Silk and Ancient Poetry

China's literary works on silk are rich and colorful. Starting from the earliest collection of poems, The Book of Songs, until today, many literati and ink poets have written poems and paintings on silk. Especially in the well-known Tang and Song poems in Chinese history, many famous poets such as Li Bai, Bai Juyi, Du Fu, Li Shangyin, Wang Changling, Fan Chengda, Lu You, Su Shi and so on made poems with silk as their content or metaphor. Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty ordered Jiao Bingzhen, a famous painter at that time, and Zhu Gui and Mei Yufeng, a famous sculptor at that time, to draw 23 pictures of "Royal Farming and Weaving Pictures" from silkworm bathing to ready-made clothes, and inscribed one inscription on each picture. There are also many descriptions of silk in the famous Chinese literary works such as A Dream of Red Mansions and Jin Ping Mei. There are also modern writer Mao Dun's Spring Silkworm and so on. Here are two poems by Bai Juyi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty.

Red Line Blanket

"Red thread blanket, cocoon reeling, water boiling, silk picking, red and blue dyeing. Dyed as red thread in the flower, woven for the carpet of the Hall of Dressed Incense. The hall is more than ten feet wide and the red thread is woven into a palace shop. Colorful silk and velvet fragrance brush, soft thread and flowers are invincible; Beauty steps on singing and dancing, socks and embroidered shoes do not follow. Taiyuan carpet is astringent and hard, and Shudu's mattress is thin and brocade flowers are cold; instead, it is gentle and gentle. Every October, Xuanzhou comes to Xuanzhou. Xuanzhou Taishou adds sample weaving, claiming to be a minister who can do his best; Hundreds of husbands join the palace. Thick wire can not be rolled up. Does Xuanzhou know too well? A blanket, twelve thousand silks, I do not know the cold people to warm, less clothing for lichens.

Note: This poem is selected from Article 29 of New Yuefu. Red thread carpet is a kind of silk carpet produced in Xuanzhou (now Xuancheng County, Anhui Province), which was once a fine tribute product. The author severely condemns Taishou's crime of wasting human and material resources arbitrarily in order to please the supreme ruler without any consideration for the hard work of weavers, and expresses deep sympathy for the life of the poor people.

Dazzling

"Why is it so dazzling, unlike Luo Qian and Wan Qian, it should be like a 45-foot waterfall spring on the Tiantai Mountains before the moonrise? Some articles are very beautiful, with white fireworks and snow on the ground. Who is the weaver, who is the dresser? Yuexi Han Female Palace Girl. In the middle of last year, Xuankou was sent to take samples of human weaving from the sky. It is woven as an autumn geese journey outside the clouds and dyed as spring water in the south of the Yangtze River. Broad-cut shirt sleeve long skirt, golden iron knife bent pattern. The Hall of splendor reflects each other, turning around to see the flowers are uncertain. Zhaoyang dancers are deeply benevolent, and spring clothes are a pair of straight gold. Sweat is no longer stained with powder, and the earth treads on the mud with no pity. It takes a lot of merit to weave a dazzling silk. Many women have painful hands, and their voices are not too loud. The singers and dancers in Zhaoyang Hall should also be sorry when they see weaving.

Note: This poem is selected from Article 31 of New Yuefu. Qi is a kind of precious silk fabric in Tang Dynasty. The official clothes worn by officials in Tang Dynasty were made of different levels of silk. The size of official positions can be seen from the quality of the official clothes they wore. Liuyi is a kind of time-consuming and labor-consuming fabric in Tang Dynasty. It is produced in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province. The author describes a series of difficult techniques, such as silk reeling, weaving, dyeing and ironing, while lamenting that such a valuable silk fabric, the upper rulers did not cherish it at all, with a strong contrast.

—— Information Source: China Science Popularization Expo