师永涛
在唐人的笔下,江南的意象不断被呈现与赞美,使江南变为一种文化的象征,成为唐人心中的桃花源。
南北朝时期,中国历史上出现了历时270多年的“南北战争”。在南北朝两百多年的动乱后,隋朝统一了南北,在隋朝38年的国祚中,又有一半时间是在征伐和内乱。我们常说,唐代是中国融合的时代,这不仅仅是多民族间的融合,还包括南北方汉族之间的融合。毕竟,近300年的刀光剑影、恩怨情仇之后,尽管国家统一了,人们之间的谅解却仍需要经历时间的打磨。
到了唐代中期,南北经过近百年的休养生息,终于有了和平的盛世。于是唐代旅行蔚然成风,唐人的脚步遍布帝国的东西南北。唐代人旅行有两个热门的区域:一个是“功名只向马上取”的西域,另一个便是江南。
那么为什么唐人热衷南下呢?
唐人眼中的南方
南北朝时期,以长江为界,中国南北方的文化各有鲜明的特色,也是从此时开始,有了南方北方文化的论争。《世说新语》就有记载——东晋名士褚季野语孙安国云:“北人学问,渊综广博。”孙答曰:“南人学问,清通简要。”于是,沿着隋人刚开通的运河南下,去北人近300年都没有近距离接触的南方,便成了一种时尚。
唐人眼中的南方,和我们今天北方人认知的南方几乎是一样的。贞观元年,唐政府通过“山河形便”也就是以自然的山脉、河流走向为分界依据,把全国分为十道:关内道、河南道、河东道、河北道、山南道、陇右道、淮南道、江南道、剑南道、岭南道。“道”这个概念和法国的行政区划很相似,法国起初把80多个省份按历史、地理渊源划分为十几个“大区”,只不过唐代的“道”有行政区划的意义,但不行使行政功能,属于中央派员巡视的监察区。
唐代的北方是由以關中为核心的关内道、陇山以西的陇右道、黄河与太行山之间的河东道和太行山以东以黄河为界的河南道、河北道组成。南方则由除了河南道之外的五个名字中带“南”的道组成,恰好就是秦岭、淮河一线的南方,这和今天我们对于中国南北的划分是一致的。
唐代的江南是一个很大的范围,包含了今天中国的中南和江南两部分,我们今天的江南概念则更多是指江浙。在唐代,江浙一般被称为吴越,后期才逐渐用江南指代。有意思的是,今天我们看中央电视台天气预报,经常会听到“江南中南部”、“江南大部”这样的说法,这个江南地区,指的就是唐代江南道的范围,包括湖南和湖北的长江南部、江西、安徽的皖南、江苏的苏南、浙江北部,都在江南的范围之内。
唐代宗大历四年(公元769年)的春天,诗人杜甫在潭州(今天的长沙),和流落长沙的著名音乐家李龟年重逢,他回忆起在岐王和崔九的府第频繁相见和听歌的情景,感慨万千,于是写下了《江南逢李龟年》:“岐王宅里寻常见,崔九堂前几度闻。正是江南好风景,落花时节又逢君。”杜甫诗中的江南指的就是湖南。
唐人心中的桃花源
当时唐帝国的政治中心在以长安、洛阳为主的黄河流域,江南是六朝故地,六朝时期赫赫有名的诗人谢灵运、陶渊明、鲍照、谢朓(tiǎo)、阴铿、何逊、庾信等诗人的生活和创作活动都主要在江南一带。这些诗人的作品对唐代的诗歌创作曾产生过很大影响,他们作品中写到的江南旖旎秀美的山水和各种动人的故事,对有唐一代的诗人们有着极大的吸引力。要知道《隋书·经籍志》所著录的南北朝文学家,北朝作家仅16位,而南朝作家入录者达306位,江南文采之盛可见一斑。而大运河的开通,让北方关中和关东的门阀子弟、士子有了南下一览南朝瑰丽风景的机会。
唐人南下最主要是去吴越之地,也就是今天的浙江、江苏。有唐一代,几乎所有知名的诗人都有沿着运河自北而下漫游吴越的经历。
王勃25岁时,(唐高宗上元二年,即公元675年)从洛阳出发沿运河南下,漫游江南,一度南到交趾(又名“交阯”,中国古代地名,位于今越南北部红河流域);杜甫20岁(公元731年)漫游吴越;在此之前的唐玄宗开元十七年(公元729年),41岁的孟浩然离开长安,辗转于襄阳、洛阳,夏季游吴越;开元十三年(725年),李白出蜀,“仗剑去国,辞亲远游”第一次漫游吴越,此后公元739年,38岁时又南下金陵、扬州,过了17年,55岁的李白第三次东游吴越。
大量文人士子在沿着运河向南漫游的过程中,为唐诗提供了“江行诗”这一种重要的诗歌内容,而且常年的远游,让“漂泊”这个意向和精神成了唐诗中和“送别”并行的文学母题。
之所以是北人南下来游历,而不是南人北上,很大一部分原因是唐代的士子大多是关东及关陇士族。一个例子可以说明,据《新唐书·宰相世系表》统计,若以秦岭、淮河一线为界,以唐玄宗时期的南北15道为准(开元年间在贞观10道的基础上增加为15道),则此线以北的北方七道共出宰相308人,占宰相总数的85.1%,而以南的南方八道总共才有54位宰相,仅占总数的14.9%。可见,南、北方的差异是非常悬殊的,北方占绝对优势,南方宰相数的总和尚不及河北一道之数。
检索《全唐诗》数据库,题目包含“江南”的唐诗共244首,以《忆江南》直接为题的唐诗有25首。在唐人的笔下,江南的意象不断被呈现与赞美,使江南成为一种文化的象征,成为唐人心中的桃花源。
杜牧说:“何事明朝独惆怅,杏花时节在江南。”白居易的《忆江南》三首被称为“江南三叠”,成为后世对江南最经典的印象。就连著名的边塞诗人岑参也说:“枕上片时春梦中,行尽江南数千里。”唐诗中江南的美好,对后世产生了极大的影响,台湾诗人余光中有一首著名的诗《春天,遂想起》,首句是这样的:“春天,遂想起/江南/唐诗里的江南。”
(本文图片来自视觉中国)
Jiangnan: A Must-See Wonderland in Tang Dynasty
By Shi Yongtao
The Tang Dynasty (618-907) ended a 300-year tumult in which short-lived dynasties rose and fell. The new dynastys prosperity and peace made it possible for people to travel across the country freely. In the Tang, travelers moved largely in two directions. For some, the west border was their destination where they braved challenges and hardships in a bid to cut a brilliant figure in military campaigns. In the opposite direction, poets traveled southward to visit Jiangnan, a general name for the region south of the Yangtze River.
