楚辞与周代乐语

音乐是尧舜时代三大礼之一,到西周时期进而发展为乐德、乐语、乐舞等,形成政治与教化同一的文化形态。乐语有“兴、道、讽、诵、言、语”六式,实际上也就是徒歌类型。战国时期的楚国仍然延续这样的政治与教化方式。从《惜诵》以及《离骚》等作品中,通过乐语在两周时期的使用形态考察,我们能够看到屈原遭到贬斥的原因是“言、道、诵”等,本为讽劝,但被认为是太过,太烦,太谗,不忠,因此遭殃。这是屈原生平的真实纪事,也是楚辞表现的内容与结构特征。由此看出,楚辞《离骚》、《九章》等都是徒歌,只有《九歌》才是声诗。过去,我们根据乐语从教化的角度去《诗经》中寻找答案,结果不知所以。当我们从政治行为与教化两方面去考察乐语使用情况以后,楚辞和《诗经》中很多不清楚的问题一下子就明白了。

ON THE SONGS OF CHU AND THE MUSICAL LANGUAGE OF THE ZHOU DYNASTY

Music was one of the three rites in the Yao and Xun Period, It developed into Musical Ethics, Musical Language and Musical Dance in the western Zhou period, becoming a cultural pattern of politics and cultivation as one and the same. Musical Language had six forms: starting, talking, chanting, reading, speaking and conversing, which are types of songs. In the Chu of the warring Period, the pattern of politics and cultivation continued. From Qu Yuan's Xi Song, Li Sao and other words, by examining the pattern of Musical Language used in the western Zhou period, we can see that the reason for Qu Yuan's demotion was "speaking, talking and reading". These were meant to give advice, but were considered going too far, too irritating, too slanderous and disloyal, hence his misfortune. This was a true record of Qu Yuan's life story and the content and structural feature of The Songs of Chu. It can be seen from the that The Songs of Chu, Li Sao, Nine Chapters are songs while Jiu Ge is poem. In the past, we tried to look for the answer in The Book of Songs from the perspective of cultivation of Musical Language and failed to understand it. But if we examine the use of Musical Language from the perspective of both politics and cultivation, many problems in The Book of Songs and in The Songs of Chu become much clearer.