What is Ping and Ze, and how is Ping and Ze divided?

I am very glad that everyone came to the basic poetry training class of "Jianshe" to learn poetry. Then we will start our poetry journey by getting to know Pingqi.

We have been exposed to poetry since childhood, but there are no or even very few teachers to tell us what the meaning of poetry is, simply because there is no requirement in the basic education syllabus. Nowadays, it is only involved in Chinese language and literature in universities, or they specialize in the study of poetry.

Modern school teaching promotes Mandarin, which is based on the pronunciation system of modern Chinese and adopts the language standard system formulated by the National Language and Character Commission. But the ancient people's speech, communication, writing and writing were different from today's. You can know it by looking at the novels, poems and lyrics of the past. And Chinese poetry is even more unique.

Modern Chinese has a four-tone system, which is the first, second, third and fourth tones we usually speak.

But ancient Chinese is slightly different, divided into Yinping, Yangping, Shang (shang, with the same pronunciation) tone, going tone, and entering tone. Among them, Yinping and Yangping are called Ping tones, and Shang, Lai and Ru are called Hei tones.

In modern Chinese, the four tones are easy to distinguish between levels and tones, that is, the first tones are Yinping, the second tones are Yangping, the third tones are rising, and the four tones are falling are collectively referred to as tones.

The ancient Ping tone is divided into Yin Ping and Yang Ping in modern Chinese, which are the so-called first tone and second tone. In modern Chinese, part of the tone of the ancient rising tone has become the falling tone, and part of it is still the rising tone. The upper tone is the third tone in Chinese Pinyin. The tone of the ancient falling tone is still the falling tone in modern Chinese, which is the fourth i.e. tone.

The ancient ru tone no longer exists in modern Chinese; it has become Yinping, Yangping, Shangsheng and Qushengli.

For example: Mama scolds

Jinyin (one tone) (second tone) (third tone) (fourth tone)

Ancient tone (Yinping) (Yangping) ) (upper tone) (lower tone)

(flat tone) (oblique tone)

Simply put, among the four tones in modern Chinese, the first tone is Yinping and the second tone is Yangping , the two are flat tones; the third and fourth tones are oblique tones. This is the basic distinction between Ping and Chi.

What about the entering tone part?

The first is to rely on accumulation of familiarity, and the second is to rely on inquiry. There is a list of Rui Ting characters, just look it up. There is no need to memorize the Ru Ting character list, just know the commonly used ones. After a long time, you can tell at a glance.

The ancients recited poems and composed pairs according to the ancient pronunciation. When reading the ancient couplets in modern pronunciation, it is easy to misunderstand that the ancients' flat and oblique rhythms do not conform to the rhythm.

For example:

Draw water from the river to make new tea, and sell all the green hills to use as a painting screen.

We read it in Mandarin in four tones, like this

Draw water from the river to make new tea

Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping

Sold out The green hills serve as a painted screen

廄廄平平平廄平

According to the four ancient tones,

Draw water from the river to cook new tea

仄Flat, flat, flat, flat, flat

Selling all the green mountains as a painting screen

Flat, flat, flat, flat

From the above arrangement of flat and flat, using the ancient pronunciation is the qualifying rhythm, while using Today's pronunciation is different (at least the upper, oblique and lower flat iron rules at the end of the sentence do not match). Therefore, when talking about the ping and lei in poetic couplets in the future, we must first understand whether the creator based the couplets on ancient pronunciation, modern pronunciation, or local dialects; otherwise, it will make a joke.

Another example is Liu Yuxi's "Peony"

The peony demon in front of the court has no character, and the hibiscus on the pond has little emotion.

Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping

Only peonies are the true national color, and they move the capital when they bloom.

Flat, flat, flat, flat, flat.

Looking at the first sentence, the pronunciation of Jin is all flat, and the sentence has no rhythm. It feels wrong. It is because Liu Yuxi did not write the poem according to the meter, and it does not conform to the rhythm of poetry. After checking, it is true that peony root, medicine, grid, The three characters are all entering the tone, so the pingqi in the sentence should be pingpingzhezhepingpingzhi. A very standard Qijueqiyan sentence.

