The Love History of Cowherd and Weaver Girl

It is the day when the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl meet again. Lovers all over the world take this opportunity to express their feelings and hope to get the blessing of two immortals on the Magpie Bridge. But do you know the love story of Cowherd and Weaver Girl? How did they become lovers? Are there some forgotten details hidden in their love stories? Let's explore together.

The earliest written record about the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl appeared in the Book of Songs Xiaoya Dadong in the Western Zhou Dynasty.

The translation is quoted from The Book of Songs National Style;

Some people pay tribute to wine, and Zhou people think it is like water slurry. Some people pay tribute to the jade belt, but Zhou people think it is not long enough.

Although the Milky Way in the sky is wide, it is empty and as light as a mirror. The three corners of Vega are busy shifting seven times a day.

Although moving back and forth is busy, you can't weave a good pattern. Altair is shining, so it can't be used to drive.

Dawn breaks in the east in the morning, and Chang Geng follows the sunset in the evening. Bixing is like a net with a long handle. It is useless to hang it obliquely in the sky.

According to the explanation in the annotation of the Book of Songs, "This is a poem by the subjects of the Eastern vassal states satirizing the Zhou royal family for plundering fruits and property and enslaving the people. Although he is in a high position, he cannot relieve the suffering of the people in the East. " At this time, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl are just borrowed as two stars to express their feelings.

In the Western Han Dynasty, Zhinv ascended the throne for the first time as the granddaughter of the Emperor of Heaven. Historical records? "TianGuanShu" cloud:

Translation quoted from Chinese website related notes:

Nandousu is the Temple of Heaven, with a star in the north. Make stars like the flag in front of the Temple of Heaven. Morning glory lodging is a sacrifice in front of the temple. To the north of the morning glory is the river drum lodge, and the big star in the river drum represents the general; The left and right little stars represent the left and right generals. And Sue, whose north is Vega. The Weaver Girl is the granddaughter of the Emperor of Heaven.

Moreover, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl began to be portrayed, appearing in tomb murals in the Western Han Dynasty and stone reliefs in the Eastern Han Dynasty. At the same time, Ban Gu in the Eastern Han Dynasty introduced Chang 'an's prosperous "Xi Du Fu" as evidence. "This is Yu Ji, which is very close to Kunming Pool. There is a cow on the left and a girl on the right, like a boundless cloud. "

Cowherd and Weaver Girl finally changed from a star in the sky to a portrait of a man and a woman. As for why the image of a man and a woman is adopted, it is probably related to the agricultural culture of men plowing and women weaving that gradually took shape in the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties. The book Guan Zi Liang Jia, written during the Warring States Period, said: "Farmers don't plow, but people are hungry for it. If women don't knit, the people may be cold. " In addition, Jia Yi of the Western Han Dynasty also mentioned in "New Books Without Storage" that "Guanzi" said:' Cang Shi Li knows etiquette; Have plenty of food and clothing, and know the honor and disgrace. "People are not enough. People who can be cured have never tasted it since ancient times. The ancients said:' The husband does not plow, or he is hungry and does not plow; Women don't knit, but it's still cold. "Born as a human being, material resources will be bent if used without restraint."

Although the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl have gained anthropomorphic identity, their relationship and story need to be supplemented. In view of the fact that Altair and Vega are separated by the Milky Way, this astronomical phenomenon is often borrowed by scholars to express the lovesickness caused by the separation of lovers. For example, the poem "Far Altair" in "Nineteen Ancient Poems" at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty: "Far Altair, a cross-toed woman. Skillful hands, make a loom. There is no chapter all day, and tears are pouring down. What's the difference between a clear river and a shallow one? Ying Ying is easy to water, and his pulse is silent. " Another example is "Ge Yan Xing Yi" written by Cao Pi: "The autumn wind is bleak, the weather is slightly cool, the vegetation is shaking and the frost is exposed, and the Yan Ci group belongs to Nanxiang. I miss you and your guests, and my heart breaks. I miss my hometown, so why did you send it to stay for a long time? I am alone in my room, afraid of forgetting my worries, and I don't feel tears on my clothes. With the help of the piano, the strings are ringing and the short songs can't be long. The moon shines on my bed. The stars and the Han Dynasty are still young at night, and the cowherd and the weaver girl are far away, so we can't limit the river beam alone. "

The astronomical phenomenon of the meeting between Altair and Vega on July 7 also gave birth to the legend of the meeting between Altair and Vega. The Moon Order for Four Written by Cui Mang in the Eastern Han Dynasty introduced in detail the folk custom of Tanabata at that time, and mentioned the legend that the cowherd and the weaver girl met.

