The Twenty-Eight Constellations are the ancient Chinese’s classification of the stars near the ecliptic. The earth's orbit around the sun is the ecliptic, but in the eyes of the ancients, it was the sun that was obviously revolving around the earth, so it was called the "ecliptic". We call it "Twenty-Eight Constellations".
The Twenty-eight Constellations have been written about by poets many times because they have a broad foundation among Chinese folk. The ones listed above in the Book of Songs include Ansinus, Rigel, Bisu, and Dousu. , Jisu, etc.
The Tang Dynasty poet Wang Bo's "Preface to Tengwang Pavilion": "The old county of Yuzhang is the new mansion of Hongdu. The stars are divided into wings, and the ground is connected to Henglu." Nanchang, where Tengwang Pavilion is located, corresponds to the stars in the sky: Yisu and Zhensu are therefore "the stars are divided into Wings and Zhen". Huang Tingjian, a poet of the Song Dynasty, wrote a poem called "Twenty-eight Astrology Songs for Farewell", which included all the Twenty-Eight Astrology in one farewell poem. The stars in the sky change in a yearly cycle, while the moon moves in a monthly cycle. Therefore, in the eyes of the ancients, the stars changed less, and it seemed as if the moon was traveling through the stars. There is this passage in "Ode to the Former Red Cliff" by Su Shi, a writer of the Song Dynasty: "In the autumn of Renxu, we are looking forward to the seventh month. Su Zi and his guests went boating under the red cliff... After a while, the moon rose above the east mountain and wandered. "Between bullfights." It is written that the moon seems to be lingering between the constellations of Dipper and Ox. The most famous star is probably the North Star, because it is the center point around which all the stars in the sky rotate. Confucius said: "Government is based on virtue, like Beichen, where the stars live and shine." "Preface to Prince Teng's Pavilion" writes: "The terrain is extremely extreme, but the south is deep, the sky pillar is high, and Beichen is far away." Du Fu's "Climbing the Tower" " wrote: "The North Pole court will never change, and the Xishan bandits will not invade each other." This is enough to illustrate the status of the North Star in the minds of the ancients.
The earth rotates around its axis, and the earth's axis points directly to the North Celestial Pole at an oblique angle. Due to the slight polarization of the earth's axis, Polaris does not always remain unchanged, but is in the small area pointed by the earth's axis. The stars take turns to serve. The current Polaris is Alpha in the constellation Ursa Minor. According to calculations, after 14,000 years, Vega will be closest to the North Celestial Pole, but the Polaris will be Vega.
"The Book of Songs·Xiaoya·Dadong" records: "There is Qiming in the east and Changgeng in the west." It means that there is a bright star in the east called "Morning Star" and a bright star in the west called "Changgeng Star" ", and very early on, people knew that the two stars were actually one.
"Han Shi Wai Zhuan" explains: "When Taibai goes out to the east in the morning, it is Qiming, and when it sees the west in the evening, it is Chang Geng." Taibai is Venus, which is the brightest celestial body in the sky besides the sun and the moon. Appears in the east at dawn and in the west at dusk.
Dawn and dusk are when the sun and moon disappear and the stars do not appear. There is only one Venus shining like a diamond in the sky.
In Li Bai's poems, there is a sentence: "The lonely moon is on the Canglang River, the Han Dynasty is clear, and the Beidou is scattered across the Chang Geng Ming Dynasty." It is said that Li Bai's mother dreamed of the Taibai Star in her arms when she was pregnant, so his father named him "Li Bai" ", the word is Taibai, so Li Bai has special feelings for Taibai star. He described the Taibai Star: "It's too white, how pale it is. The stars are in the forest. Three hundred miles away from the sky, Miao'er is unique in the world." This aloof bright star is also himself. In another song "Climbing Taibai Peak", Li Bai wrote: Climbing Taibai Peak in the west, climbing at sunset. Taibai spoke to me and opened the heavens for me. There are three Taibais, Taibai Peak, Taibai Star and Li Taibai, in one poem, which is very interesting.
Venus is a planet, and the brightest star in the sky besides the sun is Sirius. Su Shi wrote in "Jiangchengzi·Hunting in Mizhou": "I will draw the eagle bow like the full moon, look northwest, and shoot at Sirius." Sirius is located in the constellation Canis Major, and usually appears together with Orion, located at the lower left of Orion. In Western astronomical mythology, it looks like an Orion with his hounds, fortified and ready to fight the oncoming Taurus. In the astronomical system of ancient my country, Sirius is a star that represents aggression and war. In Su Shi's poem, it represents Xixia, which just had a war with the Northern Song Dynasty. Therefore, the sentence "Look northwest, shoot at Sirius" expresses It expresses the poet's good wish to quell the war of aggression.
In short, the sun, moon and stars mentioned in ancient poems have both astronomical and literary meanings. From an astronomical point of view, when contemporary scholars are carrying out the "Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasty Project", they have gone through many years of textual research and relied on records of astronomical phenomena in ancient books. And based on the level of modern advanced science and technology, we can infer what astronomical phenomena occurred on a certain night thousands of years ago or thousands of years later, or what the celestial phenomena will be like that night.