where is our Keats?Where is our "Nightingale Song"?

Keats once muttered to himself "I feel the flowers growing on me".It means "I feel that flowers are growing on my body one by one", that is to say, when he thinks about flowers, his body becomes flowers, hidden in the grass, shining in the sun, The petals stretched invisible in the breeze, fainting in shame under the frivolous tone of Bees and Dies.This is the purest realm of imagination: monkeys can change in 72 ways, and poets can change even more. The trivial, the serious, and the comical are not created by himself.Keats and Shelley have the best art of harmony with nature; when Shelley composed "Cloud Song", we didn't know whether Shelley changed the cloud or the cloud changed Shelley; when singing "West Wind", we didn't know whether the singer was West Wind Or the West Wind is the singer; when singing "The Lark", I don't know whether it is the poet singing in the sky or the lark singing in the words; the same Keats became melancholy when he sang "Melancholy" and "Ode on Melancholy" Noumenon, "suddenly hanging from the sky like a weeping cloud": when he praised "Autumn" and "To Autumn", he himself was the growing kernel in the center of the leaf hanging under the leaves, or in the The rose-colored autumn sun is quietly dying in the rice fields!Comparing it like this, if the story of Zhao Songxue closing the door of the room and leaning on the ground to learn the horse is believable, then our artist will have a rough and unbearable "countryman smell"!
His "Nightingale Song" was made in the year when one of his elder brothers died. According to his friend Robert Hayden's letter to Miss Mitford, he had already started drafting it before writing it down. When he was walking in the grass, Keats recited to him in a low voice, "...in a low, tremendous undertone which affected me extremely." According to Lord Houghton who wrote "Keats Biography", a man came near his house that year. A nightingale, singing tirelessly every night, he is very happy, and always pays attention to it, listening to it makes him heartbroken and intoxicated, forcing him to copy a set of immortal songs from his own mouth.Let us remember that Keats died at the age of twenty-five in Italy in the arms of one of his friends, who, like his nightingale, vomited blood to death!

It is a spiritual joy and an unexpected discovery to fully appreciate a poem or an opera.It is not easy; it is very difficult to fully understand a man's character, nor is it easy to fully understand a little poem.I'd almost say it's half up to you, I'm a little superstitious.As far as I am concerned, literature is not my profession, and my limited literature knowledge is "taught without a teacher".Walter Pater encountered heavy rain on the road one day and went to a second-hand bookstore to avoid accidentally discovering it.Stranger to say, Goethe was introduced to me by Stevenson (R. L. S), (in his Art of writing he praised George Henry Lewes's "Critical Life of Goethe"; Everyman edition can buy a gold book for a dollar).It was once in the bathroom that Plato suddenly thought of visiting him.Shelley went to consult him carefully because he also got a divorce. Dustoevsky, Tolstoy, Dannon Schauer, Baudelaire, and Roussau also had their own ways. , it was not through an authentic introduction anyway: it was an encounter, not a date.It was also accidental that I came to teach at Peking University this time, and it was also accidental that I taught Keats' "The Nightingale Song". It is even more unexpected that I am writing this short essay now.Youluan asked me to write again and again to arouse my interest, and I am also very happy to write, because after reading my words of enthusiasm, some people not only made a vow to read "The Song of the Nightingale", but also got the best experience of tasting it for themselves. If you don't know the way of advanced literature, then I will be extremely proud.

But how should I teach the Fa?There is more or less a method of teaching new characters and allusions in the classroom, but now it is really a difficult problem for me to sit down and divide this whole poem into fragments to interpret its meaning!Appreciating art is the same as seeing mountain scenery. As long as you occupy (stand) properly, you can absorb the spirit of the panorama with a single glance; Trees, at that time, even if you spared no effort to examine the trees one by one, you still couldn't see the whole forest.So when looking at art analytically, it is more or less destructive: a comprehensive view is the right one.So I'm reluctant to talk about "The Song of the Nightingale" now, and I dare not say that I can have any insights!I didn't!I just have the attitude of lecturing in the classroom, and I will go on sentence by sentence; as for the overall comprehension, you have to rely on yourself, and I can't help.