However, in Tanabata written by Han E in the Tang Dynasty, "The bridge between magpies is finished, and the Weaver Girl will cross". Among them, the quoted material comes from the Tanabata Weaver Crossing the River and Queqiao Meeting written by Ying Shao in the Eastern Han Dynasty, which vividly depicts the scene of Tanabata meeting.

Cowherd and Weaver Girl meet on Tanabata for a reason. Friends can't get together. After all, men and women are different, and only lovers or lovers can meet. This statement was mentioned in the book Continued Harmony written by Wu Jun of Nanliang in the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

Since the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl met on Tanabata as lovers, why should they basically be separated for one year? There are many explanations for this. There is a saying that the weaver girl was punished for being separated from her husband and wife after marriage because she was greedy for the feelings of a small family and slacked off her work. It can be seen that Feng Yingjing's Novel quoted in Nanyun's Generalized Moon Order and July Order in the Ming Dynasty: "To the east of Tianhe, there is a weaver girl, and the son of the Emperor of Heaven is also there. Every year, the loom works and weaves a brocade skirt, which looks too messy. The emperor pitied him for being alone and promised to marry a cowherd in Hexi. After getting married, I gave up knitting. The Emperor of Heaven was furious and died in Hedong, but they met once a year. " The original text of ancient Chinese has not been found, and it is quoted from Textual Research on the Origin of Qixi Culture.

Another way of saying it is that Cowherd borrowed money from Heaven when he got married, and was punished for separation because he didn't pay back his debts after marriage. See the comments after the article "Chronicle of Jingchu Years" by Zong Gu of Nanliang and "Night of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl" by Du Gong Exhibition.

In short, in the Southern Liang Dynasty, there was already a definition of the relationship between cowherd and weaver girl lovers, as well as the outline of their marriage, the separation of Tianhe and the farewell of Queqiao. Since then, this legend has gradually spread and many related poems and songs have been born. The most famous is "Que Qiao Xian" by Qin Guan in the Northern Song Dynasty: "The clouds are cleverly woven, the flying stars spread grievances, and the silver and the Chinese are all dark. On the seventh day of autumn dew and autumn, it is time to meet, mostly those who are together in the world, but the appearance of husband and wife. Tender as water, like a dream, reluctant to go home? If the relationship between the two is long-lasting, is it a matter of time? "

Although there were many poems related to the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl before the Ming Dynasty, its love story was not supplemented in detail until the publication of twelve novels by Zhu during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty.

The novel basically follows the story frame that the weaver girl is punished for abandoning the female worker after marriage. The story can be simply described as that the Golden Boy molested the Weaver Girl before the Jade Emperor arrived, and was punished as a cowherd for thirteen years. During the period, he was bullied by his wife, but fortunately, Jinniu reincarnated as a cow to protect him from death. After the expiration of the sentence, Golden Boy ascended to heaven and stole clothes while Weaver Girl was taking a bath, so Golden Boy Weaver Girl got married. However, the Weaver Girl forgot her vocation because of her lust for marriage, and was sentenced to live in the Yunjin Palace in the east of Tianhe forever, and was not allowed to meet the Cowherd. Later, she was allowed to meet on July 7 every year because of the intercession of Taishang Laojun and Taibai Venus. The plot of the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl is basically what we are familiar with now. Added the identity setting of the cowherd who was descended to the world, the suffering and punishment experience of being bullied by his sister-in-law, the reincarnation of Taurus to protect the friendship between cowherd and weaver girl, and the ambiguous scene of stealing clothes while taking a shower. And expand a short folklore into a novel with rich plots.

