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This is another short but significant passage. Jia Yuanchun gets her first glimpse of the garden, and her reaction is quite interesting.

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Jia Yuanchun finally arrives to the Jia household in today’s passage. This is an interesting combination of beautiful poetry and an almost boring inventory of specific items.

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The wait and anticipation for Jia Yuanchun’s return must have been excruciating for the Jia family. This passage gives you a little glimpse at what things must have felt like.

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Chapter 18 begins with the return home of Jia Yuanchun, the Imperial Consort. Today’s post is filled with descriptions of their extensive preparations for her return.

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We’ve finally come to the end of chapter 17, after what has felt like a long time. It’s been about a month and a half worth of posts.

The story really takes an interesting turn here. More on precisely what is going on in tomorrow’s post. While this post is longer than the posts we’ve seen so far in chapter 17, it’s also much more straightforward and easy to understand.

My Translation

By the time they had left the garden, all Jia Baoyu could think about was going to see the girls who were inside. But, since Jia Zheng hadn’t told him to leave yet, he had no choice but to follow him to the study.

Jia Zheng suddenly realized that Baoyu was still there. “Why haven’t you left yet?” he asked Baoyu. “Don’t you know how much Grandmother Jia worries about you? Haven’t you had enough wandering around today?” It was only after hearing this that Baoyu dared leave.

As soon as he stepped outside the courtyard, the young servants who were together with Jia Zheng rushed up and threw their arms around him. “It’s so wonderful that the Master was in such a good mood today!” they told him. “Not long ago Grandmother Jia sent people out several times to ask about you. We told them that the Master was happy with you. Otherwise, if Grandmother Jia had called you to go back inside, you wouldn’t have had a chance to show off your talents. Everybody says that the poems you composed were the best of all. Since you’ve won the honors today, you ought to reward us!”

“A string of cash for each of you!” said Baoyu with a smile.

“Who cares for a string of cash?” said the boys. “Give us this pouch as a reward!”

As they spoke they crowded around him, untying his pouch and fan case one by one. Before he could utter a word, they had taken off every ornamental accessory that he wore.

“Now let’s escort him properly,” they said. And they walked him to Grandmother Jia’s door, surrounding him on all sides.

Grandmother Jia had been waiting for him. When she saw him arrive and once she knew that he had not been scolded, she was naturally delighted.

Xiren came in a moment later bringing tea. When she saw that there wasn’t a single accessory left on Baoyu, she laughed. “The things you were wearing must have been taken away by those idiots again,” she said.

Daiyu heard what Xiren said and went over to take a look. Sure enough, every single piece was gone. She turned to Baoyu and asked, “Did you give them the pouch I made for you as well? If you ever want me to make you anything ever again, you can forget about it!”

Daiyu then marched back into her room angrily. She picked up an unfinished fragrant bag that Baoyu had asked her to make a few days earlier, grabbed a pair of scissors, and began cutting it into pieces.

Baoyu saw that she was angry and had hurried quickly after her. By the time he got there, the sachet was already cut open and ruined. Baoyu had seen this sachet before: although it wasn’t finished yet, it had been very nicely crafted. He was upset when he saw that it had been destroyed for no reason.

And so he quickly unfastened his collar, untied the patch that was secretly attached to his inner lapel, and handed it to Daiyu. “Look, what is this?” he said. “When have I ever given your things to anyone else?”

Daiyu saw that Baoyu cherished her gift to him so much that he wore it hidden deep inside his clothing, for fear that someone might take it away. This made her feel extremely remorseful for being so quick to cut up the fragrant sachet. She lowered her head and didn’t say a word.

“There was no need for you to cut that up,” said Baoyu. “I know that you don’t want to give me anything anyway. Why don’t you take this pouch back as well?” And he tossed the pouch into her lap and turned to walk away.

This made Lin Daiyu cry even harder. She picked up that pouch and grabbed for the scissors.

Baoyu took it back right away. “Dear sister,” he said to her, “please forgive me this time!”

Daiyu threw down the scissors and wiped away her tears. “You don’t need to treat me like this, being nice to me one moment and mean to me the next! If you’re annoyed with me, let’s just break up!” And with that she climbed into bed angrily, lying down with her back turned to face the wall as she cried.

But she couldn’t stop Baoyu from coming up to her side, coaxing her by calling her a dear sister and begging her forgiveness.

Meanwhile, Grandmother Jia was calling everywhere for Baoyu. “He’s in Miss Lin’s room,” replied the servants.

“Good, good!” said Grandmother Jia in response. “Let him play together with his sisters and cousins for a bit. After all, his father kept him so nervous all day! Let him unwind now. Just don’t let them fight!” The servants agreed.

Daiyu simply couldn’t withstand Baoyu’s incessant pestering. Finally, she had no choice but to sit up. “You never let me have a moment’s peace,” she complained. “Fine! If that’s how you want it, I’ll just stay out of your way.” And she started to walk outside.

“I’ll follow you wherever you go!” laughed Baoyu. Meanwhile, he picked up the pouch and tied it back on.

Daiyu reached out for the pouch. “You said you didn’t want this,” she cried, “and yet you’ve tied it back on again. I feel embarrassed for you!” And she couldn’t help but start laughing when she said that.

“Dear sister,” said Baoyu, “would you please make me another sachet tomorrow?”

“That depends on my mood!” replied Daiyu.

They chatted and walked together, leaving the room and heading for Lady Wang’s main room. As luck would have it, Xue Baochai was also there.

At that moment, Lady Wang’s place was extremely busy. It turns out that Jia Qiang had just returned from Suzhou after purchasing twelve young girls for the opera troupe. He also had purchased instructors, costumes, and all the other things they needed.

By that time, Aunt Xue had moved to a quieter residence in the northeast section of the property. This way the Pear Blossom Court could be renovated into a place where the instructors could teach the girls. Additionally, several older, grey-haired household women who had learned to sing when they were young were assigned to supervise them. In the end, Jia Qiang was responsible for managing their daily expenses, cash flow, and the accounts for all this stuff.

Lin Zhixiao came in to make a report. “The twelve young Buddhist and Taoist nuns who were recruited have all arrived,” he said. “The twenty-four tailored robes that he had newly made are also ready.

“In addition, there is also a girl who still has her hair with them. She is originally from Suzhou and was born into a family of scholars and officials. Because she was sick from when she was a child, her family paid money for others to become nuns on her behalf, but none of it worked. It was only when she entered into the religious life herself that the sickness went away.

“That’s the reason she practices Buddhism while keeping her hair. She’s 18 years old this year, and her name is Miaoyu.

“Both her parents have passed away, and she only has two older maids and a young maid to look after her. She’s very well read, is familiar with the classics, and is remarkably beautiful. In fact, when she heard that there were relics of Guanyin and sacred palm-leaf scriptures in the capital city Chang An, she came here with her master last year. She’s currently staying at the Muni Convent just outside the West Gate.

“Her master was good at divine astrology, but passed away last winter. She left instructions that Miaoyu should not return home, but that she should stay here instead to see where her destiny takes her. And so she did not accompany her master’s coffin back to her hometown.”

“Why don’t we have her over then?” asked Lady Wang.

“If we simply ask her,” said Lin Zhixiao’s wife, “she’ll say ‘noble and aristocratic households are always using their power and status to browbeat other people; I’ll never come!’”

“Since she’s a lady from an official family, she’s naturally proud,” said Lady Wang. “What harm is there in sending a formal invitation to ask her to come here?”

Lin Zhixiao’s wife agreed in the end, and went out to ask the clerk to draft an invitation for Miaoyu. She arranged for carriages to bring her the next day.

If you want to know how things turn out, read the next chapter.

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Translation Critique

Because this section is relatively straightforward, there isn’t quite as much room for different translations or interpretations.

Hawkes

Hawks describes that Jia Baoyu “was waylaid by a group of Jia Zheng’s pages.” To waylay means to ambush.

Hawkes gives 妙玉 (Miaoyu) the name Adamantina. This name is the feminine form of the Latin adjective adamantinus, which means incorruptible.

Yang

The Yangs have chapter 17 end as soon as Jia Zheng tells Baoyu to go back to see Grandmother Jia. This is indicative of some of the textual issues surrounding chapters 17 and 18. Chapter 18 begins with the servants stripping Baoyu of everything he was wearing.

