Li Bai is a well-deserved elder brother in the Tang Dynasty poetry circle. His song “Silent Night Thoughts”, “The bright moonlight in front of the bed is suspected to be frost on the ground. Raise your head to look at the bright moon, and bow your head to think of your hometown”, which can be said to be known by all women and children.
The version we are reciting now is adapted by later generations.
For so many years, we have all recited “Silent Night Thoughts” by mistake. We only knew after reading the original poem.
The moonlight in front of the bed is suspected to be frost on the ground.
Raise your head to look at the mountains and the moon, and bow your head to think of your hometown.
This is the Song Dynasty version, “Li Taibai” Collected Works”, “Yuefu Poems” and so on are all “Looking at the Moonlight” and “Looking at the Moon on the Mountains”.
It is said that Japan’s Jingjiatang Library also collected “Li Taibai’s Collected Works”. At that time, the Japanese highly advocated the Tang poetry culture and did not change it.
So this version of Song people is more recognized by later generations.
During the Ming Dynasty, Huang Xiyuan et al. “Ten Thousand Quatrains of the Tang Dynasty” has been sorted out and revised, the third sentence “looking at the mountain and the moon” has been changed to “looking at the bright moon”.
In the Qing Dynasty, when Shen Deqian was compiling “Different Poems of Tang Poems”, he changed the “moonlight” in the first sentence to “bright moonlight” .
Some people say that this was adapted by the Han people for the purpose of “fighting the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty”, which may be one of the reasons.
During the reign of Qianlong, Tuishi Hengtang made reference to Huang Xiyuan and Shen Deqian’s changes when compiling “Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty”, so it became what we know today as “Bright Moonlight”. “, “Looking at the bright moon”.
After the “Three Hundred Poems of Tang Dynasty” came out, so the original version of Li Bai’s gradually ignored.
Now let’s take a look, why is Li Bai’s original poem more artistic?
Let’s say the first sentence “Look at the moonlight in front of the bed”.
So don’t look at the tacky word “see”, in fact, it has an indescribable melancholy with the moon.
Du Fu once said, “Tonight, the moon in Kunzhou, the boudoir only looks at it”, Yan Jidao’s “Remembering Feiqiong to watch the sleep of the moon”…
A word “watch” is invisible It deepened his homesickness.
Let’s look at the third sentence “Looking up at the mountains and the moon”, in fact, for this sentence, many Everyone thinks that “Mountain Moon” is more artistic than “Mingyue”.
It also fits the theme better.
“Looking at the mountains and the moon”, when he looked up, he could only see the distant mountains and the bright moon, but not his hometown.
So “Mountain Moon” is not only more artistic than “Mingyue”, but also more able to highlight the theme of “Homesickness”.