The story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, based on the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, was widely circulated and later put on the stage of traditional Chinese opera, among which the representative work was the Peking Opera Tianhe Pei in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. The main idea of the story is, "Businessman Zhang Youcai lives with his brother, Zhang's wife Ga instigates the separation, and his brother Cowherd only gets a head of the old cow. Cow is the lower bound of Taurus. Teach Cowherd to go to Tianhe, steal clothes from Tiansun and Weaver Girl, marry him, cultivate men and Weaver Girl, get married and have a son each. A few years later, the Queen Mother called the Weaver Girl back to heaven, and the Cowherd chased her with her children, which was blocked by Tianhe. Empress Xu and the two meet on Tanabata every year, and birds build bridges to make them farewell. " Compared with The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, there are two major changes. One is that the cowherd steals clothes at the instigation of the old cow after the Weaver Girl came down to earth, instead of meeting the Weaver Girl after the punishment expires. Second, after the marriage, the two plowed the land with joy and amazement. Unexpectedly, the Queen Mother called the Weaver Maid back to heaven and was blocked by the Milky Way. Although the Heaven Emperor/Queen Mother ordered the Cowherd and the Weaver Maid to be separated, the reason for punishment changed from dismissing the Weaver Maid after marriage to observing the heaven that people and gods can't fall in love.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Ye Shengtao published Cowherd and Weaver Girl on the basis of synthesizing various versions of Tianhe Pei and folk stories, and was selected as a primary school textbook. In addition, the film "Cowherd and Weaver Girl" of Huangmei Opera was released in 1963, which further enhanced the awareness of this version of the story among the masses.

The above is the love story of Cowherd and Weaver Girl. They changed from stars in the sky to gods in the Han Dynasty, and were shaped into a man and a woman to adapt to the agricultural culture of men plowing and women weaving. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was widely rumored that they met on Tanabata, confirming the identity relationship between lovers and couples. During the Nanliang period, many literati constructed the basic story framework of marriage, separation and farewell for them. In the Ming Dynasty, their love story was developed in detail in The Legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, and the plot was even more tortuous. Since then, people in the Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China and New China generally followed its story outline, revised some details with the changes of the times, and became widely known by means of textbooks, movies and so on.

The love story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl was finalized in Nanliang, which greatly expanded the details of the story in the Ming Dynasty. Since then, the details of the story have still been modified in various times, and these actions to modify the details reflect the factors of the times.

In the framework of the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl in Nanliang, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl have equal status and are all stars in the sky. However, in the Biography of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl in the Ming Dynasty, although the Cowherd also had immortal status-the Jade Emperor drove the once golden boy and was born for thirteen years, and then in Ye Shengtao's version, his immortal status was completely cancelled, and he was born as a cowherd bullied by his wife. However, the Weaver Girl maintained the noble status of the fairy in the sky from beginning to end.

In addition, among the four folk love stories, The Legend of the White Snake, Liang Zhu and Meng Jiangnu cry in the Great Wall, another theory holds that the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl are not included, but the Seven Fairies match the fairies in Yong Dong. Judging from the setting of the roles of men and women in these five stories, the men are basically weak scholars or cowboys, and their families are generally even poor, while the family identity of the women is obviously higher than that of the men, not. This kind of identity setting that men are superior to women can also be seen in love stories of other dynasties, such as the legend of the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Junrui's Yuan zaju "The West Chamber" and the novel "Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio" in the Qing Dynasty.

Are there some factors of the times behind this sense of superiority? Personally, I think it is related to the popular story type of miss scholar in ancient literary tradition. The popularity of the story that a young lady falls in love with a poor scholar largely satisfies the fantasy of a male scholar. After all, the circulation of novels and other literary works is mainly in the circle of male scholars. Who has never thought that there are beautiful women accompanying tea in the boring reading life? Just as women have become the main consumers of love series at present, the overbearing president's love for Mary Su Chrysanthemum satisfies their psychological needs and fantasies, so they can flourish.

For the first time, the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl joined the plot of the Cowherd stealing clothes while the Weaver Girl was taking a bath, but in fact, similar stories appeared very early. Gambao of the Eastern Jin Dynasty wrote in the Book of Searching for Gods, Volume 14,

The plot of stealing clothes and marrying a woman is summarized as "swan virgin story". The basic prototype of the story is "several birds, usually swans, cranes and peacocks, fly to the lake, take off their feathers and become beautiful women to bathe in the lake. A man fell in love at first sight, and took one of them to marry him with feathers. A beautiful woman found a down jacket a few years after giving birth to a child and threw it away. " Similar storylines also appear in Dai myth Peacock Princess, Japanese Hammer Festival story, and German paper-cut cartoon The Adventures of Prince Ahmed adapted from Arabian Nights.