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Chinese Text

那寶玉一心只記掛著裡邊姊妹們，又不見賈政吩咐，只得跟到書房。賈政忽想起來道：「你還不去，看老太太惦記你。難道還逛不足麼？」寶玉方退了出來。至院外，就有跟賈政的小廝上來抱住，說道：「今日虧了老爺喜歡！方才老太太打發人出來問了幾遍，我們回說老爺喜歡，要不然，老太太叫你進去了，就不得展才了。人人都說你才那些詩比眾人都強，今兒得了彩頭，該賞我們了。」寶玉笑道：「每人一吊。」眾人道：「誰沒見那一吊錢！把這荷包賞了罷。」說著，一個個都上來解荷包，解扇袋，不容分說，將寶玉所佩之物，盡行解去。又道：「好生送上去罷。」一個個圍繞著，送至賈母門前。那時賈母正等著他，見他來了，知道不曾難為他，心中自是喜歡。

少時，襲人倒了茶來，見身邊佩物一件不存，因笑道：「帶的東西，必又是那起沒臉的東西們解了去了。」黛玉聽說，走過來一瞧，果然一件沒有，因向寶玉道：「我給你的那個荷包也給他們了？你明兒再想我的東西，可不能夠了！」說畢，生氣回房，將前日寶玉囑咐他沒做完的香袋兒，拿起剪子來就鉸。寶玉見他生氣，便忙趕過來，早已剪破了。寶玉曾見過這香袋，雖未完工，卻也十分精巧，無故剪了，卻也可氣。因忙把衣領解了，從裡面衣襟上將所繫荷包解下來了，遞與黛玉道：「你瞧瞧，這是什麼東西？我何曾把你的東西給人來著？」

黛玉見他如此珍重，帶在裡面，可知是怕人拿去之意，因此，自悔莽撞剪了香袋，低著頭，一言不發。寶玉道：「你也不用鉸，我知你是懶怠給我東西。我連這荷包奉還，何如？」說著，擲向他懷中而去。黛玉越發氣的哭了，拿起荷包又鉸。寶玉忙回身搶住，笑道：「好妹妹，饒了他罷！」黛玉將剪子一摔，拭淚說道：「你不用合我好一陣，歹一陣的，要惱就撂開手！」說著，賭氣上床，面向裡倒下拭淚。禁不住寶玉上來，妹妹長，妹妹短，賠不是。

前面賈母一片聲找寶玉。眾人回說：「在林姑娘房裡。」賈母聽說道：「好，好！讓他姊妹們一處玩玩兒罷。才他老子拘了他這半天，讓他鬆泛一會子罷。只別叫他們拌嘴。」眾人答應著。

黛玉被寶玉纏不過，只得起來道：「你的意思，不叫我安生，我就離了你。」說著，往外就走。寶玉笑道：「你到那裡，我跟到那裡。」一面仍拿著荷包來帶上。黛玉伸手搶道：「你說不要，這會子又帶上，我也替你怪臊的！」說著，嗤的一聲笑了。寶玉道：「好妹妹，明兒另替我做個香袋兒罷！」黛玉道：「那也瞧我的高興罷了。」

一面說，一面二人出房，到王夫人上房中去了。可巧寶釵也在那裡。此時王夫人那邊熱鬧非常。原來賈薔已從姑蘇採買了十二個女孩子，並聘了教習以及行頭等事來了。那時薛姨媽另於東北上一所幽靜房舍居住，將梨香院另行修理了，就令教習在此教演女戲。又另派了家中舊曾學過歌唱的眾女人們，如今皆是皤然老嫗，著他們帶領管理。其日月出入銀錢等事，以及諸凡大小所需之物料賬目，就令賈薔總理。

又有林之孝來回：「採訪聘買得十二個小尼姑、小道姑，都到了，連新做的二十四分道袍也有了。外又有一個帶髮修行的，本是蘇州人氏，祖上也是讀書仕宦之家，因自幼多病，買了許多替身，皆不中用，到底這姑娘入了空門，方才好了，所以帶髮修行。今年十八歲，取名妙玉。如今父母俱已亡故，身邊只有兩個老嬤嬤、一個小丫頭伏侍。文墨也極通，經典也極熟，模樣又極好。因聽說『長安』都中有觀音遺蹟並貝葉遺文，去年隨了師父上來，現在西門外牟尼院住著。他師父精演先天神數，於去冬圓寂了。遺言說他不宜回鄉，在此靜候，自有結果，所以未曾扶靈回去。」王夫人便道：「這樣，我們何不接了他來？」林之孝家的回道：「若請他，他說：『侯門公府，必以貴勢壓人，我再不去的！』」王夫人道：「他既是宦家小姐，自然要性傲些，就下個請帖請他，何妨？」林之孝家的答應著，出去叫書啟相公寫個請帖去請妙玉，次日遣人備車轎去接。

不知後來如何，且聽下回分解。

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Translation Notes

Lin Daiyu complains that Jia Bayo is “合我好一陣，歹一陣的” when he’s talking with her. She’s complaining that he’s treating her nice one moment and rudely the next.

怪臊 means extremely embarrassing.

梨香院, or the Pear Fragrance Court, sounds a lot like the phrase 離鄉院, or

“the Court of Leaving One’s Hometown.” This is exactly what happened here: the twelve girls were uprooted from Suzhou and taken to the capital to act as theatrical servants. Notice, of course, that there are twelve of them, mirroring the Twelve Beauties of Jinling (金陵十二釵).

The concept of 買了許多替身 is a little bit foreign to most of us. Rather than having this child try to get rid of the evil spirit or karma causing the illness by entering a monastery or temple, they would pay to buy a child from a poor family and send that child in the place of their own.

妙玉 (Miaoyu) is an interesting name. She is the only character in the novel to have the word 玉 (yu, or jade) in her name who is not in the main family lineage. This means that she’s basically the equivalent of Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, though she is independent of the world that they live in. The name 妙玉 means mysterious or wondrous jade.

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This is an absolutely fascinating segment, particularly if you are interested in traditional Chinese art. Cao Xueqin does a magnificent job of combining traditional artistic motifs with his text, creating a tapestry that is really quite remarkable.

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Though we read just the other day that Jia Zheng was tired and that the end of our tour was coming soon, we’ve got yet another poetic creation by Jia Baoyu today. This one is quite significant, and will come up again in this book.

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We’re not quite out of the woods yet. Today our group takes a look at more scenery, most notably a beautiful, solitary crabapple tree. There’s a lot of literary allusion going on here that can be difficult to understand.

My Translation

The group continued on their way. They passed by refined hallways, by thatched cottages, by walls of piled stones, and by gates made up of interlocking branches. In the hills below they caught a glimpse of a secluded Buddhist nunnery; deep in the woods a Taoist retreat for female Taoist nuns. Here there were long, winding covered walkways and twisting caves; there you could see square summer pavilions and rounded kiosks.

But Jia Zheng didn’t enter any of them. He hadn’t rested at all that day, and his legs were absolutely aching.

As they walked along, a courtyard residence came into view ahead. “Let’s go inside here and rest,” said Jia Zheng. And so he led the party into the residence.

They walked around the flowering peach trees and through a rustic moon gate fence made of woven bamboo and covered with flowering vines. That led them to a small enclosure surrounded by whitewashed walls, with green willows hanging down each side.

Jia Zheng led the party through the gate. There were corridors running on both sides connecting one area to the next, and the center of the courtyard contained a few artistic rock structures to complement the scene. On one side were several plantain trees, and on the other stood a single crabapple tree, with its branches spread out like an umbrella, with golden stamens hanging down like tassels, and with petals decorating the scene like cinnabar.

“What beautiful flowers!” exclaimed the men. “We’ve seen crabapples before, but we’ve never seen any as beautiful as these!”

“This is called a ‘Maiden Crabapple,’” replied Jia Zheng. “It’s a foreign variety. According to legend, it comes originally from the Kingdom of Women. That supposedly explains why it has such lush and abundant blossoms. Of course, that’s nothing but a preposterous rumor.”

“But this flower is different!” exclaimed the scholars. “Perhaps there is indeed some truth to the story of the Kingdom of Women.”

