The Yuefu poem "Folding the Willow Songs" in the Southern and Northern Dynasties has a cloud:
If you don't catch the whip when you get on the horse, you will fold Yang Liuzhi.
playing the flute in your seat is worrying about killing travelers.
Why didn't the traveler in the poem take the whip? Instead, he broke off Yang Liuzhi, dismounted and sat there to play the flute (the ancients cut off the tender willow branches, removed the woody stems from the stems, and left the bark of the stems, which could be blown with a little trimming at one end, just like a flute, also called a willow flute or a willow whistle)? And "worry about killing"?
It turns out that the ancients had a habit of using homophony to imply. "Liu" and "Liu" are homonyms, therefore, willow is used to express the meaning of retention (the so-called poplar and willow in the ancients are actually a plant). Therefore, when the "traveler" in the above poem sees the willow after getting on the horse, he will think of "staying" and feel nostalgic for his hometown. He broke off the willow branches and got off the horse, played the flute, and stayed in the same place, but he had to leave, so he had the language of "worrying about killing".
The fourth poem of the same poem sings again:
Looking at Mengjin River from a distance, the willows are swaying.
I'm Lu Jiaer, and I don't understand Chinese children's songs.
When "Traveler" yearns for his hometown and sings the farewell song of "Willow", his companion is a barbarian. Just because he doesn't understand the homophonic meaning of "Liu" and "Liu" in Chinese, he doesn't understand the feelings of his companions, so he says, "I'm a traveler and don't understand Chinese children's songs." We can only look at the scenery, but we can't understand the feelings.
In order to express the feelings of "retention" and "nostalgia", when the ancients bid farewell, they often gave a gift to Monkey from Yang Liuzhi, a roadside, as a token of their deep affection. Therefore, Wang Zhihuan's "Farewell" poem says:
The willow trees are in the east gate, and the green trees are in the royal river.
I've suffered a lot recently, which should be due to my separation.
Sometimes, in order to remember relatives and friends who have left their hometown, they send them to Yang Liuzhi to express their feelings. For example, Zhang Jiuling's poem "Folding the Willow" wrote:
Fold the willow with fine fibers, and show their love to others.
how expensive is a branch? Compassion is the spring of hometown.
The act of breaking willows is a farewell gesture and a sign that pedestrians are willing to stay, but they can't stay at last. This helpless mood is aptly described in Luo Yin's poem Willow:
It's sunny on the shore to bid farewell frequently, and it's hard to stay close to each other.
I'm still undecided, and I'm fighting for someone to trip over the strip.
In ancient times, there was a flute playing song "Folding Willow". When people heard the flute playing this song, it would also be associated with the image of willow and increase homesickness. Therefore, Du Fu once asked in "Blowing the flute": "The old garden willow has fallen, but why do you have to worry about it?" Li Bai's "Sai Xia Qu": "It snows in the Tianshan Mountains in May, and there is no flower but cold. I smell the willow in the flute, but I haven't seen the spring scenery. " He complained that it was still snowing in May outside the Great Wall, and he couldn't see the spring scenery and willows, which really increased the homesickness of travelers.