There are many descriptions of language art and life in traditional Chinese culture, which on the one hand come from folk research, and on the other hand, most of them come from literary works or official narratives.
But if Chinese culture were to tell every story or every cultural phenomenon in detail, it would rise to an academic issue, so why is this so?
Oracle Display.
In Chinese, the word "".EmbarrassedThe use of this idiom dates back to the Tang Dynasty"Youyang Miscellaneous".。But if we dig it carefully, we will find that there seems to be a very little relevant record of the animals in the idiom, but what about the ancients from the ** narrative? What kind of story does the embarrassment describe? What's behind this idiom? Is the "embarrassment" in the idiom real?
This article will mainly answer these questions from the "Youyang Miscellaneous", Jin Wenming's "embarrassing" exploration and related classic works. Then let's take a look at the embarrassment in "Embarrassed", what kind of creature is it? Maybe you'll know after reading it.
Excerpt from Youyang Miscellaneous.
Regarding the embarrassment, it was mentioned earlier that it came from"Youyang Miscellaneous".and mentioned in one of the Mao chapters: ".Or the embarrassment is two things, the front foot of the embarrassment is extremely short, each line is often driven on the wolf's legs, and the wolf can not move, so the world is called embarrassed.
From this we can see a more detailed description of the embarrassment, and there is also a similar description of the appearance in the "Compendium of Materia Medica". Generally speaking, in the accounts of the ancients, the embarrassment is an animal that walks with a wolf, but its forelimbs are shorter than that of a wolf, and it is an animal that moves on the back of a wolf.
Excerpt from the Compendium of Materia Medica.
Judging from the background story of the idiom, the nature of folk rumors is more obvious, and it is quite an allegory。The story goes,Wolves and embarrassmentsWhen they went to the outside of the farmer's sheepfold, the two animals could not catch the sheep for a while because the fence and the sheepfold were built very high. But soon, the two animals completed some kind of cooperation.
He used the wolf's body to support himself, and then stepped on the wolf's back and snatched the lamb away. This is the basic story description of the whole idiom, whether from the paraphrasing or allusion, embarrassment is not a compliment. But is there really such an animal in reality? Or will there be such a cooperative behavior?
A possible way to cooperate with wolves and embarrassments.
In our conventional perception, the wolf is indeed a creature that is good at cooperative hunting, and the wolf is a family unit, regardless of the old and the young, can be cared for, and the cooperation between the wolf pack greatly improves the wolf's combat effectiveness. But when you leave the family, the wolf becomes a lone wolf.
StillWolves have also been seen cooperating with other animals, but this animal is not an embarrassment, but a badger. Coyotes and American badgers in North America form a tacit partnershipIn terms of size, coyotes are small and medium-sized wolves, much smaller than gray wolves.
The American badger is short in shape.
Not to mention the American badger, which has a short stature and will have to take some time to hunt alone. There are professional photographers abroad who have filmed the process of the two animals working together, the coyote is anxiously waiting for the American badger at the intersection to the sewer pipe, and when the American badger appears, the two animals walk into the hole together.
This behavior is more common in the North American prairies, in generalAmerican badgers are better at digging burrowsAt the same time, its small size also makes it easy for it to enter the nests of some animals. Coyotes, on the other hand, are larger than American badgers and are better at running. Both are similar in terms of food requirements and both feed on small animals, such as rabbits and rodents such as mice.
When the American badger sneaks into the burrow to chase the rodents, the coyote will wait near the entrance of the cave for the prey to appear, and once the prey escapes the animal, the coyote waiting at the door will quickly attack. This pattern of behavior is so efficient that it has been tried and tested almost repeatedly. At the same time, they will not fight over food needs, but will pursue long-term cooperation.
In this way, similar situations do exist in nature, but except for the short limbs of the American badger, the rest of the description and the appearance of the badger are quite different. So how does embarrassment appear in related literature?
A coyote crouching at the entrance of a cave.
