The Application of Numbers in Ancient Poems in Primary Chinese Textbooks
In the first volume of the first grade of the Chinese textbook, there is a "digital poetry" that is almost a nursery rhyme:
One tablet, two tablets, three or four tablets, five tablets, six tablets, seven or eight tablets. Nine pieces, ten pieces, countless pieces, all missing when flying into the water.
In the form of rhyme, this poem organizes some basic numbers together, which is both interesting and catchy, and gives people a sense of image that the snow is getting bigger and bigger, which is of great help to first-year students in learning basic numerical Chinese characters.
Number is one of the most common abstract concepts in daily life, which is used to calculate quantity and reference order and undertakes the function of accurately transmitting information. Putting numbers into poetry can turn decay into magic and make boring numbers have poetic beauty. This can be seen from the ancient poems selected in the unified Chinese textbooks.
Cardinality and ordinal number
The basic function of numbers is to express quantity, and a considerable part of numbers in ancient Chinese poetry undertake this function. Some table cardinality, such as "one" in "I know where my brothers climb, and one person is missing all over the dogwood", "two orioles sing green willows, and a row of egrets go up to the sky", "Three thousand" and "nine" in "Flying down three thousands of feet, it is suspected that the Milky Way has fallen for nine days"; There are also some table ordinal numbers, such as "two" in "the grass grows in February, and the willows are drunk with spring smoke", and "three" in "Poor September third night, dew is like a real pearl and the moon is like a bow".
When expressing cardinality, some simply express quantity, while others express frequency. For example, Bai Juyi’s "Farewell to the Ancient Grass", "boundless grasses over the plain, come and go with every season", the original grass, once a year, green and then withered, withered and green, year after year, maintaining the same rhythm, life flows silently and never stops. There are also several concepts, such as Sanqiu, Three Springs, Four Seasons, Four Seas, Five Hous, Eight Famines and Kyushu, which have appeared in the ancient poems selected in the text, and most of them have been solidified into words to express special meanings. For example, the "three spring" in Meng Jiao’s "Ode to a Wandering Son" and "but how much love has the inch-long grass gets three spring rays" refers to the sunny spring, which is named after the three months of spring, namely Meng Chun, Zhongchun and Ji Chun. Another example is "Kyushu" in Lu You’s "Show Your Son", "Everything is empty when you die, but you can’t see Kyushu with sorrow", which was originally the collective name of the nine States divided by China in ancient times (this statement is different, and the prevailing statement comes from "Book Yugong", respectively "Ji, Yan, Qing, Xu, Yang, Jing, Yu, Liang and Yong "), later used to refer to the whole world and China. Lu You is a famous patriotic poet. His poems use the term "Kyushu" to emphasize the unified concept of Kyushu since ancient times, which fully shows the poet’s sincere love for the country.
There are cardinal words that express quantity, as well as the difference between definite and general reference. For example, Wang Wei’s "on the mountain holiday thinking of my brothers in shandong" said: "If you know where your brother climbs, there will be one less person everywhere." Who is the one who is less? Naturally, it is the "I" in a foreign land, and this "one" has a definite direction. Brothers planted dogwood all over the place and went to climb in droves; "I", however, tasted the loneliness alone. In contrast, the joy of my brothers reflected the bitterness of "I". For example, Han Yu’s "Early Spring Presents Zhang Eighteen Members of the Ministry of Water Affairs": "The most important benefit is the spring of one year, which is absolutely better than the smoke and willow." It is uncertain which year the "year" here refers to, and it refers to every year and any year. Other examples, such as "Say goodbye to the colorful clouds of the White Emperor, and return it in a day in Jiangling" and "Plant a millet in spring and reap ten thousand seeds in autumn", in which "one" does not point to a specific day or seed. The general figures often have a general meaning.
Exact number and approximate number
Numbers also have exact numbers and approximate numbers. In ancient times, there were many ways to express approximate numbers, such as "three", "thousands" and "ten thousand", or numbers plus "several", "several" and "remainder", or two connected numbers (such as "three or four" and "five or six flowers"). Some simply express quantity without additional meaning, and there are no ready-made examples in the ancient poems selected in the textbook (it can also be seen that the numbers entered into the poems are basically meaningful). Take an example of classical Chinese, such as "Reading at Night with Sacks of Fireflies", in which "dozens" means many things. The approximate words in ancient poems are more related to poetic images and have rhetorical colors, thus adding affection and meaning.
Some estimates are very few. For example, Su Shi’s "The Night Scene of the Spring River in Hui Chong": "There are three or two peach blossoms outside the bamboo, and the duck prophet in the spring river." It’s about the early spring, when it’s warm and cold, the peach blossoms haven’t bloomed brilliantly, only a few branches bloom sporadically. "Three or two branches" describes a small number, which conforms to the seasonal characteristics of early spring and also contains the vitality of spurting out. Another example is "Three Roads in the Road": "The green shade does not reduce the road, but it adds four or five sounds of orioles." Four or five orioles chirping, coming from the green shade from time to time, are crisp and loud, bringing the poets in the mountains a heavenly enjoyment. If it is a variety of cries, such as cicada noise, connected together, it will only bring trouble to people, and will never feel relaxed and comfortable. Another example is the poem "The River and the Han Dynasty are clear and shallow, and there are many differences" in "The Far Altair", and the emotion and meaning are more obvious. The poet said: The Milky Way is clear and shallow. How far apart can it be? "How much" is a question, but it expresses a declarative and affirmative meaning, which means "not far, not much distance". However, it is such a "full of water" that lovers are separated from each other, but they can’t talk to each other. How sad it is! Similarly, there is William Wang’s "Liangzhou Ci": "Don’t laugh when you are drunk in the sand. How many times have you fought in ancient times?" "Several people" in the poemIt means very few people.
Some estimates talk a lot, and there are more examples like this. For example, Li Bai’s "Looking at Lushan Waterfall" "Flying straight down three thousands of feet, it is suspected that the Milky Way has set for nine days", in which the "three thousands of feet" has exaggerated meaning, writing the momentum of Lushan Waterfall flying down the mountain. Another example is Lin Jie’s "Qiaoqiao", "Every family looks at the autumn moon and wears tens of thousands of red silk". The poem depicts the custom of women threading needles on the moon during the Qixi Festival. Because every family is qiaoqiao, there are tens of thousands of red silk naturally passing through the needle nose. Other figures, such as "A dangerous building is a hundred feet high, and one can pick the stars with one’s hands", "a hundred mountains and no bird and a thousand paths without a footprint", "Apes on both sides of the strait can’t stop crying, and canoes have passed Chung Shan Man" and "Thousands of families always change new peaches for old ones", are also of this kind, and the number is naturally not accurately calculated, which is used to describe the height of the building, the height of the waves, the number of mountains and the number of doors.
(Zhu Yuguo is the deputy director of the Chinese Language Office of People’s Education Publishing House and the core editor of the unified Chinese textbook)