Birthday gifts for birthday celebrations in the Ming Dynasty, the presentation of folk emotions and etiquette
On birthdays, there is a Xi of giving gifts to friends and family. People give longevity gifts are also gifts to celebrate birthday and congratulate, and birthday gifts, song birthday gifts, and physical objects are not the same. In this article, the author mainly focuses on the longevity gifts of the middle and late Ming Dynasty.
Birthday song and preface.
In the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, the celebration of longevity and the written celebration of longevity changed over time, and the written celebration of longevity became more and more indispensable.
Shou poems began to appear in the Tang Dynasty, used for various birthdays, Shou words began to appear in the Song Dynasty, as for Shou Xu, in the early Yuan Dynasty, many literati have written such Shou Wen, such as Fang Hui "Tongjiang Collection", Zheng Yuanyou "Qiaowu Collection", etc., in the "Shou Xuan Ji", "Shou Wen Preface" or "Shou Wen" There are similar Shou poems. The longevity sequence developed from the Yuan Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty and has been passed down to the present, the literati of the Ming Dynasty will write the longevity preface in the anthology, compose a collection of poems for their birthday, and send their wishes for the longevity preface, and the activity of longevity poems has been popular in the Ming Dynasty society for a period of time.
Although this style of writing did not appear in the Ming Dynasty, the Book of Destiny received a new development in the Ming Dynasty, and in the Ming Dynasty, writing the Book of Destiny became a social Xi for women. While women can also write a book of life, not all women are qualified to write a book of life. In general, characters with the status of internal officials or those who are known for their hard-working mothers and diligent literati can write a book of fate for the characters in the book of fate.
Lou Jian was entrusted by the Lian family to write a preface to Chen Zhen's mother, Wu, which wrote:"Wu Ruren can only be said to be a virtuous mother, she is diligent and thrifty, takes care of housework, teaches her children well, is conscientious, and has noble morals. Therefore, I was commissioned to write a foreword to praise Wu Ruren's excellent character and congratulate her. In addition, when a famous and high-status ** celebrated his birthday, his staff also asked the saint to write a preface for him.
Nan Yunzi from Kunshan County, Suzhou Prefecture, became famous because of his academic success, and let his wife Tang celebrate her birthday"The more noble people built a room in their thatched hall, because the great Situ Zhou Gong came from the whole ceremony, three words and two words, a wonderful room"。Such a scenario. Absolutely"Take it and use it", Tang Renxing can receive a lot of birthday slips on his birthday, on the one hand, because of her identity, on the other hand"Nanyun is said to be benevolent and virtuous, and does not give too much mouth", the self-proclaimed good wife and mother have also benefited a lot.
In the popular longevity culture of the Ming Dynasty, the words of praise are indispensable, and the content of the preface to the birthday is mostly praise, such as praising the good character of the person being praised, praising its glorious deeds, and finally expressing the meaning of blessing. In the second year of Ming Zhengde (1507), Gu Qian (1471-1534), a native of Taicang, Suzhou, said:"The story in the city, every ten of the gentry in his life, there must be a congratulatory message.
That is, every ten days for the birthday of the local gentry, and someone wrote an article to celebrate. In the Wujiang gentry area, the scholar class not only serves as a place to feast guests for birthday celebrations, but also often gathers with virtuous gentlemen to write poems for them, and allows the younger generations to stand up and recite birthday poems and longevity texts, which enhances the interest of celebrating longevity in such activities. From this point of view, Shou County's"Birthday party"The phenomenon has become very common in the Wujiang area.
The traditional Xi customs of the Soochow region regard birthdays as a luxurious, evocative portent, and can be said to be the most solemn birthday among many Xi customs. The older you are over 50, the more meaningful your birthday will be, and the grander the birthday celebration will be. Relatives and friends of the villagers are often called to make birthdays, and many birthday gifts are also an important Xi for birthdays. As mentioned earlier, when a person celebrates his birthday (especially the wealthy), he writes dozens of longevity couplets and hangs them all over the wall, and a few guests who come to drink will see what is written on the wall of the couplet. Therefore, the quality of the writing of the Shou Ling does not have to be very good, as long as the number of Shou Ling is enough for the people who come to congratulate them to see, then it is not difficult to understand the importance of the existence of the Shou Order.
In fact, that year's ** Shoulian does not necessarily have to be cultured, as said in "Back to the Light"."As long as you have two eyes, anyone can write", almost everybody does. In this case, the lyrics don't have to be written well or badly to be hung on the wall, so there must be a huge market demand for Shou Ci Shou Qu.