“I think,” said Jia Baoyu, “that the scholars and poets in old times called this ‘Maiden’ because it is red like powdered rogue, and because its frail and delicate appearance looks like a beautiful and sickly woman leaning on her attendant for support. The whole thing has the feeling of a woman’s bedroom. As time went on, the name spread by word of mouth. There’s no need to take it literally.”

“We stand corrected,” said the gentlemen. “What a brilliant explanation!”

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Translation Critique

Hawkes

As usual, David Hawkes treats the poetic description of the passages the group goes through as a poem itself:

Hawkes removes Jia Baoyu’s reference to a beautiful and sickly woman entirely:

“‘Surely,’ said Bao-yu, ‘it is much more probable that poets and painters gave it the name of “maiden crab” because of its rogue-like color and delicate, drooping shape, and that the name was misunderstood by ignorant, literal-minded people, who made up this silly story to account for it.’”

Actually, if you read carefully and compare this section with the original text, you’ll see that it’s an entire mistranslation. Yes, Jia Baoyu does speculate that the “Maiden Crabapple” name spread from person to person, and that the reference to “the Kingdom of Women” should not be taken literally. But, no, Jia Baoyu doesn’t criticize people who believe in the literary version of the story as being “ignorant” or “literal-minded.”

But the most important omission here is the lack of any translation of 弱如扶病. It’s incredible to me that this obvious reference to Lin Daiyu is entirely missing in the Hawkes translation.

Yang

The Yangs have the scholars ask “how did the name come to be handed down,” instead of arguing with Jia Zheng that there might be some truth to the story of “the Kingdom of Women.”

They also have Jia Baoyu refer to the tree as being “as frail as a delicate girl,” which, again, is a mistranslation. The Chinese original clearly refers to the girl being sick.

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Chinese Text

於是一路行來，或清堂，或茅舍，或堆石為垣，或編花為門，或山下得幽尼佛寺，或林中藏女道丹房，或長廊曲洞，或方廈圓亭。賈政皆不及進去。因半日未嘗歇息，腿痠腳軟，忽又見前面露出一所院落來，賈政道：「到此可要歇息歇息了。」說著，一徑引入。繞著碧桃花，穿過竹籬花障編就的月洞門，俄見粉垣環護，綠柳周垂。賈政與眾人進了門。兩邊盡是遊廊相接，院中點襯幾塊山石。一邊種幾本芭蕉；那一邊是一樹西府海棠，其勢若傘，絲垂金縷，葩吐丹砂。

眾人都道：「好花，好花！海棠也有，從沒見過這樣好的。」賈政道：「這叫做『女兒棠』，乃是外國之種。俗傳出女兒國，故花最繁盛，亦荒唐不經之說耳。」眾人道：「畢竟此花不同！女國之說想亦有之。」寶玉云：「大約騷人詠士以此花紅若施脂，弱如扶病，近乎閨閣風度，故以女兒命名。世人以訛傳訛，都未免認真了。」眾人都說：「領教。妙解！」

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Translation Notes

丹房 actually means a room for refining elixirs. This refers here to a place for Taoist priests to live and cultivate their daily life together. Since we’re talking about female Taoist priests, this section refers to Taoist nuns. And note, of course, the mention of both Buddhist nunneries and Buddhist nuns.

碧桃花 looks like it means “jade-green peach trees,” but that’s not entirely accurate. It seems that the 碧 here refers to the trees flowering and being in bloom.

院中點襯幾塊山石 is pretty difficult to translate. 點襯 means that the rock structures were placed in the center of the courtyard as a sort of visual foil to the other surrounding elements. It was common in extremely high end classical Chinese architecture to use structures of stones as a sort of natural contrast to the other elements of a residence or courtyard.

The best way to understand the Chinese crabapple tree is to look at a picture of one, assuming you haven’t seen one before:

We’ve got close friends who own a farm filled with crabapple trees in Pingtung County, Taiwan. If you’ve seen those trees in full bloom, you’ll understand what Cao Xueqin is talking about here. The trees do feel like an umbrella or a canopy covering everything underneath them. In this section it’s almost like the trees form a sort of delicately sculpted and crafted work of art. This also seems to reflect the personalities of the delicate girls who are symbolically alluded to in chapter 17.

女兒國, or The Kingdom of Women, is an allusion to chapter 54 of Journey to the West (西遊記). If you’ve never read Journey to the West before, it’s worth reading the entire book just for this one chapter, which is filled with hilarious commentary on the nature of Chinese society during the Ming dynasty.

Jia Zheng refers to the rumor that the tree comes from The Kingdom of Women as 荒唐不經, or utterly ridiculous and unrealistic. This is a reflection of his by-the-book Confucian attitude towards things. Notice that Jia Zheng can never seem to appreciate the aesthetic beauty of the things around him. He’s like somebody who stops reading poetry and fiction in favor of scientific journal articles.

騷人 literally means something like “sorrowful person,” and refers to poets and scholars. This reference seems to come from the long poem 離騷 (Encountering Sorrow) by Qu Yuan (屈原), though the word 騷人 doesn’t actually appear in the poem. 騷人 also shows up in the idiom 遷客騷人, which refers to exiled government officials and scholars.

The image that Jia Baoyu conveys of a beautiful but sickly woman resting on her attendant for support (弱如扶病) is obviously a reference to Lin Daiyu here. It’s also a reference to the classical Chinese idea of 病態美, in which a woman’s physical weakness was equated with spiritual refinement. This is part of the cultural aesthetic at the heart of Lin Daiyu’s character and personality.

Remember, of course, that Xue Baochai is also sick and needs to take pills to battle her own sickness. This is often forgotten when we talk about passages like these.

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This is another short passage, and is honestly a little bit awkward. There’s a clear division in the narrative both before and after this passage. We’re not entirely done with the garden tour, however; we’ve got a few more things to look at before everybody leaves the garden.

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This is a short section. However, like the short sections we’ve seen before in this novel, there’s a lot going on here. More tomorrow.

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I’ve kept this section relatively short. There is something really interesting happening here, though, which we will touch on in tomorrow’s commentary post.

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Sometimes it feels like each new section of this chapter is harder than the one before it. This passage is no exception. If you’re trying to follow along in Chinese, I wish you all the best, and will do my best to help you.

My Translation

“I’ve written a couplet as well,” said another one of the men. “Please let me know what you think.” And he recited:

A fragrant wind drifts over the jade orchids along three paths,

The bright moonlight floods the golden orchids across a single courtyard.

Jia Zheng stroked his beard and thought deeply, hoping to compose his own couplet. But he then raised his head and looked at Baoyu, who was standing nearby silently, not daring to say a word. “Why don’t you say something when you should be talking?” Jia Zheng demanded of him. “Are you waiting for somebody to come and beg you to teach them?”

“This place doesn’t have any musk orchids,” replied Baoyu, “nor a bright moon, nor sandbars or islets. If we’re going to keep citing cliches from the past, we could compose 200 couplets and still not be finished.”

“And who is threatening you,” replied Jia Zheng, “telling you that you absolutely have to use these words?”

“In that case,” answered Baoyu, “the best inscription for the horizontal plaque would be ‘The Pure Fragrance of Wild Ginger and Angelica.’ And here is its couplet:

When you compose poems next to cardamom, they remain vividly bright;

When you sleep your fill next to roseleaf raspberry, your dreams are likewise sweet.

“But that’s just an imitation of the line ‘When written on banana leaves, the script still retains its green,’” replied Jia Zheng with a laugh. “There’s nothing remarkable about that.”

“But Li Bai’s poem ‘On the Phoenix Terrace’ was an imitation of Cui Hao’s ‘Yellow Crane Tower,’” replied the gentlemen. “And yet it’s that style of imitation that makes it work so well. If you look closely and carefully at it, you’ll see that Baoyu’s couplet is even more refined, elegant, and lively than ‘Written on Banana Leaves.’”

“How in the world could that be?!” replied Jia Zheng with a smile.

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Translation Critique

Hawkes

In The Story of the Stone, David Hawkes translates the first couplet like this:

Down garden walks a fragrant breeze caresses bed of melilot.

By courtyard walls a brilliant moon illumines golden orchises.

Honestly, I think this was probably an early draft that Hawkes inadvertently included in the final published version. The grammar makes no sense in English, and it feels like a bunch of gibberish.

