What are the ancient poems about insects (in the ancient poems about insects)

Over the past two thousand years, Chinese literati and poets of all dynasties have written tens of thousands of popular poems. The Tang Dynasty was once a culturally prosperous dynasty in the history of our country, leaving behind many dazzling poems. Among them, the most widely circulated and popular one is "Three Hundred Tang Poems". Among these three hundred glorious chapters, there are some poems related to insects, in which the poet uses insects as metaphors to express his feelings. For example, "Late in the dead of night, all insects are gone, and the clear moon comes out of the mountains and the light enters the door." (Han Yu's "Mountain and Stone") describes a quiet and silent night; "The wind branches frighten the dark magpies, and the dew grass weeps the cold insects." (Dai Shulun, "Mountain and Stone") "Old Friends from Jiangxiang Gathering in Guesthouses") This is a metaphor for the scene when passing guests check in; "Tonight I know that the spring air is warm, and the sound of insects is new through the green window screens." (Liu Fangping's "Moonlight Night") outlines a picture full of spring! These poems about insects not only leave us with an artistic representation of natural beauty, but also vividly describe the morphological and biological characteristics of insects as well as rich knowledge on their protection and prevention.

1. Song of Silkworms

There are only two poems that mention silkworms in "Three Hundred Tang Poems": "Pheasants and wheat seedlings are beautiful, and silkworms are sleeping in the mulberry trees." (Wang Wei's "Weichuan Tianjia"); "Spring silkworms will not run out of silk until they die, and candles will turn into ashes and tears." Start doing it." (Li Shangyin's "Untitled"). Legend has it that sericulture was pioneered by the Yellow Emperor's Snail Ancestor in the Yuan Dynasty and has a history of more than 5,200 years. In short, Caner is full of treasures and has made great contributions to mankind. The poet expresses his feelings with the famous line "The spring silkworms will die only when they are dead, and the wax torches will turn to ashes before their tears dry up", which expresses the ambition of the "old man" and the heart of "working hard". Zhang Ji's poem "Tian Jia Xing" of the Tang Dynasty: "Wild silkworms make cocoons and no one takes them, and moths flutter among the leaves." It describes the phenomenon of silkworms making cocoons and pupating, and moths emerging from the cocoons.

2. Chanting cicada

"Three Hundred Tang Poems" contains the most poems about cicadas. Cicadas belong to the family Cicadae of the order Homoptera. Their eggs are mostly laid in the subcutaneous tissue of tree twigs. The nymphs live in the soil for several years. There is a cicada in North America. Its nymphs need to live in the soil for 17 years, so It is called the seventeen-year cicada. The emergence period is mostly in summer, so there are poems such as "The cicadas sing in the sky, the mulberry leaves are empty, and the road is Xiaoguandao in August" (Wang Changling's "Song of the Sea"). The male cicada has vocalizers on both sides of its abdominal base. It relies on vibrating vocalizers to "chirp" and "sing". If there is dew in the morning or heavy rain is coming, the cicada will stop singing and the cicada will stop singing. Therefore, there is a poem like "When the guests leave, the waves are flat, and the cicadas are full of dew on the branches" (Li Shangyin's "Falling Flowers"). Although there are poems such as "leaning outside the firewood gate and listening to the evening cicadas in the wind" (Wang Wei's "Wangchuan Leisure Residence Presented to Pei Xiucai Di") to express the poet's leisurely mood. But some poems use the sound of cicadas to express the poet's nobility and thoughts. For example, "The cicadas sing in the west, and the guests in the south are thinking deeply" ("Singing Cicadas in Prison" by Luo Binwang). The author's high-spirited integrity is vividly described in the preface with the metaphor of cicadas! "At dusk and the cool breeze comes, hearing the cicadas makes me sad" (Meng Haoran's "Qin Zhongji Sends a Distant Master") expresses the poet's longing for his distant friends. Dai Shulun's " The poem "Painting Cicada": "How clean is the body after drinking the exposed body, the chanting charm is longer, the setting sun is thousands of trees, there is nowhere to hide from the mantis." It can be regarded as the artistic reproduction of the idiom "The mantis stalks the cicada, but the oriole follows behind".

