The basic requirements for couplets can be summarized in the following sentences: two lines of text, equal number of words, related meanings, relative parts of speech, corresponding structures, and harmonious harmony.

Specifically: 1. The number of words is equal: the first couplet must have several words, and the second couplet must also have several words. For example: During the "Cultural Revolution", someone collected and posted two lines from Mao Zedong's poems: "A unique hero drives away tigers and leopards, dares to teach the sun and moon to change the sky." The upper and lower couplets have seven words, which meets the basic requirements of a couplet. Another person posted something like "Sailing the sea depends on the helmsman, and making revolution depends on Mao Zedong Thought." The first sentence has seven words and the second sentence has nine words, which means it is not a couplet. 2. Relevant meanings: The couplet requires that the content expressed in the first and second lines must be related to each other and cannot be unrelated. For example: "The New Year welcomes Yuqing, and the festival is called Changchun." The upper and lower couplets all talk about the New Year; "The edge of the sword comes from sharpening, and the fragrance of plum blossoms comes from the bitter cold." The upper and lower couplets use metaphors to reveal academic success. The principle of hard work is necessary; the couplets on Yuefei Temple in West Lake "Green mountains are fortunate to bury loyal bones, and white iron innocents cast sycophants." The upper and lower couplets are all about the scenery inside and outside the Yuefei Temple. If the upper and lower couplets are not related to each other, they do not meet the requirements of couplets. Two points need to be explained here: First, the meanings of the upper and lower couplets are related, which does not mean that the meanings are repeated or similar. If the upper and lower couplets have exactly the same meaning or have very similar meanings, it is called "joining the palms", which is a taboo that must be avoided when making couplets. The second is that some people make couplets and deliberately make the upper and lower couplets irrelevant. This is called "heartless pairing". Although it is interesting, it is not the basic requirement of the couplet. These two points will be discussed later. 3. Relative parts of speech: In a couplet, the upper and lower couplets are each composed of many combinations. These words must be relative in pairs, that is, the nouns in the same position in the upper and lower couplets must be opposite nouns, verbs to verbs, adjectives to adjectives, adverbs to adverbs, etc. . For example: In the couplet "New Year's greeting Yuqing, Jiajie Changchun", "year" is opposite to "festival", "qing" is opposite to "spring", "xin" is opposite to "jia", and "yu" is opposite to noun. "长" is an adjective to an adjective, "Na" and "Hao" are a verb to a verb. Another example is the couplet of someone's post about marrying a daughter-in-law: "Fortunate to have a float to welcome the lady, but ashamed to have no guests at the fine wine banquet." The parts of speech in the same position in the upper and lower couplets are also opposite. 4. Structural correspondence: The upper and lower sentences of the couplet must not only have corresponding parts of speech, but also have corresponding structures. Generally speaking, if the parts of speech of the upper and lower couplets are relative, the structure must also be corresponding. Still taking the wedding couplet mentioned above as an example, "fortunate" and "unfortunate", "float" and "wine", "lady" and "guest" are all biased structures, while "welcoming lady" and "welcoming lady" "Banquet guests" are both verb-object structures. The parts of speech and structure of the upper and lower sentences of Meng Chang's peach charm couplet are also the same as the above-mentioned wedding couplet. However, it should also be pointed out that in some famous couplets, the upper and lower couplets have opposite parts of speech, but the structures are not completely corresponding. For example: the famous couplet of the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan "The refreshing air comes from the west, the clouds sweep away the sky and the earth shakes; the river goes eastward, and the waves wash away the sorrows of the past and present." The parts of speech of the upper and lower couplets in the same position are very correct, but from a structural analysis, the second couplet The last seven characters "waves" are the subject, and the whole sentence has a subject-predicate structure. However, the last seven characters "clouds" in the first couplet are not the subjects. The whole sentence is a sentence without a subject. "Clouds" and "the sky and the earth shake" are both "clouds" and "the sky and the earth shake". The object of the verb "sweep away". This phenomenon is consistent with the requirement for dialogue in poetry. In poetry, sentences with opposite parts of speech and the same grammatical structure are opposite to each other, which is the formal pattern. But there is another situation, that is, only the words are required to be literal, but the sentence structure is not required to be the same. For example: Mao Zedong's "To Mr. Liu Yazi" said, "Too much grumbling can prevent heartbreak, and it is better to take a broad view of the long-term scenery." "Taisheng" is read consecutively, and it is the predicate of "complaining"; "Changyi" is read consecutively, and it is the adverbial of "taking a broad view". The conjunction of "Heartbreak" is the object of "defence"; the conjunction of "Looking" is the