Hsu Shihlin's three tower offerings know a lot - talk about Hsu Shihlin's three tower offerings

Taiwanese writer Zhang Xiaofeng has an essay, "Xu Shilin's monologue" [1], read every weeping. Peking Opera also specializes in folded opera "tower sacrifice" [2], Zhang Pai, not only good to listen to, but also a kind of bleak moving. "White Snake" originally did not give birth to a son, not to mention the sacrificial tower. But it is because of the appearance of "Hsu Zi Sacrificial Pagoda" that White Snake finally became a "human being", a "mother". It is also because of the appearance of the sacrificial pagoda that the theme carried by the Legend of the White Snake is no longer limited to the love of children, but touches on the more basic human feelings of kinship and motherly love. One of the main reasons why Zhao Yazhi's portrayal of the White Snake is so difficult to surpass is that she has not only brought to life the image of a "virtuous wife", but also the image of a "wise mother". This is a state of mind that only a middle-aged Zhao Yazhi could perform, and I don't think a teenage Zhao Yazhi could have played the White Snake well. If the story of the White Snake is true, how would Xu Shilin pay homage to his mother who was suppressed under the Leifeng Pagoda? When did he go to the pagoda, and how many times did he do it? The author believes that there are at least "three sacrifices", although the form and effect varies. First of all, the name of the son of Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian, the legend is not uniform, there are mainly "Mengjiao" and "Shilin" two sayings (and its harmonic blackmail). These two names from where the earliest, can not be examined - I do not think it is necessary to prove - only know that the name "Mengjiao" has a more reason, it is said to be the white lady pregnant, the night dream dragon into the body. It is said that when the White Lady was pregnant, she dreamed of a dragon entering her body at night, hence the name "Mengjiao". The name "Shilin" may be later than "Mengjiao", but now it is more popular. Some say that the name "Mengjiao" originated from the Dragon's explanation of doubt after the Dragon Boat Festival; and when Xu Zi was explicitly given the "task" of being a scholar, the word "Shi" may have appeared in the name. Because of the variability of the legend, perhaps the name is not so important, and perhaps even some day in the future, some "storyteller" will glue the two names together: "It is said that the White Lady ...... and Xu Xian had a son, named Mengjiao, word Shilin also ......". The character Shilin is also ......". In this article, according to the custom, the author will still be called "Shilin". About Shilin children also the story of the White Lady, folklore in many involved. One thing is certain is that, in the Shi Lin in the Scholar before, had gone to Leifeng Pagoda to see the mother - of course, whether or not you can "see", it is a different story. There is a legend that when Shilin (Mengjiao) was a child, about seven years old, studying in a private school, some classmates bullied him, saying that he had a father but not a mother, and called him a "bastard"; so Shilin went back to his aunt to ask for clarification, and then ran to the Leifeng Pagoda and cried a lot. In "The Legend of the New White Lady", it was Shilin's reappearance of Auntie Qing after he grew up that brought out the truth of his life, and he went to Leifeng Pagoda to visit his mother without any trouble. The result of this first visit to his mother is that Xu Shilin later becomes even more motivated to study and write until he reaches the high school scholar rank. The first thing Xu Shilin did after winning the Scholarship was, of course, to worship the pagoda. It can even be said that Xu Shilin's "destiny" in the Legend of the White Snake is to fulfill the task of sacrificing the pagoda. People were dissatisfied with the utterly tragic ending of the "White Snake's eternal detention in the Leifeng Pagoda," so for hundreds of years there has been a vigorous campaign to get the White Snake out of the pagoda, of which Xu Shilin was one of the earlier attempts or "tools" to do so. Some legends and texts say that Xu Shilin sacrificed himself to the pagoda, and his filial piety moved heaven, and the White Lady was released from the pagoda. This satisfies the psychological requirements of a large part of the population, making the Legend of the White Snake have a happy ending. But this plot is not perfect and stable enough, and has a very different outcome in some other texts. In these texts, Xu Shilin failed to "sacrifice the tower to save his mother", but "only sacrificed but did not save"; or rather, although he sacrificed the tower, he failed to save his mother. This is because the plot of "sacrificing the pagoda to save his mother" has a great deal of "fantasizing" in it. If Xu Shilin really wanted to save his mother from the tower after he won the Scholarship, what would he do first? He might have written a petition to the emperor, asking for permission to tear down the pagoda (this is mentioned in some of the White Snake texts). However, the emperor thought that the Leifeng Pagoda was a "relic of the previous dynasty", and forbade its demolition - a situation very much like a few years ago when the state issued commemorative stamps for the "Four Great Legends", the "Meng Jiangnu", and the "Mengjiannu". "Meng Jiangnu" for crying down the Great Wall was considered unknown and failed to make the list - but the emperor felt that the new scholar of a piece of filial piety, he was allowed to return to his hometown to "sacrifice the tower". So Xu Shilin can only "sacrifice", but can not "save" the White Lady. The Peking Opera opera Sacrifice Pagoda is a story about such a "sacrifice but not rescue". It is not a story of joy and encouragement as one would expect, but has an inexplicable atmosphere of "sadness and depression". However, in this "Sacrifice to the Pagoda", Bai Suzhen does not mind that her son could not save him from the pagoda, and does not have any complaints or pessimism, but only advises Shilin to "be dedicated to the people" and to be a "good official"[3]. We can recall that on the previous occasion of the "tower sacrifice" (in fact, it was only a "visit to mother"), Bai Suzhen admonished Shilin to be "progressive". Perhaps Bai Suzhen would say, "As long as my son wins the Scholarship, he will be able to save his mother from her misery and reunite the family ......", which would be more comforting and encouraging to Shilin's struggle in life. But when Xu Shilin really won the Scholarship, she will not care whether she can get out of the tower - from here we can see how a great mother educates her children. From this we see that the people worked hard and with high hopes to create the character of Xu Shilin, hoping that he would knock on the door of the pagoda. However, in the development of the story, Xu Shilin was so weak that he failed to save the White Lady after all. Some say that this is the (feudal) ruler's usurpation and plundering of the folklore discourse. However, why be so uptight? The reason for this is by no means so simple, and there must be a deeper traditional Chinese cultural reason. In fact, there is another reason for the folklore saying that "Scholar Bai sacrificed himself to the pagoda to save his mother", which is because of the superstition and worship of the "Scholar" by the common people. In ancient times, the lower class people can only change their status through the imperial examinations, so they can not help but produce a sense of mystery to the scholar of the Imperial Examination, thinking that the "scholar" is omnipotent - and in fact, it is not the case at all, it is either a myth, or a lie. Lies. Since the "Scholar Sacrifice Tower" is blocked, people will then seek other ways to save the White Lady, the most typical is the "Green Snake breaks the tower" - there are also legends that Xu Xian after attaining Taoist enlightenment to the White Lady, but it is not common - and the white lady is the only one who can save the White Lady, and the white lady is the only one who can save the White Lady. The most typical method was the "breaking of the tower by the green snake" - some legends say that Xu Xian was able to achieve enlightenment, but this is not common - and the most common means of "breaking the tower" was "attacking by fire". In the last scene of Tian Han's Peking Opera "The Legend of the White Snake", the tower is destroyed when Xiao Qing leads the "fire fairies" to defeat the pagoda god and burn down the Leifeng Pagoda, while Li Bingshu's movie says that Xiao Qing learns the Three Flavors of True Flame and saves Bai Suzhen. Tian Han may not be the pioneer of this kind of "violence to save Bai", but he is certainly an active advocate, and even more inspiring flag-bearer, influencing many contemporaneous retellings and adaptations of the "Legend of the White Snake". For example, the later and then derived from the "blood splash Thunder Peak", that is, the green snake with their own blood to break the tower, in order to sacrifice their own way to the sister of the White Snake to save the way out; only this is compared with the "fire Thunder Peak" spectacular, it is too sad point. Of course, Tian Han wrote "fire" is not out of nowhere. History of Leifeng Pagoda has been burned many times by fire records, this is the author of natural phenomena inspired by the inspiration, but also the legend of the existence of the history of the attachment. Because there are also many folk legends about similar episodes, for example, from the "bowl" escaped from the small green, and later met the "red face, red beard" of the fire god [4], teaching her the three flavors of true fire; or that the green snake and met another "Red Snake" (because the fire is red), they join together to save the White Snake; and so on and so forth. However, the author believes that the "violence to save White Snake" has quite a characteristic of the times; despite the fading of the "revolutionary discourse" [5], there is still more popularity of the "martial arts market" in contemporary times. Because on the whole, the Chinese people are civilized and modest people, in fact, do not like violence. Over the past thousands of years, the dominant ideology of the Chinese people has been Confucianism. The "Scholar Pagoda Sacrifice" is a practice that is in line with Confucianism, not violent, mild but not fiery, but it can be just as wonderful, giving the world a lot of feelings and touches. Therefore, when Xu Shilin fails to save his mother, the White Lady, in the "Second Sacrifice to the Leifeng Pagoda", he will have a "Third Sacrifice". Let's re-watch the situation of the "Second Sacrifice", Bai Suzhen told Shilin to be a good official, then Xu Shilin will definitely be a good official for the country and the people. When he followed his mother's instructions, the realization of the "help the world," after the wish, back to sacrifice Leifeng, regardless of heaven and earth, Xu Shilin will get more support, but also more certain to save his mother out of the tower. In terms of the emperor on earth, he will feel that Xu Shilin is really a talent, far more important than a tower, he will want to demolish the tower, then demolish it. As far as the bodhisattva in heaven is concerned, "Wenquxing" (the legend says that Xu Shilin is the star of Wenquxing) has also passed the test of will and merit, so he can ask the god of the tower to open the door of the tower and let Bai Suzhen out of the tower. In The Legend of the New White Lady, Xu Shilin suffered a similar "test", the most obvious and typical is the "seven days in prison". It is a pity that although the "first sacrifice" and the final "three sacrifices" are both wonderful and touching, the "second sacrifice" is not outstanding. The so-called "unauthorized digging of the West Lake channel", I have always thought that it is very funny, this is actually a bit like "violence to save the white" means, should not be the beliefs of Xu Shilin. Such a difficult "three sacrifices", also broke the world of the so-called "scholar" blind worship. Xu Shilin did not say that he could save his mother's life simply by writing three essays and winning the first prize. "Xu Shilin is based on his own intelligence and charisma, to support the gods and goddesses, to help the world to save the people, so as to win the respect and sympathy of the world - he really should not have lost his mother ah. And white Suzhen also proved that she is a real "people", she has reason to be proud of her Shilin children, and thus rightfully head out of the Leifeng Tower ......!