How Did Ancient Chinese Scholars Read Poetry?

This time, I want to do something a little different I want to read this poem to you guys in the traditional scholar style called 文讀(wén dú). It's like chanting, like singing, but there are two forms. One is the plain kind of style, another one is the singing kind of style. But the singing style is really closely, very restrictively, based on the plain style of 文讀(wén dú). I'll temporarily translate it as "scholar style". Ancient scholar style of reading poems. Basically it says the young crows...not "call." I prefer "sing." Birds are always singing. Sometimes it's crying. But even crying is a kind of singing. That's how humans... when you're sad and you're singing, the best way to cry out is to sing, So the young crows are singing out and scattering, flying here and there, and then singing around... If you don't like the sound of crows, or it's annoying, you want to change the way of your thinking. It's part of nature. Maybe you don't like it, but you can change your way of thinking about it. When you change it, It’s not annoying anymore. And there’s a big screen, part of which is made of jade. The jade screen stands empty. It means nobody else, just you. you hear the crows singing around, flying back and forth, and there's one ...screen. to separate yourself from the door and from the outside world. And the second sentence says, "Upon the pillow comes the season's first coolness." So you lie down on the pillow. Somehow, even though there is a screen in front of you, somehow, somewhere, the cool breeze comes to you. Or when you use a fan, so one thing is from outside, from Mother Nature, and another one you generate. In autumn, why do you want that movement? You say, "Physically I feel hot. I feel humid." If you are sensitive enough, you feel the change. That's what's embedded in this meaning, embedded in this poem. Inside your heart and inside your body, you actually can feel it, you know, the climate change. So then you slow down, this wind, kind of incorporate it and orchestrate it as part of the cool breeze from Mother Nature. Then when you wake up, waking from sleep, 睡起(shuì qǐ), somehow you hear or feel the autumn is coming, but you don't really see where it is, because that's the day it just began. It's still kind of hot, still kind of humid, but somehow you feel something… Only when you calm down, when you're tranquil, when you're really sensitive to the inside of your little small universe, cosmos, and also sensitive to whatever happens outside, then you can put these two things together. Then the last sentence said: Only feel under the steps, the paulownia tree, 梧桐(wú tóng), paulownia tree, the shadow... Beneath the moonlight. From maybe afternoon to late afternoon, then to the early night. You see the moon, and you feel better, even cool. Actually, at this time, when you start to feel cool, it's not the daytime. It's the evening. Somehow it's different. So the poet was writing here, he kind of felt it. He didn't say he felt it. He said, "I hear it." Or, "I can see it," but I don't know where it is. But you can feel it around, all these things changing in Mother Nature. So let me read it in two kinds of patterns in 文讀(wén dú). it's another way to learn classical Chinese. by reading, or 文讀(wén dú), or singing poems. Because that helps give you a different dimension to feel, and understand the language and the characters. That's a plain kind of reading, but in the classical style, not today's reading aloud. If you guys like this, I can do this from time to time, Now let me go to the singing part. Alright, that's all for today. I'll see you in the next session. Thank you.