Hawkes translates 蘅芷清芬 as “The Garden of Spices,” which I honestly find a little bit disappointing. There’s no “garden” anywhere in the name, and the references to wild ginger and angelica, plants that grow up from the ground in damp environments, are unfortunately missing.

Hawkes does an interesting job translating Baoyu’s couplet:

Composing amidst cardamoms, you shall make verses like flowers.

Slumbering amidst the roses, you shall dream fragrant dreams.

It’s certainly a possible interpretation, though it’s interesting to me that he uses the imperative form (“you shall”) in this poem. I never would have seen it in the original.

He translates Jia Zheng’s quotation like this:

Composing midst the plantains

Green shall my verses be.

However, Hawkes offers no explanatory notes, nor does he say what in the world the scholars are talking about when they reference Li Bai and Cui Hao.

Yang

The Yangs translate the first poem like this:

Along three paths white angelica scents the breeze,

In the court a bright moon shines on golden orchids.

However, this is grammatically incorrect (though at least it makes sense, unlike the David Hawkes version). If 玉蕙 (“white angelica”) is “scenting the breeze” (香風, which I suppose means to add its scent to the breeze), then the flower must be the subject of the sentence. The problem, however, is that the second part of the couplet has 金蘭 (“golden orchids”) as the object and 明月 (a bright moon) as the subject.

Now you can see some of the difficulty involved in making a translation that actually makes sense. The hardest part is figuring out what the couplet actually means first. You can’t translate it until you understand it.

The Yangs translate 蘅芷清芬 as “Pure Scent of Alpinia and Iris,” which is a perfectly fine translation. And they translate Baoyu’s couplet like this:

Singing on cardamons makes lovely poetry;

Sleeping beneath roses induces sweet dreams.

This is also an excellent translation.

They translate Jia Zheng’s reference like this:

Write on plantain leaves and green is the writing.

It’s also a perfectly fine translation, though it’s not clear at all to an English reader that the three lines are supposed to be parallel.

There is a brief explanatory note about the relationship between Yellow Crane Pavilion and Phoenix Tower, but it only says that Cui Hao was “another Tang poet.” Sadly, the Yangs don’t even attempt to explain the reference.

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Chinese Text

又一人道：「我也有一聯，諸公評閱評閱。」念道：「三徑香風飄玉蕙，一庭明月照金蘭。」

賈政拈鬚沉吟，意欲也題一聯，忽抬頭見寶玉在旁，不敢作聲，因喝道：「怎麼你應說話時又不說了？還要等人請教你不成？」寶玉聽了，回道：「此處並沒有什麼蘭麝、明月、洲渚之類，若要這樣著跡說來，就題二百聯也不能完。」賈政道：「誰按著你的頭，教你必定說這些字樣呢？」寶玉道：「如此說，則匾上莫若『蘅芷清芬』四字。對聯則是：『吟成豆蔻詩猶豔，睡足荼蘼夢亦香』。」賈政笑道：「這是套的『書成蕉葉文猶綠』，不足為奇。」眾人道：「李太白《鳳凰臺》之作全套《黃鶴樓》，只要套得妙。如今細評起來，方才這一聯竟比『書成蕉葉』尤覺幽雅活動。」賈政笑道：「豈有此理？」

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Translation Notes

Jia Baoyu’s criticism focuses on the cliches that the most recent poem includes. The poem right before this one was also filled with these cliches. Here are a few:

三徑 (three paths) is an allusion to Jiang Xu (蔣詡) of the Han dynasty, a hermit who cleared three paths in his bamboo grove to receive only a select few friends. It later became a standard trope for a reclusive scholar’s garden.

香風 (fragrant breeze) and 玉蕙 (jade orchids) are also common literary tropes.

Similarly, 明月 (bright moonlight) and 金蘭 (golden orchids) are also common literary tropes.

Jia Baoyu is insisting that the scholars aren’t actually talking about the place that they’ve visited. Instead, they’re using common literary tropes to try to outdo one another in being generic. It’s like having AI write your book.

The four character title that Jia Baoyu gives this place is another nightmare for translators and Chinese students alike.

蘅 refers to the plant 杜衡, which is a low growing and creeping wild ginger plant with heart-shaped leaves and a subtle, spicy-sweet fragrance. It usually grows in damp, shaded forest floors.

芷 refers to 白芷 or angelica. This is a tall, slender herb with white flowers and a very aromatic root. It also grows in humid and damp ground.

Jia Baoyu chooses these two flowers because they actually match the scene that they’ve come across. Notice again that the other scholars are talking about orchids, the setting sun, the moon, and other things that don’t match the scene.

清 means clear; that part is pretty simple. 芬 means fragrant or sweet smelling. This is why we call it “pure fragrance.”

The poem is even more difficult to understand.

豆蔻 is called cardamom in English. This is a certain spice that comes from India, as Wikipedia tells us. However, in Chinese 豆蔻 also refers to the teenage years of a girl, specifically around ages 13 and 14.

荼蘼 means roseleaf raspberry. This is a kind of flower that blooms in the late spring and signifies the end of the flowering season. Therefore, in Chinese literature, this flower can carry with it a kind of finality or a sense of fulfilled contentment – especially if you’re sleeping around it or dreaming of it.

豔 means bright and gorgeous when it refers to colors; it can also mean romantic when you’re talking about love relationships.

The difficult thing about translating Baoyu’s couplet is preserving the grammatical parallel. 睡足 means to sleep one’s fill; 足 is a resultative complement here. Of course, that means that 成 in 吟成 must also be a resultative complement to keep to the rules of the poetic genre.

Similarly, 豆蔻 and 荼蘼 are not the objects of the verbs. Instead, these need to be adverbs, and likely adverbs of location. You compose poetry among or next to the 豆蔻, and you sleep among or next to or underneath the 荼蘼.

書成蕉葉文猶綠 comes from this couplet:

書成蕉葉文猶綠，吟到梅花句亦香

When calligraphy is finished on plantain leaves, the writing still seems green;

When one chants of plum blossoms, the verses themselves become fragrant.

This is an anonymous couplet that was common in classical rhyming and phrasing manuals. It refers to Huaisu (懷素), a monk from the Tang dynasty who could not afford paper, and so practiced his wild cursive calligraphy script on large banana leaves. You can see the parallels to Jia Baoyu’s poem even if you’re only reading this in English. Jia Zheng is saying that there’s nothing remarkable about Jia Baoyu’s couplet because it follows the exact form as that basic couplet; in fact, it’s almost the exact same meaning.

黃鶴樓 (Yellow Crane Tower) by Cui Hao (崔顥) goes like this:

昔人已乘黃鶴去，此地空餘黃鶴樓。

黃鶴一去不復返，白雲千載空悠悠。

晴川歷歷漢陽樹，芳草萋萋鸚鵡洲。

日暮鄉關何處是？煙波江上使人愁。

The immortal of old has already ridden the yellow crane away,

Leaving behind only this empty Yellow Crane Tower.

Once the yellow crane departed, it never returned;

For a thousand years, white clouds have drifted aimlessly.

In clear weather, the river renders every Hanyang tree distinct,

Fragrant grasses grow lush and thick on Parrot Island.

At dusk, where is the way back to my homeland?

The mist and waves upon the river fill one with sorrow.

This refers to the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan. Cui Hao’s poem was famous when Li Bai (李白) visited it, and he claimed at first that he couldn’t compose anything to compete with it.

But then Li Bai came up with a poem titled 登金陵鳳凰臺 (Ascending Phoenix Terrace in Jinling):

鳳凰台上鳳凰遊，鳳去台空江自流。

吳宮花草埋幽徑，晉代衣冠成古丘。

三山半落青天外，二水中分白鷺洲。

總為浮雲能蔽日，長安不見使人愁。

On the Phoenix Terrace, the phoenixes once came to play;

The birds are gone, the terrace is empty, and the river flows on alone.

The flowers and grass of the Wu palaces now bury the secluded paths,

The caps and gowns of the Jin dynasty nobility have become ancient mounds.

The Three Mountains are half visible beyond the blue sky,

The dual streams divide around White Egret Island.

It is only because the drifting clouds can block the sun

That Chang’an remains hidden from view, filling one with sorrow.