Jiangnan in the history changed its geographic definition several times. Even today, where Jiangnan is still blurs. For many people of today, Jiangnan refers only to a region that includes the south of Jiangsu and north of Zhejiang and Shanghai in between. But for the weather forecasters at CCTV, Chinas largest television network, Jiangnan is much broader. Jiangnan in CCTV weather forecasts includes a wide area extending to Hunan, Anhui and Jiangxi along the Yangtze River in present-day central and eastern China. It coincides with the Jiangnan in the Tang, as testified by numerous poems written in the dynasty.
Poets of the Tang were fascinated by Jiangnan largely because the poets of the six dynasties from the third century to the sixth century in the south wrote nature poems. These poems are unusual in the history of Chinese poetry. They were nature poems, unseen and unheard of before and they portrayed a gorgeous beauty of nature unseen and unheard of before. In the three hundred years before the Tang, the best known poets largely lived in the south. A book written in the Sui Dynasty (581-617) records a list of literary masters: 16 from the north and 306 from the south. The Sui Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty shifted the political and economic and cultural center back to the north, but the poems written by the poets in the south remained fascinating.
Their poems impacted the Tang poets. They wished to take a look at the natural and cultural wonders of the south and traveled southward largely by the Grand Canal which in the Tang Dynasty connected Luoyang in present-day Henan Province and Hangzhou in Zhejiang. Almost all the important poets of the Tang visited Jiangnan, that is, the Jiangnan of today. For example, Wang Bo started his south journey at age 25. Du Fu, one of the greatest poets of the Tang, traveled through Jiangnan at the age of 20. Meng Haoran visited Jiangnan at 41. Li Bai tripped through Jiangnan three times in his lifetime. Their visits to the south gave birth to poems that depict river journeys, goodbyes, and adventures. , put together in 1705 to 1706 by scholars of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), counts 244 poems about Jiangnan including 25 titled .
In the Tang Dynasty, the development of China was still uneven. The north was culturally dominant. In the 289 years of the Tang Dynasty, the north produced 308 prime ministers whereas the south contributed only 54. Most scholars in the north were highly curious about the poems written about Jiangnan by the poets in the 300 years prior to the Tang. These poems offered an insight into the scenic south that appeared celestially beautiful. So poets from the north came to visit the south and wrote poems that outshone those by their processors and have come down to us today. The poems about Jiangnan written in the Tang romanticized the region and combined to turn it into a legendary Shangri-La: peace, prosperity, home for heart and soul, spectacular and lyrical nature, rural beauty, springtime, Zen, wild dreams, boats, lotuses, wine, silk, flowers, mountains and rivers and ponds, the moon, beautiful women.