Since the story of the swan virgin has been spread all over the world, it shows that this story has certain universality. Yuan Ke, an expert on myth research in China, said, "I don't think most myths are fabricated out of thin air. From the mythical and colorful prism, there will always be some twists and turns, reflecting some historical shadows. " . Most ethnic groups in the world have legendary memories of floods. Is there a real custom behind the story of the swan virgin?

Personally, I guess that the story of stealing clothes in the bath may be related to the custom of robbing marriage in ancient society. In the story of the swan virgin, the man steals clothes and forces the woman to be a wife, and the woman looks for an opportunity to leave after giving birth, which shows that marriage is not the original wish of the woman, but actually a robbery. It is not uncommon to rob marriage as a custom in ancient society. For example, Genghis Khan, a Mongolian, was robbed of his marriage by his father. The myth that directly reflects the custom of robbing marriage is that Zeus turned into a golden bull and robbed the Phoenician princess Europa.

3. The reason for the separation of the cowherd and the weaver girl-the reason for the punishment of the changes of the times.

The fact that the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl were separated by the Emperor/Empress Dowager after marriage has not changed in the stories of past dynasties, and it is only the reason why the Jade Emperor/Empress Dowager issued the punishment. After Nanliang laid the story frame of Cowherd and Weaver Girl, most later generations accepted the plot setting of Weaver Girl being punished for abandoning her post after marriage. For example, Zhang Lei in the Northern Song Dynasty wrote in Song of Qixi.

In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu wrote The Legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl to convince the world. Therefore, based on the story that my wife bullied the cowherd and was reported by Le Monde, she advised the world that the natural situation was not as good as Ma Shi instead of being honest with others. She advised people not to covet the love of the small family whose cowherd and weaver girl resigned after marriage. "There is no golden couple, and there is no inexperienced grandson who just got married." At this time, the punishment reason for the separation of Cowherd and Weaver Girl is that the young couple are greedy for money and forget their roots, which violates the traditional agricultural family morality.

But by the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the reason why the Queen Mother separated the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl was to ask the Weaver Girl to abide by the heaven rule that people and gods could not fall in love. On the one hand, this is the popular bridge of love tragedy, on the other hand, it coincides with the anti-feudal patriarchal view of love and the pursuit of freedom of marriage. But 1963 movie "Cowherd and Weaver Girl" compares the prosperity of the world with the desolation of heaven, so as to emphasize the great happiness of working people, and the love of Cowherd and Weaver Girl becomes secondary. Among them, there is such a aria between the cowherd and the weaver girl who was taken back to heaven.

After the reform and opening up, love has been sought after again, especially Valentine's Day in the west is well known, and the position of Tanabata with love as the theme has been improved in traditional festivals. As Koichiro Kobo, a Japanese scholar who studies the myths and legends of China, said, "A work must have a specific position and role in a certain era, which can also be said to be the objective' meaning' of the work." The theme advertised in the story of Cowherd and Weaver Girl has gradually changed from the teaching of newlyweds in traditional society to the affirmation of free pursuit of love in the new era.

For this article, I came into contact with many strange mythical figures and names in China. For example, who knows the names of (), Mu (,), Shui (* * * Gong/Xuanming), Huo (Zhu Rong) and Tu (Houtu)? Even when it comes to mysterious palm, goddess of mending heaven and empress dowager, I basically don't know the mythological tradition of China represented by these names.

Forgetting is the sharpest knife, which can erase all traces of existence. In Natsume's friend's account, with the death of the last person who believed in him, the dew god disappeared. In Inside Out, the ice peak fell into the abyss of forgetting and disappeared. In Dream Journey, the real death of the undead is not remembered by the living. The same is true of myths from the depths of history, which are lost in the dust of history when no one cares.

People of all ages can't tell the myth from tradition that it wants to gain lasting vitality. Only by keeping pace with the times and constantly integrating into the factors of the new era can we be reborn, just as Nezha, who is in full swing, joined the theme of modern father-son relationship, and Nezha was reborn.

References:

1. Unless otherwise specified, the original texts of ancient Chinese are all quoted from the electronic edition plan of China philosophy books. /new detail _ forward _ 1777065。