Perhaps the best comparison here is to think of Cui Hao and Li Bai as jazz musicians. Li Bai didn’t copy Cui Hao’s poem. Instead, he took the basic outline of the poem and improvised on it, sort of like a jazz master taking the chord progression and melody of a standard and turning it into his own.

You can actually see the comparisons in English. Cui Hao starts with a legendary immortal flying away on a golden crane, leaving an empty tower behind. Li Bai talks about a group of magical phoenixes flying away, leaving an empty stone platform behind. Both poems then reflect with melancholy on the empty space, then give a scenic snapshot of the immediate geography, and end with that “filling one with sorrow” (使人愁) line. And, if you look even closer in Chinese, you’ll see that the grammatical structure of both poems is identical.

Of course, Cui Hao’s poem is about an immortal, almost like a fairy tale poem. It’s about the heavy weight of homesickness. Li Bai’s poem, on the other hand, is very real, and is a reflection on the collapse of the Wu and Jin dynasties. That “吳宮花草埋幽徑，晉代衣冠成古丘” line (The flowers and grass of the Wu palaces now bury the secluded paths, the caps and gowns of the Jin dynasty nobility have come ancient mounds) is incredibly powerful even in translation. This is why the scholars consider Li Bai’s poem an improvement on the original, even though the original poem is absolutely brilliant.

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I’m splitting this next section up into two separate posts because of the sheer amount of poetry that the characters reference here. I’ll try to keep this as readable as I possibly can.

My Translation

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The obscure plant names in this passage are a nightmare to translate. There are certain words here that are almost impossible to translate and that need to be transliterated, as you’ll see below.

Meanwhile, the description of the scene in front of the group is absolutely fantastic, as if Cao Xueqin were describing the process of creating a painting.

My Translation

Jia Zheng then went over to a water gate connected to the irrigation system. “Are there any boats?” he asked Jia Zhen.

“There are four lotus picking boats,” replied Jia Zhen, “as well as a larger boat, but none of them have been finished yet.”

“What a pity!” smiled Jia Zheng. “We can’t go in through the water.”

“We could also enter by following the winding path up the hill,” replied Jia Zhen. Having said this, he went ahead to lead the way.

The whole party went along, clutching vines and steadying themselves against trees. As they went, they saw that there were more and more fallen blossoms on top of the water. The water itself had become more clear, and was flowing in broad, rippling waves as it curved around. There were rows of weeping willows along both banks that were interspersed with peach and apricot trees. The tree branches were woven together like a canopy that blotted out the sky, and there was not a speck of dust in sight.

As they went along, they suddenly saw a deep red plank bridge that went along the surface of the water in a zigzag manner. When they had crossed the bridge, they discovered that there were paths leading off in every direction.

And then they saw a cool, bare-tiled structure in front of them, with walls of smooth and polished brick, flower borders on those walls, and clear gray tiles on the top. The veins of the mountain the building was built on ran straight through the brick wall, almost as if the mountain had penetrated the wall.

“This building here is simply tasteless,” remarked Jia Zheng.

And then, as he stepped into the doorway, he suddenly noticed a huge, sky-piercing bolder of exquisitely perforated rock, surrounded on all sides by clustered masses of stones of every shape, so that they completely screened out all of the inside rooms from his view. There were also no flowering trees or shrubs in sight; rather, there was a profusion of unusual herbs and plants. Some plants trailed behind as clinging vines, some stretched out with creeping tendrils, some hung down over the mountain ridges, some threaded through the feet of the rocks, some dangled from the eaves, coiled around the pillars, wound around the masonry, and twined up the steps. Some of the plants drifted like streamers of jade-green silk, some twisted like coils of golden rope, some bore berries as red as cinnabar, and some bloomed with flowers like tiny golden cassia. Their fragrance was dense and intoxicating, far beyond anything that common flowers could match.

“Amazing!” exclaimed Jia Zheng. “However, I don’t recognize most of those flowers.”

Somebody in the group suggested that there might be creeping figs and wisteria vines.

“But how could creeping figs and wisteria vines have such an extraordinary fragrance?” asked Jia Zheng.

“You’re right; those are the wrong plants,” spoke up Baoyu. “Among the many plants here, there are indeed some creeping figs and wisteria vines. However, the fragrant ones are pollia and wild ginger. That one over there is probably sweet angelica. And this kind is probably golden kudzu vine. That one is golden lantern grass, this one is jade-dew vine, the red ones are naturally purple rue, and the green ones are certainly blue angelica.

“If I remember right, among the strange plants mentioned in On Encountering Sorrow and Selections of Refined Literature, there are plants called ‘huona’ and ‘jianghui,’ and others called ‘lunzu’ and ‘zijiang.’ There are also varieties like the stone-sail coral, water-pine, and betel-pepper vine, which appear in Zuo Taichong’s ‘Rhapsody on Wu.’ And then there’s the green elm-grass, as well as Sichuan peppercorn, lovage, and wind-lotus, which appear in his ‘Rhapsody on Shu.’

“Now, as the years have gone by and times have changed, people no longer recognize those names. And so in every case they seize upon the visible shape of the plants and use the wrong name, gradually giving the plants incorrect titles; it’s really a problem.”

Before he could finished, Jia Zheng shouted, “Who asked you?!”

Startled, Baoyu recoiled and didn’t say another word.

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Translation Critique

Hawkes

We’re going to need to pull out the dictionary for this one.

Hawkes describes that the group sees the stream as they climb up the hill. They see that the stream up there “was wide and deep and distorted by many anfractuosities.” Anfractuosity is one of those high level vocabulary words that makes you despise the person who said it. It means a winding channel or crevice, in particular one that occurs in the depths of the seas or in the mountains.

And, as you probably guessed, that isn’t the end of the unusual words that David Hawkes uses here. I’ll give you a quick rundown of what these words refer to.

Birthwort is the common name of Aristolochia, which is a major species of plant.

Actinidia seems to be an Italian word for kiwifruit.

Agastache means a giant hyssop.

Eulalia is commonly referred to by names such as “dwarf maiden grass,” “zebra grass,” “porcupine grass,” and so on.

Eglantine is a kind of Eurasian rose with prickly stems and fragrant leave.s

Amaranth was originally the name of an imaginary flower that does not wither; these days it refers to any plants of the genus Amaranthus.

Xanthoxylon refers to a certain tree.

Anemone refers to plants like the windflower.

Phellopteron really confuses me, since it seems to be a kind of fly.

Hawkes decides not to translate the book names Li sao and Wen xuan. That’s just as well, since they really aren’t that important. Also, I recommend not getting too hung up on which characters translate to which plant name here, as I think Hawkes decided to come up with the most obscure plant names he could find.

Yang

The Yangs have given us a bunch of difficult plant names as well.

Dolichos refers to a certain type of plant in Africa and Asia.

Glycyrrhizai is another general genus of plant.

The Yangs then keep the more difficult plant names in transcribed Chinese: huona, chiangtan, tsulun, chiangtzu, shihfan, shuisung, fuliu, luyi, tanchiao, miwu, and fenglien. There are no explanatory notes for any of these transliterations, which I take as a sign that the Yangs honestly didn’t know what plants Jia Baoyu was referring to.

