Great Song Dynasty Writer

Chapter 45 Master, Stop Reading
"Let's start with the seemingly simplest, but actually most difficult, word refining."

Zhao Yan pointed to one of the examples and said, "The purpose of refining characters is not to find the right word, but to find the right sound."

"Parallelism emphasizes the harmony of level and tonal rhythms. Look at the pairing of 'clouds and mountains stacked on top of each other' and 'smoke and water floating on the raft.'"

"Here, '叠' and '嶂' are both ze tones, and '浮' and '槎' are ping tones. While this may seem neat, it actually violates the taboo of 'ending with the same tone' – all four characters are paired with two ping and two ze tones, resulting in a rhythmic effect like a broken-string zither, lacking the beauty of ups and downs."

To be honest, the issue of prosody is quite a headache.

There is basically no requirement for prosody when writing policy essays, and you can express yourself freely, but the rules of poetry and prose are very strict.

In addition to the parallelism of the words themselves, it also involves the parallelism of sounds!
You should know that there was no Pinyin in the Song Dynasty. The pronunciation of all characters needed to be determined based on the fanqie of Guangyun① and the rhyme part they belonged to.

Also, don’t try to be clever and rely on pinyin to make judgments, because the pronunciation of Song Dynasty Chinese is completely different from that of modern Chinese in many details!

The Chinese language system in the Song Dynasty was based on the "four tones and eight tones", and had formed the four tones of Ping, Shang, Qu and Ru. However, due to the opposition between clear and turbid initials, the four tones were divided into yin and yang, and subdivided into an eight-tone system. Moreover, the most significant difference from modern Chinese is that the Ru tone is independent and ends with a stop consonant coda, with a short pronunciation, which is different from modern Chinese in which it is merged into other tones.

If we must use modern Chinese as a reference and look for dialects that are closer to Song Dynasty Chinese, they would be Hakka and Wu.

The characteristic of Hakka is that it has completely retained the entering tone codas of Song Dynasty Chinese, and usually has 6-7 tones, which is close to the eight-tone system of Song Dynasty Chinese, with detailed differentiation of tone values.

Moreover, Hakka uses the same function words as Song Dynasty Chinese, such as "系" (yes), "冇" (no), and "啱" (just), and has rich sentence-ending modal particles, such as "咩" and "噃".

In addition, Hakka has many ancient sounds, such as "行" (hang), "食" (siak), etc., which are very similar to the pronunciation of Chinese in the Song Dynasty.

The characteristic of Wu dialect is that it retains the voiced initials of Song Dynasty Chinese, and the entering tones are divided into yin and yang. Therefore, singing Song Dynasty lyrics in Wu dialect usually sounds much more pleasant than singing in modern Chinese.

Coming back to this point, judging from the prosody of individual characters, there is no problem with the prosody attributes of the four characters.

But the problem is, writing poetry is not the same as writing couplets!
What is needed is not just the contrast of level and oblique tones. It can even be said that in the parallelism of parallel prose or poetry, the simple contrast of level and oblique tones is only the basic content. To be more advanced, one needs to pay attention to the beauty of the alternation of "oblique top and oblique, flat top and flat".

I believe that most people would start to feel dizzy when they think about this.

Fortunately, Lu Beigu's comprehension ability is quite good, and he can still keep up with Zhao Yan's teaching ideas.

Zhao Yan continued, "If we change '叠嶂' to '列嶂' and '浮槎' to '迷津', using '仄仄' to counter '平平', although the tone is in harmony with the 平仄, the two characters '迷津' belong to the '支韵' and '真韵' rhymes respectively, which is ultimately not the best choice. So we might as well change it to '烟水苍茫', which not only maintains the 平仄 contrast but also follows the '阳韵' rhyme throughout, thus showing a harmonious rhythm."

Seeing that Lu Beigu seemed to understand something, Zhao Yan pointed to the "Preface to the Lanting Collection" hanging in the main room, which he had copied when he was practicing calligraphy.

"Look at these 'lofty mountains' versus 'turbulent streams'. At first glance, they seem ordinary, don't they?"