You haven't heard of the nightingale is first a difficulty.I don't know if there are any in Beijing.Next time Mr. Xiao Youmei's concert will have the sixth "The Pastoral Symphony" (The Pastoral Symphony) by Beidefafen, you can go and listen to it, which contains the singing of nightingales.Well, we can only agree that listening to music, natural or man-made, can sometimes make us fascinated: for example, when you are walking alone at the foot of the mountain at night, listening to the clear and clear sound of the flute, even if you don’t shed tears, You can't help but "fascinate" isn't it?Or listening to spring music in the mountains can also make you forget the common scene and imagine the divine realm.We assumed that the singing of the nightingale was better than any other bird we listened to during the day; at first she looked like Gong Yunfu, with a husky voice, trying out her new song relentlessly;But it's not in a hurry, it's just crisp and sweet, like a pearl on a jade plate (the metaphor is completely irrelevant)!Gradually, she became emotional, as if she suddenly remembered something that aroused his unusual indignation, and then she really sang, the voice became brighter, the tune became more and more novel, the emotion became more and more enthusiastic, and the charm It is getting deeper and longer, like infinite joy, like gorgeous resentment, and like a sad song with a different tone, so that the person you are listening to can't help being excited with her, and accompanied by her heartbeat.

You can't wait to sing wildly with her, but your voice is too thick and turbid to get along with her!This is the nightingale; this is the nightingale Keats was listening to, and the moving force of the voice is particularly strong when everything is still at night, not to mention the inimitable music of the nightingale.

Alright; you have to imagine that you yourself, who also teach music, are intoxicated, your limbs are limp, your heart is itchy, you have an indescribably strong smell, and your eyes are too lazy to hang up. , my heart is full of thoughts like flowing ointment, distant memories, sweet melancholy, shining hope, and smiling emotions. When I put it on the Cun Lingtai, "in a low, tremulous undertone", I recited Keats' "Nightingale Song", that Just right!
This is not a waking speech; this is a half-dream whisper: the heart's happy oppression is too heavy, and the lingering whisper that comes out of our mouth Let's see what he meant by translating it in prose:
([-]) "This singer, who sings such a wonderful song, is by no means an ordinary bird; she must be a beautiful goddess of the woods, who has wings and will be able to fly. How happy she is, you hear alone in the night In the woods, in the green forest with intertwined branches and thick shade, she freely opens her song, praising the beauty of early summer. I listen to her singing here. Singing; ah, I am really fascinated by her singing, I dare not envy her happiness, but I am hypnotized by her boundless joy, I seem to have taken a potion of anesthetic, or drank a potion Opium juice, or else why this drowsy, drowsy feeling seems to be in a dream, I feel a kind of numbness from tiredness, I am so happy, this pleasure is so sharp, it makes my heart feel faint It hurts!"

([-]) "You are still singing tirelessly. In your singing, I can hear the smell of the most delicious wine. Oh, it's such a pleasure to drink a glass of old real grapes! The grapes grow in the warm In the south, in a place like Prudence, there is happiness and joy there, men and women play together under the broad sunlight all day long, some hold hands and dance spring dances, some play the harp and sing love songs; Add the vanilla and all kinds of trees in this happy land. They have a wine cellar to bury fine wine. Now the taste of the wine is more and more clear and fragrant. It’s really beautiful, really full of the local spirit of the southern country. , I will fill a cup, this wine is like the spring water of Hippocrina, a clear spring that shimmers iridescently in the sun, and I will fill a piggy bank with an ancient jug. Oh, look! This pearl-like wine Froth froze on the edge of this cup, and the mouth of this cup was also dyed brightly with thick purple syrup; you see, I swallowed this big glass of wine in one gulp, and then I was really drunk, and my soul was out of my mind. Leaving the body, bid farewell to the world faintly, followed by the sound of your a cappella, like a shadow that hides faintly in your dark forest."