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Chinese Text

於是賈政進了港洞，又問賈珍：「有船無船？」賈珍道：「採蓮船共四隻，座船一隻，如今尚未造成。」賈政笑道：「可惜不得入了！」賈珍道：「從山上盤道，也可以進去的。」說畢，在前導引。大家攀藤撫樹過去。只見水上落花愈多，其水愈加清溜，溶溶蕩蕩，曲折縈紆。池邊兩行垂柳，雜以桃杏遮天，無一些塵土。忽見柳陰中又露出一個折帶朱欄板橋來，度過橋去，諸路可通，便見一所清涼瓦舍，一色水磨磚牆，清瓦花堵。那大主山所分之脈皆穿牆而過。

賈政道：「此處這一所房子，無味的很！」因而步入門時，忽迎面突出插天的大玲瓏山石來，四面群繞各式石塊，竟把裡面所有房屋悉皆遮住。且一樹花木也無，只見許多異草，或有牽藤的，或有引蔓的，或垂山嶺，或穿石腳，甚至垂簷繞柱，縈砌盤階，或如翠帶飄颻，或如金繩蟠屈，或實若丹砂，或花如金桂。味香氣馥，非凡花之可比。

賈政不禁道：「有趣！只是不大認識。」有的說是薜荔藤蘿。賈政道：「薜荔藤蘿那得有此異香？」寶玉道：「果然不是。這眾草中也有藤蘿薜荔。那香的是杜若蘅蕪。那一種大約是茝蘭。這一種大約是金葛。那一種是金䔲草，這一種是玉蕗藤。紅的自然是紫芸，綠的定是青芷。想來那《離騷》《文選》所有的那些異草：有叫作什麼藿納姜匯的，也有叫作什麼綸組紫絳的；還有什麼石帆、清鬆、扶留等樣的，見於左太沖《吳都賦》；又有叫作什麼綠荑的，還有什麼丹椒、蘼蕪、風蓮，見於《蜀都賦》。如今年深歲改，人不能識，故皆像形奪名，漸漸的喚差了，也是有的」未及說完，賈政喝道：「誰問你來？」唬的寶玉倒退，不敢再說。

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Translation Notes

港洞 was an artificial grotto or a water gate at the entrance of the water system of the Grand View Garden. This would have been a rather large water gate, big enough for a boat to fit through (which is why he asks Jia Zhen about boats).

採蓮船, or a “lotus picking boat,” is a small pleasure boat created for leisurely passing around the lotus plants.

座船 was a larger boat with seats.

溶溶蕩蕩 describes a body of water that is broad and gently rolling and surging. I think of this as having light rippling waves.

曲折縈紆 means twisting or winding

板橋 is more than an ordinary bridge. This is a “plank bridge,” which was a flat wooden bridge that would have looked like a kind of sash or belt on top of the water. The bridge is described as 折, or folded. The idea here is that the bridge was deliberately made in a zigzag manner, one that almost looked like it was folded. This was for artistic effect, and would have forced anybody crossing it to take their time instead of going quickly.

Note how quickly Jia Zheng’s attitude towards the house changes. The reader is able to understand the overall artistic value of the building through his sudden shift of opinion.

薜荔 means creeping fig and 薜荔 means Chinese wisteria. These are relatively common plants in China.

杜若 is known as East Asian pollia, and is a plant with white flowers and a subtle, clear scent. It is a symbol of pure virtue.

蘅蕪 means wild ginger, and is a low-growing plant with a leaf shaped like a heart and a spicy fragrance.

茝蘭 means sweet angelica, and is a tall, aromatic parsley herb used in traditional Chinese medicine.

金葛, or golden kudzu vine, is a fast growing exotic vine with golden yellow roots, which is why it’s called “golden.”

金䔲草 is an obscure ancient name; we’re going to have more of those. This is likely a kind of grass with golden seedheads that look like lanterns.

玉蕗藤 is another unknown species, and was probably a vine with leaves that looked like jade.

The names 金䔲草 and 玉蕗藤 are both pretty obscure, and there seems to be a reason they are used here. This particular phrasing seems to refer to the poem Immortals at the Magpie Bridge (鹊桥仙·纤云弄巧) by the Song dynasty poet Qin Guan (秦觀):

金風雨露一相逢，便卻勝人間無數

When the golden wind meets the jade dew a single time, it surpasses countless unions in the mortal world.

In Dream of the Red Chamber, there’s a pretty common symbol of a bond between gold and jade (金玉良緣). This generally refers to the romance between Xue Baochai and Jia Baoyu. As you may recall, Jia Baoyu has a piece of jade around his neck, while Xue Baochai wears a golden lock that a Buddhist monk gave her.

In contrast, the wood-stone vow (木石前盟) refers to the relationship between Lin Daiyu (originally a flower, therefore referred to as “wood”) and Jia Baoyu (originally a stone).

There is a reason why gold and jade are meeting together at this particular place, though we’ll learn more about that later in the book.

紫芸 means purple rue. This is a strongly aromatic herb with tinges that are slightly bluish-purple.

青芷 means the blue angelica. This is similar to the 茝蘭 (sweet angelica) listed above, except that it’s a blue-green color.

離騷 or On Encountering Sorrow was written by Qu Yuan somewhere around 300 BC. In the book, Qu Yuan drapes himself in orchids and angelicas as a metaphor for his untarnished virtue in a corrupt court. The plants he names are all symbols of moral purity. And, yes, it’s ironic that Jia Baoyu would quote this particular book, out of all possible books, in preparation for the visit of his imperial sister-in-law.

文選, or Selections of Refined Literature, was compiled by Xiao Tong, the Crown Prince of Liang around 530 AD. This important literary anthology canonized a number of older poetic forms and preserved the poems that Jia Baoyu is about to quote. And, yes, it’s very impressive that Jia Baoyu can quote obscure passages from this book at length.

藿納 and 姜匯 (“huona” and “jianghui”) are ancient words from what is now Jiangsu Province. These likely referred to wild gingers and turmeric-like spices that grew in the humid south. We don’t know the actual plants these refer to.

綸組 and 紫絳 (“lunzu” and “zijiang”) are likely different kind of vines. “Lunzu” means “silk cord,” which is probably a vine that looked like a twisted rope. “Zijiang” means “purple crimson,” and, from the context, was probably a vine with red and purple stems.

石帆 is “stone-sail coral,” and is a kind of coral that washes ashore. It’s not a land plant at all. Jia Baoyu is showing off his knowledge of obscure plants in poems.

清鬆 is called the “water-pine.” Despite its name, it’s actually a floating aquatic plant.

扶留 is the betel-peper vine, or a vine with leaves that are chewed along with betel nut.

吳都賦 (“Rhapsody on Wu”) and 蜀都賦 (“Rhapsody on Shu”) are two poems from the three poem series 三都賦 (Rhapsodies on Three Cities) by Zuo Taichong (左太沖, about 250 to 305 AD). These were extremely famous and beloved poems at the time, and are well known today, as Jia Baoyu is demonstrating.

綠荑 means “Green elm-grass,” and is the tender young sprout of the elm tree. It might also refer to a plant that looks a lot like those young sprouts.

丹椒, or Sichuan peppercorn, is the numbing spice that makes Sichuan cuisine famous.

蘼蕪, or lovage, is a fragrant herb mentioned in On Encountering Sorrow as a symbol of separation and longing.

風蓮 is a lotus or water-lily that sways in the breeze. This is a purely poetic flower.

When Jia Baoyu complains about 像形奪名 (people seizing on the shape of an object and usurping the true name), he is alluding to the Confucian teaching that the first step to a harmonious society is to call things by the proper name. Of course, it’s ironic that Jia Baoyu is telling this to his father, which is a direct affront to all Confucian sensibility.

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This is yet another one of those sections that you’d probably gloss over quickly if you were only reading this book in English. And, of course, that’s a good reason for us to go slowly and focus.

There’s actually a lot going on here, and we’ll wind up coming back to this passage a few times before the book ends.

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My Translation

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If you thought the last two translation passages were deep, just wait. This one is even more difficult to understand, and will require a lot of digging and pruning. But it’s worth the effort.

My Translation

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It’s around this point in Dream of the Red Chamber that most Western readers find their eyes glossing over the text. The problem is that Cao Xueqin uses a lot of dense and somewhat difficult to understand literary allusions. Most print translations struggle because there just isn’t enough room to actually quote the original poems and explain the allusions and what they mean. Of course, this blog has an advantage, since the world of internet posting means I’ve got an unlimited amount of manuscript paper to work with.

There are so many poetic allusions in this section that it’s going to be a pretty dense read. As is the case with all of the other passages with extensive and dense literary allusions, I strongly recommend consulting the translation notes even if you don’t know any Chinese.

My Translation

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This is the first meticulous and encyclopedic passage we’ve seen so far in Dream of the Red Chamber. There are more to come, and this sort of thing reminds me of some of the oddly specific passages in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

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My Translation

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Jia Baoyu’s brilliance is on display again today. This is a pretty complex and dense passage, and I probably should have split it up into two or three posts. Enjoy today’s long translation post and complex explanation!