This question may be answered in the sense of the literary words themselves。A famous literary scholar in the Middle and Tang dynastiesSegment formulaput forward his own opinion on the embarrassment. He believes that the wolf should be two animals, that is, the wolf and the embarrassmentIt was also during this period that people gradually wrote more about embarrassment, and most of them adopted the Duancheng style.
But in the Northern Song Dynasty, Shen Kuo wascriticized the problems in "Youyang Miscellaneous"., he believes that the records in Duan Chengshi's book are mostly foreign objects of plants and trees, and he draws conclusions in vain, and the descriptions are rather absurd, and there is no way to verify them.
Famous editor in ChinaJin WenmingHe conducted a careful study and investigation of this issue, and explained the doubts in the embarrassment from the beginning of the creation of the word. Li ShanAnnotated"Collected Texts".", ".Embarrassed, wolf。"In additionLee NoteQuoted"Confucius Congzi".There is also a direct mention of embarrassment.
Therefore, Jin Wenming believes that the origin and origin of the embarrassment are likely to come from the "wolf". But where does the wolf come from?
The answer to the relevant account can be found in the Book of Songs"Wind and Wolf".It reads: ".The wolf is on its beard, and its tail is ......The wolf has its tail and carries its beard ......From this we can see that an earlier account of wolf bake appears in the Book of Songs, andThe Book of Songs often uses the first word in the text to propose, and from this point of view, the appearance of wolf may be the earliest.
Southern Song Dynasty Ma Hezhi's Feng Feng Tu Wolf Trek.
And in later rumors,Wolf has evolved into a two-tone adjective。This is in"Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Shu Chronicles, and the True Biography of the Law".is mentioned,".When the time comes, the wolf is in retreat。The same account is inJin Dynasty periodIt is also described in literary works, but there is a difference between the usage of wolf trek in this period and the Western Zhou period.
According toQing DynastyDuan Yu is in"The Book of Poetry Elementary School".In the compilation and interpretation, wolf baba gradually became the use of fake characters in later use, and there was no word "embarrassment" in the pre-Qin period, so the word about wolf embarrassment in the original text of the "Book of Songs" was replaced with "跋".
In the pre-Qin period, " was used instead of embarrassment.
Due to the fake and homophonic, the original word of wolf is inBook of the Later Han Dynastywas also written"Wolf Bei".。WhileLater generations gradually recognized and accepted such a statement in various literary citations or uses, so the word wolf has become today's embarrassment.
The awkward changes also later appeared various distinctions, fromNorthern Song DynastyIn the beginning, the embarrassment was explained in various literary works by a single animal name, for example"Fox Hunting".……There is a wolf-like embarrassment
It was also from this period that the combination of embarrassment brought a new change to the original meaning of the word, meaning the wicked people who colluded with each other. WhileThe old interpretation was more to describe a person who is in distress, or in a hurry.
It has gone through many linguistic changes to become today's definition.
SoEmbarrassing changes in language and culture, including the extension of word quotations, has been very different, combined with folk tales, embarrassment is covered with a layer of mystery.
Because in most stories, the embarrassed is equivalent to the wolf's dog-headed military division, and lives dependent on the wolves, and at the same time commands the activities of the entire wolf pack. But from a biological point of view, it is clear that this is not in line with the living conditions of the wolf pack. Only the head wolf has command over the entire pack, and if it were another species, it would obviously not have this kind of leadership.
Of course, there areAnother possibility is that the embarrassment may be a wolf with a disability in the packGenerally speaking, wolves do not abandon family members, and in this regard, it may explain why they are cared for in wolves.
In general, the creature does not exist in either the wolf pack theory or the literary record, and it is more of a cultural expression. People's use of words has been expanded and changed in various ways along with folk usage habits.
The wounded wolf may be the prototype of the embarrassment.
Therefore, in this respect, it exists as an abstract thing. So, embarrassment, as a complete idiom, it never loses its own things.