In addition, we should pay special attention to the situation of reading a word twice. Sometimes, a word has two meanings (often with different parts of speech) and two pronunciations. For example, the word "为" is used as "because" or "for", and is pronounced with the missing tone. In ancient Chinese, this situation was much more common than in modern Chinese.

Now let’s give some examples:

Riding, flat tone, verb, horse riding; falling tone, noun, cavalry.

Si, flat tone, verb, longing; Qu tone, noun, thought, return of feelings.

Reputation, flat tone, verb, praise; falling tone, noun, reputation.

Dirty, flat tone, adjective, dirty; falling tone, verb, dirty.

Number, ascending tone, verb, calculation; falling tone, noun, number, fate; entering tone (pronounced as Shuo), adjective, frequent.

Teach, remove the voice, noun, enlightenment, education; voice, verb, make, let.

Ling, in the negative tone, noun, command; in flat tone, verb, make, let.

Jin, in the negative tone, noun, prohibition, palace ban; flat tone, verb, can, withstand.

Kill, entering the voice, is a transitive verb, killing; falling voice (pronounced like sun), is an intransitive verb, declining.

There are also some words that were originally pronounced in the flat tone, but later changed to the falling tone, but the meaning and part of speech remain unchanged. The characters "wang", "han" and "kan" all belong to this category. The words "wang" and "sigh" are already pronounced with a declining tone in Tang poetry, and the word "look" is always pronounced with a declining tone. There are also more complicated situations: for example, when the word "Guo" is used as a verb, it is sometimes read with the flat tone, but when used as a noun and interpreted as a fault, it can only be read with the flat tone.

Once the four tones are clear, it will be easier to understand the tones. Ping and Ze are a term for the rhythm of poetry: poets divide the four tones into two categories: Ping and Ze. Ping means the level tone, and Ping means the three tones that go up and down.

仄, according to the literal meaning, means uneven. Why are we divided into two categories? Because the flat tone has no rise and fall and is longer, while the other three tones have rise and fall (the incoming tone may also rise or fall slightly) and are shorter. In this way, they form two major types. If these two types of tones are intertwined in poetry, the tones can be diversified instead of monotonous. Although there are many things to pay attention to in what the ancients called "sonorous tone", harmony between tones and tones is an important factor.

How are flat and oblique intertwined in poetry? We can summarize it in two sentences:

⑴ Ping and Qi are alternate in the previous sentence;

⑵ Ping and Qi are opposites in the couplet.

This kind of flat rules is an obvious feature of rhythmic poetry.

For example, the fifth and sixth sentences of Chairman Mao's "Long March" poem:

The golden sands and water beat against the clouds and cliffs are warm, while the iron cables across the Dadu Bridge are cold.

The meaning of these two poems is:

Ping Ping | Ping Ping | Ping Ping | Ping Ping | Ping Ping | Ping Ping | Ping Ping | Ping Ping | Ping Ping | Ping Ping | Ping Ping.

In the previous sentence, every two words have a rhythm. In the Ping sentence, Pingping is followed by 任仄, 任仄 is followed by Pingping, and the last one is 仄 again. In a 廄starting sentence, 廄廄 is followed by Ping Ping, Ping Ping is followed by 任廄, and the last one is Ping again. This is alternation. We call it short.

As far as couplets are concerned, "Jinsha" to "Dadu" is flat to flat, "Shuipai" to "bridge horizontal" is flat to flat, "Yunya" to "iron rope" , is flat to flat, "warm" to "cold", is flat to flat. This is opposition. We call it right.

Of course, there are more than just these rules about the level of poetry. We will discuss it in detail later in the level of rhythmic poetry and the level of words. We will stop here to help with understanding.

In this lesson, you only need to know what Ping and Chi are and how they are divided.