Chapter 31 Dogwood Mystery

The status of cornel in Chinese poetry is very special.Qu Yuan once said in "Li Sao": "Jiao is dedicated to being slow, and the chrysanthemum wants to be used as a husband's adornment." Obviously he thinks that the chrysanthemum is a kind of bad grass that is not suitable to be contained in a sachet and worn on the body of a gentleman.樧, that is, Cornus officinalis.Thousands of years later, under the pens of Tang people, the image of Zhuyu has changed greatly.Wang Wei's "I knew my brother climbed a high place, and there was one less person who planted cornel everywhere", and Du Fu's "I will know who is healthy next year, and I will look carefully at the cornel when I am drunk", all of which are famous lines chanting Chongyang.The weed that Qu Yuan loathed turned into a beautiful decoration that Tang people loved, and the process in the process is worth investigating.

Chongjiu is a very poetic festival in Chinese folklore, such as climbing a height, dropping hats, chrysanthemums, dogwood, etc., are all images that are used to be included in poems.The tradition of ascending heights is generally believed to be based on such a passage in "Xu Qi Xie Ji": "Runan Huan Jing traveled with Fei Changfang for many years. The Changfang said: 'On September 9, there should be a Disaster. It is better to go there urgently. Let the family members make crimson pouches, fill them with dogwood to tie their arms, and drink chrysanthemum wine when climbing high. The long house heard it and said: 'This can be replaced.' Today, people in the world go up to drink wine on nine days, and women wear cornel pouches, and the cover starts here."

The tradition of poetry recitation in Chongjiu was probably formed between the Jin and Song Dynasties.Erxie climbed the stage and wrote poems, Meng Jia dropped his hat, and Tao Qian chanted chrysanthemums, all of which were elegant things passed down at that time.Only the case of cornel seems to be an exception. The author of "Continued Qi Harmony" is Wu Jun from the Liang Dynasty, while Huan Jing and Fei Changfang are said to be from the Eastern Han Dynasty.According to "Xu Qi Xie Ji", the customs of climbing high, drinking chrysanthemum wine, and carrying dogwood sacs were quite popular in Liang Dynasty, but their origins were in the Eastern Han Dynasty.However, Jia Peilan in "Xijing Miscellaneous Notes" says that the people of Han Gaozu's palace "wear dogwood on September 9, eat canopy bait, and drink chrysanthemum wine, and the clouds make people live longer."If this statement is credible, the custom of Chongjiu should be pushed from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the early Han Dynasty.But no matter what we believe in "Xijing Miscellaneous Notes" or "Continued Qi Harmony", it seems that only women wore dogwood in the first place.Not only that, in the poems of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there are very few works chanting dogwood.

In the Tang Dynasty, the situation changed.Cornel has not only become a man's beauty decoration, but also a favorite of poets.Women at that time still wore this flower, but it seemed that Jiu Ji was the main one, called Zhuyu girl, which was chanted in Zhang Er's poems.Wang Wei's so-called "planting dogwood all over the place" shows that men are very prosperous in adorning flowers.Du Fu's so-called "drunken cornel" may refer to cornel wine.Chongjiu Erhua, chrysanthemum and cornel, of course the chrysanthemum is more popular because it has an indissoluble bond with Tao Yuanming, but cornel, after Qu Yuan reprimanded it, no poet came to join him.Even so, cornel is still a very popular Chongyang scene in Tang poetry. In "The Complete Works of Du Fu", Yong Chongjiu's fourteen poems mentioned cornel three times.Li Bai's poem:

It shows that the red fruit of this tree is ripe in Chongjiu and can be inserted on the sideburns.There are many ways to wear dogwood, such as "hanging danyu pistils on hairpins" as Zhao Yanbo said, or "inserting gentry in dogwood houses" as Lu Jingchu said.As for Li Qiao's "Chenbao Mat in the Cornus Room" and Du Fu's "Cornus Cornus Mat", they are made of fresh flowers on the mat, while Li Ai's "Holding Boxes of Cornus Fragrance All Over" should be handed down to the flower house or red fruit.Chu Guangxi's "Nine Days of Cornel for the Sixth Army" probably refers to the wine of cornel, not flowers.

