陶渊明杂述五题

Five Miscellaneous Discussions over Tao Yuanming

陶渊明诗歌中偶用《周易》的卦名很得要领,前人或谓"陶诗用卦名不甚可解",因前人所据之版本有误,所以议论不确。陶诗中不大涉及时政,对于那些一般认为是大事的军政时事,往往仅以碎屑视之。陶渊明对生死看得很淡,曾在《挽歌诗》直截了当地说,随着时间的推移,死亡引起的哀伤是早晚会淡化以至于终结的,此乃见道之言。陶诗中涉及大量历史人物,有些知名度并不甚高,但总是同他本人切身的经历和感慨联系在一起,值得逐一细加揣摩。陶渊明为孟嘉立传,大谈自己的家族与桓氏家族的历史渊源亲密关系,流露了他的某种政治态度。陶渊明对东晋王朝完全没有忠心耿耿、奉若神明的意思,当时这样的士大夫相当不少。

In Tao Yuanming’s poems, the occasional use of divinatory symbols from The Book of Changes is quite to the point. Therefore, the ancient comment that “the divinatory symbols used in Tao’s poems are unintelligible” is inaccurate because the critic based his remark on the wrong edition of Tao’s works. Tao’s poems rarely touched upon the affairs of the time, and usually made light of the major military and political affairs considered by the general public. Tao Yuanming also took a light attitude to life and death, and stated straightforwardly in his poem Eulogy that the sorrow of death would diminish and disappear soon or later with the passage of time, which showed his deep understanding of life philosophy. Tao’s poems involved numerous historical fgures, and some of these people were not quite famous, but they are worthy of careful study as they were related to Tao’s individual life experience and refection. Tao Yuanming wrote a biography for Meng Jia, and talked a lot about the historical origin and close relationship between his own family and the Huan Family, which revealed to some extent his political attitude. Tao Yuanming showed no loyalty to and worship of the East Jin Dynasty, and the practice was shared by quite a lot of scholars during the time.