鄭武公，莊公，為平王卿士，王貳于虢，鄭伯怨王，王曰，無之，故周鄭交質，王子狐為質於鄭，鄭公子忽為質於周，王崩，周人將畀虢公政，四月，鄭祭足帥師取溫之麥，秋，又取成周之禾，周鄭交惡，君子曰，信不由中，質無益也，明恕而行，要之以禮，雖無有質，誰能間之，苟有明信，澗，谿，沼，沚，之毛，蘋，蘩，薀，藻，之菜，筐，筥，錡，釜，之，器，潢汙，行潦，之水，可薦於鬼神，可羞於王公，而況君子結二國之信，行之以禮，又焉用質，風有采繁，采蘋，雅有行葦，泂酌，昭忠信也。
Chinese Text Project
這學期我要俢一門古典詩文及習作課程。這是先修課程所以也不是我特別想去修的。我之前在師大的國語中心修過兩個學期的文言文，當時是看《文言文入門》和《古文觀止》兩本。國語中心的那位老師和現在這門課的老師一直強調要背誦，就算不懂也要背誦。我大概可以了解這種思維，你會背誦文言文的話，你的文筆就會改善。國語中心的老師也鼓勵我們寫自己的意見、看法，不過有時候我覺得她把我們負面的評論視為「不夠了解台灣、中國」、把我們正面的評論視為「很了解台灣、中國」。所以我想以這個網誌所提供的空間來發表自己的看法，也就是亂講一通自己的解讀等等。
我要先承認我對中國歷史的了解不是很深刻，不過看這段文的時候我有順便查維基百科大概地了解本文的背景：周平王就是當時的皇帝，不過因為權力很弱所以他需要依賴封臣才可以當下去。周平王原本依賴的國君是鄭國國君。他想把政權分一半給虢國國君時候，鄭王生氣了，可是周平王否認有這件事情，所以周平王跟鄭國國君就交換了人質。周平王死掉之後，周國就分政權給虢國國君，鄭因此開始攻擊周國。接下來本文就引用一些詩詞句來說要信任別人的話、信任自己的身分而行。
那為什麼要信任別人的身分呢？如果要說公司與客戶，說不通，客戶一沒錢公司就不客氣了。總統上任之前就已經被大家討厭了。大家應該相信總統跟我們一樣就是一個人，為了自己而活著的而並非是一個偉大的救國的英雄。在現代的社會中已經沒有皇帝、國君的體制，那所要侍奉的對象是誰？當時為什麼鄭國國君要侍奉周平王？也許忠誠於國君、皇帝對現代人就是最難了解的一個概念。周平王想要害我，分政權給西虢公，那我要順著他的制令幹嘛？為了一個比我個人還偉大的目標嗎？問題是沒有比「我自己」更偉大的目標。周國？中國？皇帝？未來？這些大敘述不就是幻想的嗎？周平王以自己的生存為重要目標，鄭國國君亦一樣，那怎麼要責怪他呢？倘若這段文的意義在於守信用此部分，我想也是跟我生活經驗相異的。我信任大家都是自我為中心。我也覺得這種生活方式對別人來說是壓力比較少，你永遠可以知道一個人的動機出自他們自己的意思，而不會覺得你在勉強別人。那軍人並非為了國家犧牲生命，而是因為他們為了薪資、工作機會而願意打賭他們的生命。守信用就是因為了自尊而守的，我們想要保持對自己的尊敬而不是為了守信用而守的。台灣人很愛說西方人就是最自私的、自我為中心，不過我想這一點東西都差不多。交質在本文沒有意義，不過好像就是現代社會的基礎。
Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.(李爾王)
I really feel like things clicked into place at some point,Or maybe its the fact that me and Alison really got on.Or maybe its that i realised that it is true; No-one's really there fighting for you in the last garrison.(英國樂團The Streets, 歌名: Empty Cans)
No-one except yourself that is, no-one except you.
You are the one who's got your back 'til the last deed's done.
Scott can't have my back til the absolute end,
'cause hes got to look out for what over his horizon.
He's gotta to make sure he's not lonely, not broke.
It's enough to worry about keeping his own head above.
hi. found this from your fb page during a period of procrastination. i'm also pretty dumb when it comes to zhou history but coincidentally i was just reading part of zuo zhuan today for a class so i thought it would be prudent of me to respond. anyway, lately i have been really interested in what the presence of an emperor or other monarch actually meant for the average person at various points in chinese history... i guess my preliminary way of imagining this is that the emperor must have meant different things at different times to different people. of course that is a facile and non-committal way of explaining it, but i feel like it's important to distinguish between this kind of fluid concept of imperial power as opposed to one that assumes the chinese just have some kind of innate and immutable sense that monarchy is the 'correct' way for them to organize themselves, which always makes me gag a little whenever i think about it. It's especially funny considering the perpetually hazy and changeable borders of the empire, as well as the fact that periods of dynastic collapse, divided kingdoms, and peasant rebellion were virtually as lengthy as the periods of stability.
ReplyDeleteanyway, before i get too far off topic, i mainly wanted to throw in two kind of half-baked points: for one, though the zhou king managed to retain authority without any real power for a little while, this didn't really last very long. of course loyalty was maintained for a little while, but eventually the guys with all the weapons sort of got clued in and realized they could just start killing each other and racing to the capital to take control. so i think in this situation your case for the 'selfishness' of people is not really disproved--with of course the modification that, in a society where upward mobility was not exactly common, all those not born into wealth and military strength had to make the not-so-difficult decision to ingratiate themselves to the closest rich warlord in order to survive. of course nothing was really that simple, and you have all of these complex codes of honor and loyalty that sometimes seem pretty self-defeating.
which kind of brings me to my second point--remember from our wenyan class, "生亦我所欲，所欲有甚於生者，故不為苟得也；死亦我所惡，所惡有甚於死者，故患有所不辟也。“ I think it is possible to actually take this kind of thing seriously, and assume that there really were people for whom self-preservation lost priority to preservation of integrity--after all, even in the 21st century there are plenty of people more than willing to die for all sorts of silly reasons. And I think it is perfectly reasonable to assume a certain amount of selfishness is involved in those decisions, too!
anyway, this is a cool blog. i hope you don't mind if i start just sort of lurking around in the corners of this place. also forgive me if i've misconstrued any parts of what you wrote, it's late and my 國語 has regressed in unbelievable ways lately.
oh, this evan btw. in case it shows up with some silly fake name when i post.