舊席．舊秦淮．舊宮門——吳梅村詩文中的南京記憶與隱喻

Old Places of Learning, the Old Qinhuai River, the Old Royal Gate: Memories and Metaphors of Nanjing in Wu Weiye’s Poems

南京之於吳梅村，既代表大明王朝曾有的輝煌，更與他一生在仕途上的進退緊密相繫。除首次赴南京鄉試未見詩作外，其他三次不僅留下與這座城市相關的紀錄，且多將個體心聲寄託於南京的文化記憶中。梅村如何透過書寫回應現實處境？本文指出，緬懷六朝文化（舊席）、留存故明文化（舊秦淮），以及追憶象徵王朝盛世的地景（舊宮門），是梅村南京書寫的三部曲，反映三種歷史時空下詩人的內在心境。而其中長篇五古〈遇南廂園叟感賦八十韻〉，更是梅村感嘆興亡之餘，在新朝徵召前夕，藉「帝王州」訴「忠」腸，尋求理解與安頓身心的表現。

For Wu Weiye, Nanjing itself represents the once mighty glory of the Ming dynasty, while also being closely related to the vicissitudes of his own official career. While on his first visit to the city to take the xiangshi exam Wu did not write any poetry, on his other three visits to the city he left behind him writings intimately related to the city. In doing so, he made his voice and spirit apart of the the culture memory of Nanjing, invested himself within the city. How did Wu respond the reality around him through his writing? This paper argues that Wu’s Nanjing writings can be understood as a trilogy: first was his cherishing of the culture of six dynasties (the old places of learning); second was his preservation of the culture of the Ming dynasty (the old Qinhuai river); and third was his effort to recollect the famed places that represented the flourishing heyday of the dynasty (the old palace gate). These three parts of Wu’s writing reflected his poetic inner mind, which was marked by three different historical time-spaces. His long five-syllable poem “Encountering the Gardener at the Southern Wing, I Was Moved to Compose Eighty Rhymes”(“Yu nanxiang yuansou ganfu bashi yun” 遇南廂園叟感賦八十韻) is a crucial work within this context, written as the newly formed Qing dynasty was recruiting officials to serve it. In the poem, he not only gave voice to his lament over the grandeur and decline of the Ming, but utilized the image of “the imperial residence” as a means of articulating the heart of “loyalty,” expressing his own search for physical and psychological understanding and comfort.