adverbial of "quantity". The grammatical structures of the two are different. {The above statement can be found in "Poetry Rhythm" written by Wang Li} 5. Harmony between level and oblique: It requires that the words in the upper and lower couplets should be level to oblique, oblique to oblique, and the tone should be harmonious. Take the couplet at the Yuefei Temple in West Lake as an example: the tone of the first couplet "It is a privilege to bury loyal bones in the green mountains" is flat, flat, flat, and flat, and the tone of the second couplet, "white iron casts innocent ministers," is exactly flat, flat, flat, and flat. The two are opposite to each other. Very catchy and pleasant to the ear. Of course, we cannot require that every word in the upper and lower couplets of each couplet should be aligned with each other, but the characters at the rhythm points of the steps must be arranged strictly in accordance with the requirements of level. For example: Baojian Peak comes from grinding;丨丨一一一丨丨The fragrance of plum blossoms comes from bitter cold. 111丨丨11 The third character in the upper and lower sentences uses flat characters. Because it is not at the rhythm point, the flat and oblique characters can be used leniently. Another example: the rain of apricot blossoms makes your clothes wet; the wind from the willows blows on your face, which is not cold. 一丨丨一一丨一The first character is in flat tone, and the third character is in oblique tone. Since it is not a rhythmic point, it does not matter whether it is flat or oblique. This is what people often say: "Ignore one, three, and five, but be clear about two, four, and six." Of course, this popular saying is not accurate, because if it is a five-character couplet, the equality of the third and fifth characters must still be discussed. The first and third characters of a seven-character couplet can be ignored, but the fifth one must also be discussed. In addition, the sentence If the pattern changes, the rhythm point will be different, and it will not work if you apply the formula above. For example: Jiang Fengqing's Twenty-Four Bridge Couplets of Yangzhou: The resort is located in Huainan, and you can see the shadows of clouds in the sky, which are the same color as the horizon; when a boat is passing under the bridge, you hear the sound of a flute somewhere, and someone is playing it until the third watch of the month. Among them, the two five-character sentences "Looking at the cloud shadows in the sky" and "Where is the sound of the flute" are both in the structure of one and four. The first character is the character collar, and the following four characters are flat and oblique. One and three can be ignored, and two , four must be discussed.

There is another situation, as mentioned before, Meng Chang's peach charm: New Year's greeting Yuqing; Festival number Changchun. The fourth character of the upper and lower lines is both in flat tone, and the third character is in oblique tone. Doesn't this violate the rules of flat to oblique and oblique to equal? It must be noted that this usage of 平廄 is a specific format of the old-style five-character poems, that is, in the five-character sentence pattern "平平平廄廄", another format can be used, which is "平平廄平廄"; the seven-character poem is a five-character poem. Expansion, so in the seven-character sentence pattern "廄仄平平廄仄", you can also use another format, which is "任仄平仄平仄". The characteristics of this format are that the flat and oblique characters of the 34th and 50th characters of the five characters exchange places, and the oblique and oblique characters of the 56 and 56th characters of the seven characters exchange positions. But please note: in this case, the first character of five characters and the third character of seven characters must be in flat tone, which is no longer a matter of balance. Since couplets were born out of old-style poetry, this specific format of poetry has also been extended to the writing of couplets. For example, a couplet written by Zang Ke's family "Three thousand gourds of weak water are drunk; the east wind is thousands of miles away and a branch of spring", and the couplet of Shengqi Tower is "A dream of six dynasties in the misty rain, lakes and mountains; heroic sons and daughters are a pair of chess", both are seven-character couplets that use this specific key. Example of formula. The above discussion is all about the requirements for the equivalence of five-seven-character short couplets. As for the long couplets, they are composed of more than two sentences. In addition to the equivalence of each sentence must meet the metrical requirements, the equivalence of the words at the end of the sentence must also be staggered. There is a cause. For example: "He is a seven-foot man who can sacrifice himself in life; he will be a heroic ghost for thousands of years and will never return home after death". The two characters "er" and "ji" in the first line are flat and oblique tones, and the second line "ghost" The word "jia" has a flat and flat tone, which makes it sound sonorous and pleasant to the ear. If the sentences in the first couplet end with oblique tones and the sentences in the second couplet all end with flat tones, the musical beauty will be damaged. In the twenty-four Yangzhou bridge couplets mentioned above, the words "South", "Kong" and "Se" at the end of the three sentences of the first couplet, and the words "Xia", "Chu" and "Geng" at the end of the three sentences of the second couplet are exactly the same. Ping, Ping, and Ping versus Ping, Ping, and Ping are examples of noticing the musical beauty of long couplets. Let’s take Kang Youwei’s couplet on the Yuan