Lu Beigu nodded. It really didn't look like anything special, but Zhao Yan's handwriting was really beautiful.

It is the kind of "beautiful" that can be seen even by people who know nothing about calligraphy. It belongs to the category of aesthetics.

If one compares the regular script that Lu Beigu practiced himself with the calligraphy, it is like the difference between a child who writes stroke by stroke and a calligrapher who writes effortlessly.

But it doesn't matter. In the Song Dynasty, the imperial examinations did not require beautiful calligraphy, because important examinations would have the examination papers copied out and sent for grading. It would be useless no matter how beautiful your writing was on the paper.
So if you are just trying to pass the exam instead of pursuing art, then as long as the calligraphy you practice is not like dog crawling and is straight and legible, it will be fine.

"The writing isn't exactly stunning, but if you look at the rhythm and tone, it's quite sophisticated. Wang Youjun's piece seems natural, but it actually has a subtle rhythm of rhythm and tone."

"Here, 'Jun' is a falling tone, and 'Ling' is a rising tone. Although both are falling tones, one is firm and the other is soft, just like the tension of a zither string."

Zhao Yan's finger moved to the characters "ji tuan." "The word 'ji' has a sharp entering tone, while 'tuan' has a long, lingering level tone. They're the epitome of 'ze ding ze, ping ding ping,' do you understand?"

Lu Beigu really wanted to say something naughty.

Master, stop reciting.

But these words only flashed through my mind.

He still answered seriously: "I understand. It's very clear and easy to understand."

To be honest, things like the rhythm of poetry and prose.

Without anyone to teach me, I could figure out the ins and outs of this even after a year of trying.

But if someone teaches you and you have a good understanding, many things are actually just a matter of a thin layer of window paper!
After all, no matter how difficult or complicated the content is, it's still the same things, and there are patterns to follow.

What are you most afraid of in exams?
Of course, I’m not afraid of memorizing the questions, but I’m afraid of having to express myself freely!
Because of this, many candidates are actually good at copying scriptures and writing poems, but they perform poorly when it comes to policy essays. To put it bluntly, they lack talent and knowledge and have no opinions of their own.

And it was precisely because of Lu Beigu that Zhao Yan had demonstrated his ability in "viewpoints".

That's why Zhao Yan taught Lu Beigu so patiently.

Because Zhao Yan knew very well that Lu Beigu was talented and gifted. The only problem was that he didn't understand the rules involved.

But rules can be taught.

Before I knew it, the whole morning had passed.

Lu Beigu's understanding of the rhythm of prosody has also been greatly deepened compared to before.

Just as he was about to ask a question, he suddenly heard hurried footsteps outside.

A clerk hurried in and whispered something in Zhao Yan's ear.

Lu Beigu vaguely heard a few vague words.

"There's a wanted criminal at the Criminal Division."

Zhao Yan's expression grew serious, and he said to Lu Beigu, "I have some official business to attend to. Go back and read this manuscript thoroughly. I will examine you tomorrow."

Lu Beigu quickly stood up and said goodbye tactfully.

When I walked out of the yamen, it was almost noon.

Lu Beigu looked back at the simple government office, feeling somewhat emotional. Who would have thought that Zhao Yan, the "Iron-faced Censor" who was famous in the court and the country, would be so patient and meticulous when teaching him?
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① "Guangyun" is a phonological and rhyme work written by Chen Pengnian and Qiu Yong in the first year of Dazhong Xiangfu during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of Song Dynasty. It was written for the purpose of expanding "Qieyun". The book is divided into 5 volumes, containing 26194 characters and 191692 characters of annotations. It is divided into 206 rhymes, 57 rhymes of Pingsheng (28 rhymes of Shangping and 29 rhymes of Xiaping), 55 rhymes of Shangsheng, 60 rhymes of Qusheng and 34 rhymes of Rusheng. It has 13 more rhymes than "Qieyun" and the number of characters has doubled. It was a phonological and rhyme reference book for candidates in Song Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)