I think the trend of wearing dogwood flourished in the Tang Dynasty, probably because of the court's advocacy.At that time, during the Double Ninth Festival, the emperor often led a group of civil servants to ascend the heights to write poems, and at the same time gave a branch of dogwood to the officials as ornaments, which was considered to ward off evil spirits and eliminate disasters, and to deal with the story of Huanjing.Opening "Full Tang Poems", there are many poem titles such as "On September 9, I am fortunate to visit the Weiting Pavilion to ascend the height" or "On September 9, I climbed the pagoda of Ci'en Temple".This kind of poems are nothing more than the eulogies of "the chrysanthemums shine brightly on the day, the fragrance of cornel surrounds the wind of Shun", "the dogwood houses are loved all over the place, and the chrysanthemums remain in deep grace", with little literary value.Generally speaking, this flower is often mentioned in Yingzhi poems, and vice versa. It can be seen that the court must have this flower in the order of the ninth day.The last two sentences of Du Fu's Five Laws "Nine Days" refer to exactly this matter: "The dogwood is given to the courtiers, a rare branch comes".When it comes to Lu You's poem "But remembering the spirit of the society and removing the chrysanthemum pistil, I dare to hope that the courtiers will give me a tree branch", I am afraid that it is just a sentence from Du Fu, which is not realistic.

As long as you look at the prosperity of "gifting dogwood to courtiers" in the Tang Dynasty, you can imagine that the theory of the palace people wearing flowers in the Han Dynasty may be non-fictional.It was impossible for the story of Huanjing to be popular during the time of Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty, and there is no theory of ascending the heights in the various Chongjiu mentioned in "Xijing Miscellaneous Notes".It turns out that Cornus officinalis is not purely based on legends, but has medical basis.The plants we collectively call "cornel" are actually divided into three categories: Cornus officinalis belongs to the family Cornaceae, while Evodia rutaecarpa and Cornel officinalis belong to the Rutaceae family. They have the functions of killing insects and disinfecting, and expelling cold and wind.Li Shizhen said that this tree was planted by the well, and the leaves fell into the well, and people drank its water to avoid plague.As for the saying of "hanging the child in the house to ward off ghosts", it is naturally a superstition, probably because of its pungent taste, just like the Western superstition that garlic can drive away demons.Guo Zhen's so-called "repelling evil dogwood sac and protracted chrysanthemum wine" is exactly what he meant.In addition, Evodia rutaecarpa can also "raise yang and invigorate the spleen", and dogwood can "invigorate the kidney qi, invigorate the yang path, strengthen the penis, add essence, calm the five internal organs, and open the nine orifices".I don't know if these functions have something to do with this thing's prosperity in Tang Dynasty?It is said that Cornus officinalis is a thing, not only flowers, stems, leaves, and fruits can be used as medicine, but also to make wine.Bai Juyi's so-called "shrinking cornel cup" is probably just this kind of tonic wine.

There are many aliases for cornel, such as 謓, 藙, Yuejiao and so on.The ancients used pepper, fennel, and ginger as the "three fragrances". In the Ming Dynasty, fennel was rarely used, but modern people only use pepper and ginger, and they don't know what dogwood is.But in the "Book of Rites", the three animals have been seasoned with cornel to remove the fishy smell. "Wu Yue Spring and Autumn" also said: "The more the sweet and honeyed pills are used to repay Wu's gift of seals", it can be seen that long before Qu Yuan, cornel had become a gift between countries.But why is everyone so precious to Qu Yuan?It may be that the cornel tastes very spicy, "stings the mouth and hurts the stomach", does not suit Qu Yuan's taste, and even causes allergies, it is also unknown.Cao Zhi's poem: "The cornel has its own fragrance, not as good as the osmanthus and the orchid", which may be exactly what it means.