蘇軾における日常の音

Abstract

Su Shi 蘇軾 was a poet with a ceaselessly deep interest in life around himself, and he never lost his joyful and optimistic feeling for life no matter how terrible a situation he faced. Furthermore, in the everyday sounds which are seen in the poetry of his banishment period to Huang Zhou 黃州, one can observe the sounds of his heart and his warm thoughts of gratitude towards the people that helped him. The crystallization of this posture, which were not the themes of previous poems, can be found in these works that express the everyday sounds. For Su Shi, this was not merely background music, but each of the sounds had an irreplaceable profound meaning for his life. For example, we can pick out the sound of the gujiao 鼓角 (a type of drum) of Du Fu 杜甫 who used it as the sound representing the misery of war in his poems. However, the use of the gujiao by Su Shi is a warm sound symbolizing the daily life spent by Su Shi in Huang Zhou. The deepened sensibilities cultivated in Huang Zhou never declined, even in the later years of his exile to Ling Nan 嶺南 and Hainan Island 海南島. Professor Tamaki Ogawa 小川環樹 has said, "The praise of Su Shi's "Overseas Poems" by his disciples and poetic critics of the Southern Song is not only because of a sympathetic feeling of his circumstances. Among his collection of works, the ones created at this time had a remarkable deep brilliance." It was precisely because he was exiled overseas that he himself was able to pick up the sounds of everyday life that he was wrapped in, and create the poetry that was so loved. Even in a distant land where humans and animals live side-by-side poems were composed, and he loved even how the children recited the books in their local dialect. We can observe there the appearance of Su Shi who thoroughly enjoyed his time while listening to the voices of the recitation. One more notable thing is that Su Shi aimed to lead readers through the music of everyday life to the actual life, while at the same time not letting his own grief tie him down. He did not want to indulge his misfortunes in his poetry. Was it for that reason, did he not reconsider the everyday nature that appeared in the works composed to show quietness, and made the mind routinely return to the work? The snoring of people familiar to him is the sound that he schemed to put in his works. On his homeward journey from Hainan Island he wrote in a poem entitled, "Ping Sheng" 瓶笙 about how the sound of boiling water in a tea kettle was like a sheng 笙 (reed wind musical instrument), and he made the members of who gathered at his farewell party listen to it. Even at the time when one should be sad from the sorrow of parting from friends, through the wit of daily little sounds, he creates a pleasurable feeling that warmly wraps the gathered people in the keen ambience of Su Shi. Since the time of banishment to Huang Zhou, by loving the sounds of life amidst the hardship he encountered, he expressed those sounds warmly in his poetry. It seems that the charm of this enchanting poetry which described the sounds of life would direct the eyes of the poets thereafter to everyday sounds as well.