My Translation

The group then left the pavilion, went across the pond, and were careful to examine every hill, every rock, every flower, and every tree along their way. After a while, when they raised their heads, they suddenly saw a row of whitewashed walls surrounding several tall rooms, partially shaded by a dense grove of countless green bamboo trees. “What an excellent spot!” everybody exclaimed as they entered.

After they entered through the gateway, they found themselves walking along a winding covered walkway. There was a path paved with small pebbles below the steps which led onward to a tiny building with three rooms: two bright rooms with windows and one darker inner room. Every piece of furniture inside, including couches, tables, chairs, and desks, had been custom built to fit the exact proportions of the rooms. A small door led out from the inner room to a garden in the back, where large pear trees and broad-leaved plantains grew, along with two small paths leading to the outside of the compound.

There was a narrow opening at the bottom of the rear garden wall that enclosed a stream of spring water. There was a shallow channel, about a foot wide, that carried the water under the wall. This channel wound around the steps, enclosed the house, flowed out into the front courtyard, and went in and out of the bamboo trees before finally draining away.

“This really is a nice area,” said Jia Zheng with a smile. “If you could come here on a moonlit night to read by these windows, surely your life would not be lived in vain!” He glanced over at Baoyu as he said these words.

Baoyu was startled and quickly dropped his head. The others intervened with some casual chatter to smooth things over.

“We really ought to find four characters for the plaque by this scene,” spoke two of the scholars.

“Which four characters?” asked Jia Zheng with a smile.

“How about ‘The Legacy of the Qi River?’” suggested one scholar.

“That’s too obvious,” replied Jia Zhen.

“What about ‘The Relics of the Sui Garden?’” asked another scholar.

“That’s also too common,” replied Jia Zheng.

Jia Zhen was standing nearby, and he spoke up. “Maybe we should let Baoyu come up with one here.”

“Before he comes up with his idea,” said Jia Zheng with a hint of frustration, “he should find fault with what the others have said first. Then we can see how flippant and arrogant he really is.”

“But his criticisms are correct,” replied the scholars. “We really can’t help it.”

“Don’t indulge him so much,” replied Jia Zheng hastily. He then turned to Jia Baoyu. “Today I’ll let you speak as wildly and recklessly as you like. However, you may only compose your own title after you’ve given us your criticism. Now, among the suggestions you just heard, is there any that you think we could use?”

“None of them seem quite right,” said Baoyu after thinking about Jia Zheng’s question.

“Why aren’t they quite right?” asked Jia Zheng with a cold smile.

“This is the very first place for the imperial visit,” said Jia Baoyu. “The inscription needs to extol the imperial presence above all. And besides, if we’re going to use a four character plaque here, why make a new one when perfectly good ancient models already exist?”

“Wait,” replied Jia Zheng. “Don’t you realize that ‘Qi River’ and ‘Sui Garden’ come from ancient sources?”

“Yes,” said Baoyu, “but they are too stiff and predictable. It would be much better to use the phrase ‘The Phoenix Arrives In Ritual Splendor.’”

“Absolutely brilliant!” exclaimed all the scholars.

“You little beast,” said Jia Zheng as he nodded. “You’ve only got a shallow and limited view of the whole thing. Now let’s see you come up with a matching couplet poem to go along with it.”

Baoyu composed this poem:

In the precious kettle, the tea sits idle, and the steam is green;

By the quiet window, the chess game is abandoned, and the fingers are cold.

“Nothing remarkable at all,” muttered Jia Zheng as he shook his head. And he then led the party out.

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Translation Critique

Hawkes

Hawkes describes that Jia Zheng’s “glance happened to fall on Bao-yu, who instantly became so embarrassed that he hung his head in shame.” This makes no sense at all in this context. Instead, Jia Zheng looked at Jia Baoyu deliberately because his phrase about studying beside the window on a moonlit night was intended to test Jia Baoyu’s literary abilities. It’s not necessarily a mistranslation; however, if you only read The Story of the Stone, you’re going to be very confused by this passage.

Thankfully, David Hawkes gives us a direct quotation to explain what 淇水遺風 (“Where Bends the Qi”) means:

“‘Where Bends The Qi’” said one of them, no doubt having in mind the song in the Poetry Classic which begins with the words

See in that nook where bends the Qi,

The green bamboos, how graceful grown!

I honestly wish Hawkes would have done this more frequently with the other literary allusions in this book.

Unfortunately, the Sui Garden reference doesn’t work quite as well:

“‘North of the Sui’” said the other, evidently thinking of the ancient Rabbit Garden of the Prince of Liang in Suiyang – also famous for its bamboos and running water.

This kind of works, except that it misses the point. The point is that the 睢園 was also a famous literary gathering place that served pretty much the same role that this garden will serve as we continue through Dream of the Red Chamber. However, Hawkes says nothing here about the literary role of that garden.

Hawkes also explains Jia Baoyu’s suggestion to a certain extent:

This is the first building our visitor will enter when she looks over the garden, so there ought to be some word of praise for the Emperor at this point. If we want a classical reference with imperial symbolism, I suggest “The Phoenix Dance,” alluding to that passage in the History Classic about the male and female phoenixes alighting “with measured gambollings” in the Emperor’s courtyard.

I was confused about this when I first read it several years ago, especially the “gambollings” part. To gambol means to frolic or move about playfully. Unfortunately for David Hawkes, this is actually a mistranslation of 簫韶九成，鳳凰來儀, where the phoenix comes in to perform a ritual. The problem is that 儀 means to perform a ritual, not to dance or rest or play around or whatever.

Hawkes translates the poem like this:

From the empty cauldron the steam still rises after the brewing of tea.

By the darkening window the fingers are still cold after the game of Go.

The problem with this translation is that the steam isn’t green. It needs to be green. If the steam isn’t green, then there is no allusion at all to the bamboo, and the poem doesn’t make any sense.

The other problem is that the cauldron is not “empty.” It’s “precious” (寶). In fact, the cauldron is not really empty. The tea is ready and is cooling off, but the person inside is not paying any attention because of the amazing scene outside the window.

Note as well that the original poem implies that the game of chess has been ignored as much as the tea sitting in the cauldron. Your fingers wouldn’t be cold after a game of chess or Go. Your fingers would be warm. Your fingers would only be cold if the game never took place to begin with, which is what this poem actually means.

Yang

The Yangs have Jia Baoyu hang “his head in confusion” after his father makes the comment and looks at him. This is not a correct translation. Jia Baoyu understands what his father expects of him, but is hanging his head because it’s not really his place right now to come up with some spectacular poem on the spot.

The Yangs translate the first suggestion as “Shades of the River Chi,” with a note explaining that “According to the Book of Songs, the area around the River Chi, in the northern part of present-day Honan, abounded with bamboo in ancient time.” This is sort of correct, but it misses the point of the reference to 淇奧. The point here is the comparison between the bamboo and an upright gentleman – which is actually also why this name is inappropriate, as Jia Baoyu correctly points out.

The second name is translated as “Traces of the Sui Garden,” which is explained in a footnote as “Garden of Prince Hsiao of Liang in the Han Dynasty.” That’s correct, of course. However, as was the case with David Hawkes’ translation, the problem is that no context or explanation is given. Actually, the Sui Garden is an excellent foreshadowing of what this garden is going to become as this book continues.

They translate Jia Baoyu’s title as “Where the Phoenix Alights,” which is okay, but not entirely correct. Remember that 儀 refers to a ritual act, not just arriving.

They translate Baoyu’s poem like this:

Still green the smoke from tea brewed in a rare tripod;

Yet cold the fingers from chess played by quiet window.

They get the “green smoke” or “green steam” image correct. However, as I’ve noted elsewhere, it’s not possible for the chess game to have actually been played if the fingers were cold. Rather, the implication in this poem is that the person inside hasn’t drunk the team or played the game of chess because she is so caught up in the fantastic scene outside the window.