As mentioned above, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the development of the market economy, the prevalence of social extravagance, and the improvement of living standards, so that people's spiritual needs are getting bigger and bigger, so that more and more people want to have a life, and they start to live at the age of four, and the situation of doing life at the age of fifty also appears at this time. Gradually, the book of propositions and the text of propositions were formed"Destiny"。In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, people dominated the writing of the book of life and the book of life in the ceremonial society, in order to express their congratulations and ask others to write the book of life, which is not only the spread of the beauty of words, but also the exploration of the book of life and the way of writing the book of life is traceable and has a common characteristic.
These popular words of praise in society, although they seem to be a compliment to the person whose birthday has passed, are actually just one"Change the soup without changing the medicine"routines. In short, life mottos to write"Me"with"Desired"relationship, to write"Me"Brilliant deeds or good qualities in life, whether in the form of personal experience, personal life experience, or in the image of a good wife and mother at home and abroad, these are the main contents of the life motto, it takes into account many aspects, and it also clearly explains why you should write the life motto, why you should write this life motto.
Generally speaking, the longevity sequence is mainly composed of these three kinds of characters, just like our current text template, the name written is different, the content is not the same, the society of the middle and late Ming Dynasty is the same, literati and ink writers for money, generally exaggerated to write a series of polite words or derogatory words, few really bother to write a longevity on their birthday to express affection.
Qian Qianyi criticized the emergence of this phenomenon as follows:"The rest of the outlook on life is the words of life and should be through the majestic, auspicious, and good deeds of the world"。The content of Shou Xu and others is mostly praise and disparagement, and it is difficult to distinguish the truth from the false, but"The Shou family will be proud of it"。This is extremely important for the visible public, as Tan Yuanchun (from Jingling, Hunan, 1586-1637) points out in his work Fifty Words of Mother's Invitation that such texts are pretentious and unrealistic, and that they are often written for the purpose of making money.
Tan Yuanchun pointed out that most of this kind of birthday orders are illusory, and people write birthday orders not to avoid money, but specifically to praise, so these birthday orders, birthday songs, and birthday words, most of which do not have much reference value for the personal characteristics of the person being celebrated. At that time, from the top bureaucrats to the common people, everyone hoped to get the blessing of birthday in the birthday text, even if it was full of praise, many people were looking for a place to celebrate their birthday. Xu Wei (1521-1593) wrote a birthday message to Yan Song on behalf of Hu Zongxian, and he later criticized this birthday message:"The words of praise are all over the paper, and I know that I am extremely reckless, which can be described as self-ashamed"。
Wang Shizhen and Wang Daokun's 70th birthdays have hanging scrolls, and the praises are very exaggerated, and the bad deeds will be erased before the birthday, so as to achieve the good reputation and glorious deeds of the two. Therefore, it does not make much sense for such an article to be written on birthdays, and this phenomenon has continued until the end of the Ming Dynasty, and it seems that it has not changed, Wang Daokun said"The word longevity is not outdated.
The life of this person is those who have to speak, and if the words are insufficient, then the words are spoken;If the text is insufficient, it will be exaggerated. When he usually speaks strictly, and when he doesn't speak, there are still romantic wordsSince I have returned to the field, every boastful word on my birthday is a warning"。The Xi of birthday words and birthday songs has always existed in Ming Dynasty society. Not only did many literary critics say that these birthday wishes were terrifying, like a witch's prayer, Qian Qianyi expressed his views in articles such as "Yongfeng Chengweng's Seventieth Birthday Preface"."Although the original Yasong, there are also many witches, and the Buddha's way of Mr. is also. "
Despite this, such a birthday list will not be delivered to the person in person, more often than not, it is a pen. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Chen Jiru said"The birthday of a secular relative, the bell ringing in the sky, the saddle horse shining on the ground, the princely dignitaries, the high hanging seats, embroidered all over the eyes, and reading must borrow a pen"。It seems that after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Shouwen and other Shouwen gradually appeared in the society"Secularization"。
On the contrary, writing about the life stories of others is an activity that forms the network of many literati, thus providing the economy with opportunities for literary writing. Scattered historical sources prior to the emergence of Zhengde may reflect this phenomenon. According to Zhou Boqi's records, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, in order to let others write longevity couplets and obtain economic **, people would write one or two couplets, more than one or two hundred texts, and more could be completed in one day. This was a common phenomenon in Ming Dynasty society, and people attached great importance to the culture of celebrating longevity, which provided a new way for some literati and writers to make money.