3. Dream Butterfly

Butterflies first appeared in literary works, probably in the pre-Qin prose masterpiece "Zhuangzi". Zhuang Zhou's Mengdie is one of the famous ones. The article tells that Zhuang Zhou dreamed that he turned into a butterfly, "a vivid butterfly" and "I don't know Zhou Ye". When he woke up, he was surprised to see that he was Zhuang Zhou. Therefore, he was confused, not knowing whether Zhuang Zhou dreamed of becoming a butterfly, or whether the butterfly dreamed of becoming Zhuang Zhou. This fable is to illustrate that the butterfly and Zhuang Zhou, the things and myself, are originally one and there is no difference, so there is no need to investigate. Since then, for more than two thousand years, Zhuang Zhou's dream of butterflies has become an important theme for literati and poets to borrow objects to express their aspirations, and butterfly dreams have become synonymous with dreams. The poem "Jin Se" by Li Shangyin of the Tang Dynasty is full of remembrances of deceased friends and expresses the feelings of joy and sorrow. The poem quotes Zhuang Zhou's allusion of dreaming about butterflies. The first sentence "Zhuang Sheng dreamed of butterflies at dawn" is a metaphor for the unity of things, while the second sentence "Wang Di Wang" "The heart of spring supports the cuckoo" is a metaphor for separation. In the poem "Long Trunk Shape", there is a sentence: "Butterflies are yellow in August, flying on the grass in the West Garden." Du Fu's poem "Two Poems on Qujiang" wrote: "You can see the butterfly deeply through the flowers, and the dragonfly is spotted on the water. "Fly." It vividly depicts butterflies flying among flowers for feeding, mating, and laying eggs, and dragonflies touching the water to lay eggs. They are ready to fly at the touch of a touch. Xie Yi of the Northern Song Dynasty described in "Butterfly": "Sometimes you can see it wildly following catkins, but where can you find it dancing into pear blossoms." Yang Wanli of the Southern Song Dynasty's poem "Two Poems from Xugongdian, Suxin City" says: "Children rush to chase yellow butterflies, flying There is nowhere to be found in the cauliflower." They respectively describe the scene of the cabbage white butterfly flying among the white pear flowers and the yellow pink butterfly flying among the yellow rapeseed flowers. Due to the protective colors of the two butterflies, the butterfly and the flower are the same color, making it difficult to distinguish them. There is a poem in Tang Zuyong's "Giving Seedlings and Hairdressers Outside" that "the silk is long and the pink butterfly flies", which refers to the graceful and graceful ribbon butterfly with a long and slender tail protrusion. There is also the Tang Dynasty Lu Lun's "Ode to Roses for Minister Xu": "Butterflies scatter and shake the light dew, and orioles hold people in the sunset." Yuan Zhen's "Jingshen Qiu Babai": "Dragonflies pity the dawn dew, and butterflies love the autumn flowers. "Wang Jian's "Evening Butterfly": "The pink wings are as tender as water, and they are surrounded by the wind. The sun is high and the frost is clear, and the flying people are among the chrysanthemums." It all shows the butterfly's habit of loving flowers and being active during the day. Wang Heqing's poem "Xianlu Zui Zhongtian·Ode to the Big Butterfly": "The butterfly breaks the dream of Zhou Zhuang, and its wings ride the east wind." It describes the transformation process of the chrysalis turning into a butterfly and the butterfly flying in the sky.

4. Fireflies

"The autumn light of silver candles paints the screen coldly, and the light fan blows at the fireflies" (Du Mu's "Autumn Evening"). This is a wonderful line in Tang poetry and has long been popular. Fireflies belong to the family Coleoptera, and their larvae often forage for small insects in piles of rotten grass, so there is a misunderstanding that "the rotten grass is a firefly". In Li Shangyin's "Sui Gong", there is also a sentence: "Today there is no fluorescent light in the rotten grass, but in ancient times there will be dusk crows in the weeping poplars." Fireflies have the habit of staying up and coming out at night, so there is a poem like "The fireflies fly in the evening palace and think quietly, and the solitary lamp is exhausted before they fall asleep" (Bai Juyi's "Song of Everlasting Sorrow"), which describes the scene of Emperor Ming of the Tang Dynasty staying awake at night and missing Yang Yuhuan.