Chonghuan Temple in Beijing as an example: His origins were related to the survival of the Mid-Xia Dynasty, and he enjoyed the temple for thousands of years. If we are an enemy country, where can we get more teachers? ｜ 1 ｜ — The four sentences in the first couplet end with 平, 仄, 平, 仄, and the second couplet ends with 仄, 平, 仄, 平. Of course, the combination can also be 仄: 平, 平, 仄 to 平, 仄, 仄, 平. In short, it is the right way to make the couplets well-proportioned and pay attention to maintaining the musical beauty of the couplets. As mentioned above, to maintain the musical beauty of couplets, we must pay attention to couplets. Just as Mao Zedong said when talking about rhythmic poetry in his letter to Chen Yi, "Rhythmic poetry must be balanced and oblique. If it is not equal and oblique, it is non-rhymed poetry." Likewise, , regardless of the level, it cannot be counted as a couplet, at least it cannot be counted as a qualified couplet. As for those who are new to writing couplets and cannot master the oblique tones at the moment, they can relax the standards first, but at least they should do this: the last word of the first couplet should use oblique tones, and the last word of the second couplet should use flat tones. Before the publication of a general rhyme book that is fully suitable for contemporary phonetics, the flat and oblique tones of characters must be based on flat water rhyme. When it comes to the issue of rhyme books, some people may ask: "Do I need to rhyme when making couplets?" This question is very clear: only the level and oblique rhymes are used in the couplets, and rhyme is not required. Some people cite an accidental example and say that couplets also need to rhyme. This argument may not be tenable. This is because the generation of couplets comes from rhythmic poetry, that is, the couplets in the middle of the rhythmic poetry are extracted and used separately. The leading couplets and neck couplets in rhythmic poetry only deal with the antithesis of oblique and oblique, and only require the oblique tone at the end of the previous sentence and the flat tone at the end of the next sentence. They do not require rhyme. Therefore, the couplets evolved from it do not require rhyme either. Moreover, rhymes can be divided into flat and oblique rhymes. The two sentences in the upper and lower couplets end with one oblique and one flat. It seems very difficult to decide whether to rhyme with flat tones or oblique rhymes. People who think the couplets have rhyme actually mean that they meet the requirements of the "Thirteen Rules". However, the examples cited are only one in a thousand or ten thousand in ancient and modern couplets, which are extremely rare. Using this extremely rare example to conclude that the couplets need to rhyme is a very unconvincing argument. The author once reviewed Tang poetry and saw a seven-character quatrain in "Crying Li Shangyin" written by Cui Jue of the Tang Dynasty: "I have failed to live up to my talent, and my roe deer has never bloomed in my life. Where are the birds and the flowers that have fallen? The bamboo flowers are threatening the withered phoenix and they will not come!" Third The word "zai" in oblique tone used at the end of the sentence happens to belong to the same "huailaizhe" as the last word of the other three sentences. Li Shangyin also wrote a seven-character poem "Qujiang": "Looking across the green chariots passing by in peacetime, I can hear the sad songs of ghosts in the middle of the night. The golden carriage has not returned to the beauty of the city, and the jade palace is still divided into gardens. I remember hearing the cranes in the Huating Pavilion, and I am worried about the old man. The royal family cries about the bronze camel. Although the world has changed, it is not as bad as the spring. "The last words of the first, third and fifth sentences also belong to the same rhyme as "Xuo Bo Zhe", but I have never seen anyone use it. These two poems serve as examples to conclude that the ends of single lines of metrical poems should also rhyme with each other. In addition, there is also a couplet from Guangjiao Temple in Langshan, Nantong, Jiangsu: "When there is a long roar, the mountains roar and the valleys respond; when you raise your head and look around, you can see the sea and the sky." There are three words at the end of the four sentences in the upper and lower couplets that all belong to the "Zhongzhong Zhe", which must also be The author did it accidentally and did not intend to rhyme. In short, we should not draw the incorrect conclusion that "couplets must also rhyme" based on a few occasional examples. Since the ends of the upper and lower couplets cannot rhyme, some people only rhyme with oblique tones between the sentences in the first couplet and rhyme with flat tones between the sentences in the second couplet in order not to violate the rhythm of the couplets. For example, Zhu Xi, a famous writer in the Southern Song Dynasty, gave a couplet to a scholar in Zhangzhou: The east wall fell down, the west wall fell down, and you can see the good things of the family; the front alley is deep, the back alley is deep, and you can't hear the sound of cars and horses.

Similar to this humorous couplet that can be called a "rhyming couplet", there is also a couplet in Shen's Garden in Chengdu in the late Qing Dynasty: The flowers are just right, the spring is not old, the people in it are longevity test; the garden at the beginning of the month, the night is not over, it will be Come in and drink, little wandering fairy. Such "rhyming couplets" are rare and are usually humorous works created by literati on the spur of the moment.