China's cultural tradition of advocating bamboo has a long history. People call pine, bamboo, and plum the "Three Friends of the Cold", and plum, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum are called the "Four Gentlemen", both of which include bamboo. Because the bamboo is tall and chic, the image is beautiful, and at the same time it symbolizes the noble character of integrity, modesty, and loyalty, so it enjoys a lofty status in the minds of the Chinese people.
However, Du Fu said in the poem: "The new pine hates not a thousand feet high, and the evil bamboo should be cut ten thousand poles." (On the way to Chengdu Thatched Cottage, there is a work to send Yan Zheng Gong's five poems) The poet called bamboo "evil bamboo", and he also had to "cut ten thousand rods", is it a bit unbelievable?
In fact, Du Fu is very fond of bamboo, he claims to be "a lover of wine and love bamboo, Buju must be in the forest spring" ("Sending the Theme of Jiangwai Thatched Cottage"), a resting place in his life, must plant a number of poles and bamboos" ("Ketang"). At the beginning of his residence on the banks of Huanhua River in the western suburbs of Chengdu, there was no bamboo. Du Fu specially asked for Mianzhu from a friend who was a county magistrate. His poems such as "Caged Bamboo and Smoke Droplets and Dew" ("Tang Cheng"), "Wind and Cuicui" ("Crazy Husband"), "Will Have to Look at Bamboo and Be Disgusted" ("Three Quatrains" ("Three Quatrains" ("Three Quatrains" III), "But there is no cutting, and I will meet the clouds and grow" ("Yan Zheng Mansion and Yongzhu") and other poems, all of which are full of love for bamboo.
However, Du Fu did cut bamboo, and there were a lot of them. However, he cut the bamboo to make room for a thatched hut (and the bamboo he cut can also be used to build a house), not because he hated bamboo. The reason and process of cutting bamboo for himself, Du Fu made it very clear in the poem "Barracks".
Since Du Fu loves bamboo, why does he still say that "evil bamboo should be cut ten thousand poles"?
First of all, in order to promote thing A and deliberately belittle thing B, this is a way that the ancients used in rhetoric. For example: "The ancient sages were all lonely, but only the drinker left his name." (Li Bai's "Will Enter the Wine") This is to promote the "drinker" and deliberately belittle the "sage"; "Wu Jun Zhang Dian's cursive writing, cursive writing is not ancient and majestic. How can it be that my nephew is not in exile, and the prime minister is a man and a man. (Du Fu's "Li Chao's Eight-Cent Little Seal Song") This is to promote "my nephew" and deliberately belittle Zhang Xu; "Li Du's poems have been passed down by thousands of mouths, and they are no longer new. There are talented people from generation to generation, and they have led ** for hundreds of years. (Zhao Yi's "Five Poems" II) This is to emphasize that "there are talented people in the country, and each has been leading for hundreds of years", and deliberately said that Li Du's poems "are no longer fresh". The people of the Song Dynasty called this exaggerated writing "honorable inscription". And "the new pine hates not to be thousands of feet high, and the evil bamboo should be cut ten thousand poles", which is exactly this kind of writing. The reader cannot be taken seriously as to the "honorable character".
Secondly, it should also be analyzed in combination with the environment of the times in which Du Fu lived. Ancient literati and writers had a long-term development process from their love to admiration for bamboo, and bamboo from an ordinary plant to the embodiment of noble personality. In Du Fu's time, bamboo did not have much fame and did not have a moral aura. Therefore, although Du Fu has praised bamboo many times in his poems, when his own bamboo grows crazy to the point of "suspicious ghosts", he might as well call it "evil bamboo", and there is no need to have any scruples.
Since the Song Dynasty, the popularity of bamboo has gradually increased. Su Shi said, "It is better to eat without meat than to live without bamboo." No flesh makes people thin, no bamboo makes people vulgar" ("Yu Qian Monk Lu Yun Xuan"), Wen Tongshan painted ink bamboo, created the "Huzhou Bamboo School", and was respected by later generations as the originator of ink and bamboo painting. One of them was a great writer and the other was a great painter, and they played a key role in the gradual formation of the fame of bamboo.
Some painters of the Song and Yuan dynasties liked to paint ink bamboo and ink plum, and painted bamboo, plum and pine together, called "Three Friends of the Cold Year". Lin Jingxi of the Southern Song Dynasty "Jishan Collection: Wuyun Plum House" cloud: "That is, the soil is tired of living in the mountains, planting a hundred plums, and Qiao Song and Xiuhuan are friends of the year." This is probably the earliest source of "Three Friends of the Cold".
The saying of "Four Gentlemen" originated even later. During the Ming Dynasty, Huang Fengchi compiled "Four Spectrums of Plum Bamboo and Orchid Chrysanthemum", Chen Jiru inscribed "Four Gentlemen", and the title of "Four Gentlemen" came from this.
In such a historical atmosphere of loving bamboo, respecting bamboo, and petting bamboo, who wants to say something like "evil bamboo should be cut ten thousand rods" or something like that seems out of place, and even has the suspicion of risking the world's condemnation.
As soon as you get it, you can say it in vain.