Take you to know the plant in the Book of Songs, the mulberry tree

Mondo Culture Updated on 2024-02-22

The age depicted in the Book of Songs can be traced back to the 11th to the 6th century B.C., when mulberry trees were everywhere in the land of China.

According to statistics, there are a total of 20 poems in the "Book of Songs" involving mulberry trees, and 31 sentences mentioning mulberry trees, spanning different genres such as "Wind", "Ya", and "Song", covering the surrounding vassal states such as Hu, Wei, Zheng, Wei, Tang, Qin, Cao, Feng and other countries, covering almost more than half of the countries recorded in the "Book of Songs" at that time.

"Wind: July" describes "the silkworm moon strips the mulberry, and takes the axe." To cut far away, and to slash the other women". The "silkworm month" here refers to March in the summer calendar, which is the season for raising silkworms, and it is also a good time to prune mulberry trees and trim tall branches.

The so-called "female mulberry" refers to the young mulberry tree. In the Warring States Period's "Erya Shimu", it is explained that "female mulberry, mulberry." ”

The famous naturalist Guo Pu mentioned in the commentary: "Nowadays, it is commonly known as a female mulberry tree with a small trunk but branches. "The mulberry tree is small and short in form, and it is highly likely that it is a shrub. In the Book of Songs, "mulberry" is often compared with tall trees such as "poplar", "wolfberry" and "sandalwood", which also proves that mulberry trees are classified as arbors. Therefore, some scholars speculate that the mulberry trees mainly planted in the era of the Book of Songs may be chicken mulberry or Chinese mulberry, both of which are deciduous trees or shrubs belonging to the mulberry family, with developed root systems and strong adaptability, and are widely distributed so far. Taking chicken mulberry as an example, its distribution range extends from Liaoning to Liangguang, from Yunnan and Guizhou to Sri Lanka.

The love metaphor of the mulberry tree is often used in the Book of Songs, the most representative of which is "The Wind and the Mulberry". "I care about Sangzhong, I want to go to the palace, and send me to Qi."

In "Zheng Feng Jiang Zhongzi", the girl admonishes Zhongzi to "do not go over my wall, do not break my mulberry", and now, we guess, she is not unwilling, but afraid of the discussion of her parents, brothers and others. In this poem, the girl repeatedly reminds us to be cautious, and compared with the bold and passionate love of the woman in "The Wind and Sangzhong", this complex and subtle emotion is equally precious and precious.

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