([-]) "It's really sad to think about this world. I have no attachments, and I wish I could escape and forget all kinds of unsatisfactory phenomena. It's not like you living a carefree life in the shade of green forests. You don't know and don't need to ask. Our poor world, we have fevers, boredom, and troubles here. Usually, when friends meet, they just look at each other with sad faces. You listen to my complaints, and I listen to your complaints; There are only a few poor white hairs left; the young man is also exhausted by unsatisfactory things, his face is haggard, emaciated like a ghost, or he will enter the tomb door; unless you don’t want him, you have to think about it Sometimes you can't help but worry, and your eyes can't help being dull and full of hopeless darkness; not to mention beauty, maybe it's rare here and there, occasionally showing a little trace, but in an instant, it turns into flowers and water, and it seems to be gone. It is irresistible, and there are people who love beauty, but the beauty is not permanent in the world, and we can only enjoy it temporarily. The smiles have not been fully opened, and the sad face has returned! Therefore, I just want to sing along with you Say goodbye to this world, forget this world, dissolve this gloomy perception."

([-]) "The world is really not worthy of nostalgia, go, go! I don't have to beg spirits from Pex (Bacchus) and his leopard in front of his treasure chariot, I can also fly on you with only the invisible wings of poetry. Go there. Ah, it is indeed here! You have reached your realm! The night in this forest is so gentle, maybe the bright moon like a queen is sitting on her throne in the sky at this time, surrounded by countless stars like courtiers Arched her. But the night was dark, gloomy and without light, only occasionally when the wind passed by, the green shade was blown, allowing the half-bright sky to leak down, illuminating the dense green grass under my feet. earth."

([-]) "The dream in this forest is so heavy that there is no light. I don't know what kind of flower I am stepping on, and I can't tell what kind of fragrance is oozing from the branches. In the darkness of this incense, I can only press Guessing the season at this time, in the grass, in the bushes, and on the wild fruit trees, all kinds of flowers are fragrant; the milky white hawthorn flowers, the thorny briars, and the hydrangeas hidden in the leaves are about to wither, and the first blooms in early summer At this time, the musk roses must be full of fresh dew, and soon the weather will be warmer, and at dusk, these flower piles are full of flying insects from picking flowers."

We should note that the passage from the first paragraph to the fifth paragraph is in sequence: the first paragraph is a joyous delirium, and then the tone of the second paragraph is brightened by the southern sun, but the mood is still lingering all the way.The third paragraph stirs up a little ripple, with a bit of self-conscious indignation in the blur, and sinks down again in the fourth paragraph. From "already with thee!", the tone is extremely faint, like a child walking into a world. In a shady cellar, he felt cold in his bone marrow, but felt a special hint of half-fear in his heart. He spoke in a low voice, trembling and intermittent; it was like the mood when the wind blows up to break a clear dream; His poetic soul smells the fragrance of various invisible flowers and plants in the dark shade of the forest, and privately guesses and tells them one by one, like the end of the mountain stream flowing into the lake... The tone and mood of this sixth paragraph can be completely changed. It was just a blissful trance before, but now it is a blissful delirium.He was extremely happy, his soul gained boundless interpretation and freedom, and he wanted to keep this happiest moment forever. At this moment, he gently blended his last breath into the space. This invisible annihilation is bliss. Eternal life; he says in another poem
I know this being's lease,

My fancy to its ultimate bliss spreads,

Yet could I on this very midnight cease,

And the worlds, gaudy ensign see in shreds;

Verse, Fame and Beauty are intense indeed,

But Death intenser-Death is Life's high meed.
In his view (or in his thinking), "life" is finite, and the happiness of life is also a finite poem. Fame and beauty are our highest ideals while we are alive, but they are not as good as death, because death is infinite, and the solution In harmony with the spirit of endless flow, death is the highest mead of life. All ideals can only be partially and relatively realized in life, but in death they are the absolute harmony of the whole, because in death In the state of the most free death, all dissonances are fully attuned, and all incompleteness is completely complete. The several adverbials used in this paragraph should be noted that his death is not pain; it is "Easeful Death" comfortable, or It can be translated as "unfettered death"; and he said "Quiet Breath", quiet or quiet breathing, this concept is common in Keats's poems, it is worth noting; he arranged his proud quiet words in one place than like
Autumn Suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves.
Sweet Sapphos Cheek—a sleeping infant's breath—

The gradual sand that through an hour glass runs
A woodland rivulet, a Poet's death.
(End of this chapter)