5. Insect prevention

The phenomenon of pests causing serious losses to crops is described in ancient poems. Dai Shulun's "Tuntian Ci" of the Tang Dynasty: "The new crop is unripe and the locusts have eaten all the green seedlings, leaving the dry stems. When the locusts return, they guard the empty house, with no bags, no silk bottles, no millet." Bai Juyi's "Catching Locusts": "It is recommended to eat like silkworms. Flying like rain, migratory locusts eat thousands of miles away, and there are no green seedlings in the empty red soil." Su Shi of the Northern Song Dynasty wrote a poem: "This year's spring is warm, and there are more locusts on the ground than soil. I am worried that once my wings are spread, I will spit out my voice like the wind." Guo Dun of the Ming Dynasty also had a famous saying: "The locusts cover the sky and the sun is colorless. The old fields are full of tears and blood. They can't catch them even after holding their clothes. The big leaves are empty and the twigs are broken." These poems not only describe the damage caused by locusts to agricultural production at that time. Serious losses, and from the poet's sustenance in the poem about insects, it reveals the miserable life of farmers who are impoverished and have no food and clothing.

In terms of protecting benefits and preventing harm, the ancients have already made in-depth observations. Wang Jian's poem "Tian's Guests": "It's not too bad that the Tian's house is broken, the new mud in the silkworm house has no old soil." It can be seen that when raising silkworms in the Tang Dynasty, attention was paid to preventing flies and rats, and the silkworm house was also replaced with soil to prevent the infection of silkworm diseases. . As early as two thousand years ago, the "Book of Songs·Xiaoya·Datian" has the record of "get rid of the borers and their thieves. The ancestors of Tian have gods who bless the flames." Su Shi's "Bearing the flames" The poem "It has been passed down from ancient times, who dares to dig behind the hoes" describes the method of controlling locusts that used a combination of burning and digging. However, in Pu Songling's "Pupa Catching Song" "I built a locust strategy in front of me, and smoked the smoke bottle with the wind. The traveler has been effective, and the high mist is better than the flag." This further extends the idea that using smoke to kill locusts is better than using poles to hang pieces of cloth. A far more effective control method in driving away locusts.

In terms of biological pest control, our ancestors have also explored and accumulated many valuable experiences for us. "There are no five elements in the field, floods and droughts predict the sound of frogs" in the Tang Dynasty chapter examination, and Xin Qiji's poem of the Southern Song Dynasty "Xijiang Moon·Walking on the Yellow Sand Road at Night" "The fragrance of rice flowers tells of a good year, and the sound of frogs is heard." In the "Compendium of Materia Medica" written by Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty, "the layers of dry spider webs" , a bumper harvest", and Pu Songling's "Mosquito Repellent Song": "Summer mosquitoes are as poisonous as flies, and the dark room at dusk is like thunder. And bats are everywhere in the world, and once the poison is eliminated, all the mobs will be killed:" All the frogs, spiders and bats are highly praised as "farmland guardians", "pest exterminators" and beneficial animals, as well as harbingers of agricultural harvests and human health.

6. Form

The morphological characteristics of insects are often described in ancient insect poems. "The Book of the Later Han·Yuan Shao Biography" says: "The ax used to transport the mantis is the tunnel used to transport the dragon's chariot." It means that the pair of front legs of the mantis are extremely developed, shaped like a knife and axe, and they can move very quickly. Su Shunqin of the Northern Song Dynasty wrote in "A Reply to Zilu Jianjie on a Cold Night": "The sword is still alive when buried, and the inchworm can still stretch out when it is bent." It is said that the inchworm has only two pairs of abdominal legs, and it crawls forward by stretching and flexing like a measuring ruler. A more vivid description is Su Shi's poem "The two horns only grow on their own, and they fly in vain without carrying the carriage. What's the point of competing for cattle? It only kisses the holes and withers the mulberry trees." This is a good poem. How vividly it depicts the beetle that has a pair of long antennae as adults and a larvae that bores into tree trunks and seriously damages mulberry trees!

