Spring couplets, also called "door pairs" and "spring posts", have a long history and evolved from peach charms. It is said that in ancient times, there were two brothers "Tu" and "Yulei" who were good at catching ghosts. Therefore, five generations ago, people wrote their names as "Shentu" and "Yulei" on New Year's Eve in order to ward off evil spirits and ward off ghosts. (For the sake of symmetry, add the word "神" before tea), carve it on peach wood and hang it at the door. Gao Cheng recorded in "Shi Jiyuan": "On the first day of the Yuan Dynasty, peach boards were placed on the door, which was called fairy wood, because the peaches on the mountain were feared by hundreds of ghosts." The next year, replace the old with the new. Wang Anshi, the great poet of the Northern Song Dynasty, famously said: "Thousands of households always exchange new peaches for old charms every day." This is the portrayal of this scene.
When did the first Spring Festival couplets originate? When did the practice of pasting Spring Festival couplets flourish? There are different opinions and there are as many as eight or nine different opinions. Now we will introduce two kinds: a more common theory is that the first Spring Festival couplets were made by Meng Chang, Emperor of Shu during the Five Dynasties. The emperor, who was about to be destroyed by Zhao Kuangyin, had a hobby. Every New Year's Eve, he summoned the academicians to the palace and asked them to write inscriptions on the peach symbols in the palace. This year he was very dissatisfied with the inscriptions of the bachelors, so he wrote two sentences himself:
New Year's Eve Celebration
Festival Number Changchun
This is what later generations consider to be the first Spring Festival couplets. The emperor wrote these two sentences unintentionally, just for good luck and celebration, and did not want to say two things accidentally. That is, after the New Year, the Northern Song Dynasty general Lu Yuqing led an army to destroy his Shu Shu. Zhao Kuangyin unified China and established the Song Dynasty. After the emperor ascended the throne, he decided to make his birthday a national festival and named it Changchun Festival. You see, isn't this "New Year's Eve Celebration, Festival Number Changchun"?
Some people say that is not true. The origin of Spring Festival couplets is hundreds of years earlier. It should be considered the couplets of the Liang Dynasty writer Liu Xiaochuo and his sister Liu Lingxian in the Southern Dynasty. According to the record in "The Complete Works of Tan Sitong·Shi Ju Yinglu Notes": Liu Xiaochuo was dismissed from office and hid in his home. He posted a couplet on the door of his home: "Let's stop to celebrate the funeral and lie down high to thank the minister." Mr. Liu's sister, Ms. Liu Lingxian, also posted a couplet: "The fallen flowers are still closed, and the orchids are picked back to life." People say that this is the origin of Spring Festival couplets. We can see from the development of poetic rhythm that in the Liang Dynasty of the Southern Dynasty, a new "Yongming style" poem that emphasized neat counterpoints and flat tones and rhymes had appeared. It is not unreasonable to regard such antithetical sentences posted on the door as the beginning of Spring Festival couplets. .
Lianhe really flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Another emperor must be mentioned here, that is, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, who did not know a few Chinese characters. Emperor Zhu loved Spring Festival couplets and was called the "Emperor of Couplets" by later generations. Chen Yunzhan of the Qing Dynasty recorded in his "Miscellaneous Notes on the Hairpin Yulou" that the emperor once issued an imperial edict that ordered every household in Jinling, the capital, to post Spring Festival couplets on New Year's Eve, regardless of dignitaries or ordinary people. Do you think who would dare to resist the emperor's order? Don't even need your head anymore. Moreover, the emperor even left the palace incognito and went to the streets to view various Spring Festival couplets in person. It is said that when he came to a house, he found that the house had not posted Spring Festival couplets. After asking carefully, it turned out that the owner of the house was a castrate. Because he was illiterate and could not find anyone to write them, he did not post them. The emperor was so inspired that he wrote a couplet for the family:
Split the road of life and death with both hands
Cut off the root of right and wrong with one knife
This great man The Spring Festival couplets written by the old and rough emperor are both rough and elegant, and a bit interesting.
In the past, there were many things to pay attention to when posting Spring Festival couplets. In Beijing, the inner court and the palaces of princes and princes all use white rice paper edged with red, common people all use red paper, those who keep the system (that is, those who have lost their father or mother) use blue paper, and temples use yellow paper.
Spring couplets are a type of couplets, so writing Spring couplets must meet various requirements for couplets. The number of characters in the upper and lower couplets must be the same, the parts of speech must be consistent, the syntax must be the same, and the oblique and oblique tones must be opposed. It reads like this Only then can it be catchy.
The content of the Spring Festival couplets is auspicious and festive, writing good wishes, praising the beautiful spring, poetic and picturesque, and all kinds of joy, all condensed in these short two couplets, which is pleasing to the eye. For example, the common traditional couplets: "Tian Zeng As time goes by, people live longer, and spring fills the universe with blessings." "Spring is green again, and apricot blossoms are still red." etc. have been circulating for many years, and people have written countless New Year's couplets, such as: "A prosperous year brings blessings to life." Like the sea, the willows are dark and the flowers are bright and spring is like the tide.” People also use the unique characteristics of Chinese and Chinese characters to create some unique Spring Festival couplets with unique ingenuity. Some industry store couplets fall into this category, such as:
Getting started is all about Danguanke
No one should scratch your head after leaving
Get a perm and hair extension to remove the old look
Get a hair dryer and shave to get a new look
This is easy to see It is a barber and beauty shop. In recent years, some cultural figures also like to write personalized Spring Festival couplets to express their feelings. A Mr. Zheng from Hangzhou was very concerned about the lives of the Three Gorges immigrants in Hangzhou, so he wrote a Spring Festival couplet:
The blue waves of the West Lake wave in the river, and the waves surge into the blue waves
The host of the Three Gorges immigrants in Hangzhou The guest becomes the host
The horizontal line is: ***Build harmony
This Spring Festival couplet is worthy of praise both in content and words. Some Spring Festival couplets are humorous and full of fun, making people laugh after reading them. It is said that there was a poor scholar whose family was extremely poor. He saw other people celebrating the New Year with a lot of fish and meat, but he was short of money, so he wrote a Spring Festival couplet and posted it on the door:
Others celebrate the New Year by eight on the second
I bid farewell to the New Year.
Everyone couldn’t understand it. After thinking about it carefully, they suddenly realized that everyone else eats dumplings during the New Year. When making dumplings, eight fingers are used to make dumplings. Below, two fingers are kneading on top. His family eats corn steamed buns during the Chinese New Year. When making steamed buns, nine fingers are on the outside of the dough and one finger is used as the hole. This gentleman is using Spring Festival couplets to make a joke with himself and everyone. It can also be regarded as "poor and happy", let's have a happy New Year.