7. Habits

Li Duan's poem "Watching Flowers in the Shaofu Mansion" written by Li Duan of the Tang Dynasty goes: "The bees wandering in the sky, the butterflies sit up when they are frightened." It describes the rush of bees collecting flowers and making nectar from the flowers and two pairs of butterflies standing on the stamens of the flowers. The wings are erect as if in a sitting position. The habits of moths are completely different from those of butterflies. Zhang Hu's poem "Gift to Wife" of the Tang Dynasty: "Pull out the jade hairpin at an angle by the shadow of the lamp, and pick away the red flames to save the moths." The poet here praises his wife's wisdom and benevolence. In fact, moths belong to the suborder Lepidoptera, and most of their larvae feed on plants, and there are many large pests, so you don’t need to be compassionate to save them. On the contrary, people now also install black lights to use the phototaxis habits of pests for detection or trapping. Wang Jian's poem "Xinqing": "Sitting in clothes in front of the eaves, the wind is cold and no moths are fighting." There is also Qi Ji's poem "Sitting in Silence", "The lamp attracts the moths and flickers the flames, and the dew drips from the cranes pressing on the branches." Low." This all reveals the habitual behavior of moths fighting fire at night. In fact, the most lifelike description is the ancient poem "Two moths come fluttering, admiring the candle in this hall, attached to the flames can do no good, self-immolation is as cool." Perhaps this is the best description of the idiom "a moth flies into the flame and perishes" and the "phototaxis" of moths! No wonder entomologists named moths "nocturnal insects".

Let's look at Bai Juyi's "Five Allegorical Poems": "If you ask where the insect is, it is in the body but not on the branches; if you ask what the insect eats, it eats the heart but not the skin; the flowers wither in the summer and do not bear fruit, and the leaves are diseased and wilt first in the autumn." It can be seen that as early as Thousands of years ago, the damaging habits and damage symptoms of boring insects were observed in detail. Until the Qing Dynasty Pu Songling's poem "The Locusts Come": "The grass stalks are openly grazing on the males, or it may be said that in ten days, locusts will be born." Even the habit of locusts mating and laying eggs on crops and the fact that they turn into nymphs after ten days The life history of Harm was also observed and described very accurately.

8. Improvisation

Many poets are inspired by the scenery, and it is not uncommon to write poems to describe the relationship between insects and meteorological factors. Lu Lun's poem "The Bitter Rain in the Guesthouse": "There are many ants in the burrows following the grass, half-buried bees in the mud, and many butterflies are left behind in the bad corridors." , Ji Dong stops the flock of chickens." It can be seen that a violent storm swept the ants into the grass, the beehives fell to the ground, and the butterflies also hid in the fence. It also describes that insects such as ants, bees, and butterflies, which are cold-blooded animals, are extremely sensitive to changes in the natural environment. Tang Yanqian's poem "Mulberry Picking Girl" in the Tang Dynasty goes: "The spring breeze blows silkworms as thin as ants, and the mulberry buds bloom in the crow's mouth. It was at this time that I first went to sleep last year. This year's spring is cold and the leaves are late." This shows that due to the low temperature of spring cold , frequent cold waves cause mulberry buds to sprout late, and the growth of silkworms will inevitably be slow. Liu Yuxi's "Spring Poems" says: "Walking to the atrium and counting flowers, dragonflies fly on the jade and scratch the head." The poem describes a spring scenery that is always sentimental. Most people know that dragonflies prey on small flying insects and are beneficial insects, but few know that dragonflies can also be used as medicine. When used as human medicine, the wings and feet are removed and stir-fried. In males, it has the effect of benefiting the kidneys and strengthening yin, and is mainly used to treat spermatorrhea and impotence.

The description of the evolution of insects in ancient poems also has unique insights. In the poem "Ode to Amber" written by Wei Yingwu of the Tang Dynasty, there is a famous line: "I was once the god of old Fu, but it was originally cold pine liquid, and gnats fell into it, and they can still be seen after thousands of years (Yin Di)." It is about the gnats of the order Diptera. Small insects fell into the rosin and over the millennia turned into amber, but the gnats were still clearly visible in it. The formation and process of amber and insect fossils have been scientifically explained, but time is just missing.

"China has a rich and colorful culture with a long history. Chinese ancient poetry has a fragrant aroma." This is what the Colombian poetry master Guillermo Valencia said in his translation of the ancient Chinese poetry collection "Chendan", Expressing his high praise and admiration for our country's ancient poetry. The content of ancient Chinese insect poetry is voluminous and colorful. It is not only the sustenance of ancient poets in their insect poems, but also the product of the close combination of literature and art, entomology and agricultural science. It is a precious cultural and scientific heritage that we should carefully explore. .

animal tags：