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Chinese Text

於是出亭過池，一山一石，一花一木，莫不著意觀覽。忽抬頭見前面一帶粉垣，數楹修舍，有千百竿翠竹遮映。眾人都道：「好個所在！」於是大家進入。只見進門便是曲折遊廊，階下石子漫成甬路，上面小小三間房舍，兩明一暗，裡面都是合著地步打的床几椅案。從裡間房裡又有一小門出去，卻是後園，有大株梨花，闊葉芭蕉，又有兩間小小退步。後院牆下忽開一隙，得泉一派，開溝尺許，灌入牆內，繞階緣屋至前院，盤旋竹下而出。

賈政笑道：「這一處倒還好。若能月夜至此窗下讀書，也不枉虛生一世！」說著，便看寶玉，唬的寶玉忙垂了頭。眾人忙用閒話解說。又二客說：「此處的匾，該題四個字。」賈政笑問：「那四字？」一個道是「淇水遺風」。賈政道：「也俗。」又一個道是「睢園遺蹟。」賈政道：「也俗。」賈珍在旁說道：「還是寶兄弟擬一個罷。」賈政道：「他未曾做，先要議論人家的好歹，可見是個輕薄東西！」眾客道：「議論的是，也無奈他何。」賈政忙道：「休如此縱了他。」因說道：「今日任你狂為亂道，等說出議論來，方許你做。方才眾人說的，可有使得的沒有？」寶玉見問，便答道：「都似不妥。」賈政冷笑道：「怎麼不妥？」寶玉道：「這是第一處行幸之所，必須頌聖方可。若用四字的匾，又有古人現成的，何必再做？」賈政道：「難道『淇水』『睢園』不是古人的？」寶玉道：「這太板了，莫若『有鳳來儀』四字。」眾人都鬨然叫妙。賈政點頭道：「畜生，畜生！可謂『管窺蠡測』矣。」因命：「再題一聯來。」寶玉便念道：「寶鼎茶閒煙尚綠，幽窗棋罷指猶涼。」

賈政搖頭道：「也未見長。」說畢，引人出來。

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Translation Notes

粉垣 literally means a “powdered wall.” 粉 is frequently used to describe makeup, though in this case it’s referring to a low wall covered with whitewash.

修舍 seems to mean a tall or lofty building. In this case, 修 means “tall,” not “to repair.”

翠竹 means green bamboo

Notice that the water curves and winds under the bamboo trees rather than flowing straight. This was considered to be auspicious because the “vital energy,” or qi (氣), was slowed down by this process. And, of course, it’s more common in nature to see water that flows one way and the other instead of water that moves in a straight line.

This passage shows the expectations Jia Zheng has of his son. When he looks at Jia Baoyu after making his remark about reading by the window, he’s expecting Jia Baoyu to spontaneously produce fascinating poetry. Jia Baoyu isn’t dropping his head because of guilt; rather, it’s because he knows what his father expects. And the response by the men around them is an attempt to lighten the tension a bit and distract Jia Zheng.

淇水遺風 is a direct allusion to a poem in the 詩經, or the Classic of Poetry. More specifically, it is a poem called 淇奥, “The Bamboo Pole,” in the 衛風 or “Odes of Wei” section. This is the beginning of the group of three poems:

瞻彼淇奧，綠竹猗猗。

有匪君子，如切如磋，如琢如磨。

Look at that bend of the Qi River,

Where the green bamboos grow so lush and fair.

There is a man of such refined grace,

As if he were cut, as if he were polished,

As if he were carved, as if he were ground.

The phrase 淇奧 is similarly repeated in the other three poems.

The notable element here is the fact that the rising green bamboo trees along the Qi River are used to praise a man of noble virtue and profound learning.

As you can see, when the scholar says 淇水遺風, the only allusion to the poem is 淇水 itself. 遺風 literally means “handed down wind” or “bequeathed wind,” as if the wind or spirit or feeling of the past were handed down from generation to generation. Basically, the title 淇水遺風 is presumptuous, as if to say that this combination of room and trees were somehow the entire embodiment of the old legacy of the Odes of Wei (衛風).

Jia Zhen replies that it’s “obvious” or “common” (俗) because of how famous the allusion to 淇奧 (the Qi River) was. There’s also a hint here of being a bit presumptuous.

睢園遺蹟 is a historical allusion to a legendary royal garden built during the Weestern Han dynasty. This garden was actually called the 梁園 or Liang Garden. However, it was located in the ancient city of Suiyang (睢陽) in what is now Henan Province. This was a massive garden filled with palaces, pavilions, exotic animals, and huge bamboo groves.

This Sui Garden was known in large part for being the literary and cultural center of its time. Writers lived in the garden, composed poetry, and had numerous intellectual discussions, which itself is a foreshadowing of what we’re about to see in the remaining chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber.

It seems at first glance that the Sui Garden reference is fitting. The problem, however, is that it’s another famous literary cliché, and it is somewhat stiff and pedantic.

It seems a little bit odd that Jia Zheng scolds Jia Baoyu as 輕薄東西 (a flippant, arrogant thing) here before he has said a word. This might be because this entire scene is set up basically as a charade to showcase Jia Baoyu’s literary brilliance. Jia Zheng might be worried that he feels arrogant and might have added in this snide remark to cut Jia Baoyu down to size.

Jia Baoyu’s title 有鳳來儀 (A Phoenix Comes Here In Splendor) is a line taken from the 尚書, or Book of Documents. The original passage described the reign of the legendary King Shun:

簫韶九成，鳳凰來儀。

When the Xiao-Shao music was played in nine movements, the phoenix came and performed its ritual dance.

Note that 儀 literally means to perform a ritual. When I say “splendor” in the translation of the title, what I mean is a type of ritual splendor; the phoenix, or Jia Yuanchun, is coming here to perform an important ritual just as the phoenix that visited King Shun did thousands of years earlier.

The appearance of the phoenix in this context was a sort of cosmic endorsement of the virtue of King Shun. In other words, heaven was so pleased with the moral governance of King Shun that it sent the phoenix as a living symbol of peace, prosperity, and the heavenly mandate.

Baoyu’s use of this phrase is actually brilliant when you think about it. Even though this is a direct classical reference, it’s really forward looking. Instead of talking about the handed down remnants of the Qi River or the relics of the long since destroyed Liang Garden in Suiyang, his reference looks forward to imperial visit.

Remember that the phoenix (鳳) often referred to imperial women, sort of like how the dragon (龍) would refer to imperial men, or to the Emperor. In other words, when Jia Baoyu says that the phoenix is coming here to rest, it is a direct reference to Jia Yuanchun coming to stay in this garden. And the fact that Jia Baoyu has taken a well known classical phrase and has adapted it to an entirely new context is precisely why the scholars praise him so highly.

管窺蠡測 literally means to look at the sky through a bamboo tube and to try to measure the depth of the sea with a water gourd. Jia Zheng is rhetorically criticizing Jia Baoyu as being uneducated and shortsighted. The interesting thing, though, is that he nodded in approval while he said this, which shows that he’s actually quite proud of his son. Jia Zheng is basically caught between wanting to praise his child and the necessity of maintaining his stern and Confucian disciplinarian fatherly image. And that’s probably why he uses such harsh language here.

There’s also a feeling among commentators that Jia Zheng might be criticizing himself with this language, and not his son.

Note that the poem 寶鼎茶閒煙尚綠，幽窗棋罷指猶涼 is a couplet where the grammar follows the exact same pattern in both lines. In other words, 茶閒 (the tea is idle, or the tea has been brewed but nobody is drinking it) and 棋罷 (the chess or go game has been abandoned, or finished) are parallel, the descriptive words 寶鼎 (in the precious kettle) and 幽窗 (by the quiet window) are parallel, and the phrases 煙尚綠 (the steam is still green) and 指猶涼 (the fingers are still cool) are also parallel.

The question, of course, is what precisely is this poem about? The tea has grown cold because it’s idle and the chess game is either over or has been abandoned (note that 罷 usually means “finished,” but probably means “abandoned” in this case). And yet the occupant of the room has not left. Why? This is likely because they are sitting in quiet contemplation, absorbed in the beauty that they see outside the window.

Or, in other words, the scene they saw was so beautiful that they neglected to drink the tea or play the chess game. They are contemplating while sitting in this space, allowing their life to slow down to appreciate the beauty around them. And the thing that they’re obviously observing is the impressive bamboo right outside the window.

It’s almost certainly true that the chess game is abandoned and not finished, even though 罷 usually means “to finish.” The reason why is because the fingers are cold (指猶涼). If you just finished a game of chess, your fingers would be warm, not cold.

Obviously, this does not directly refer to the name 有鳳來儀 (A Phoenix Comes Here To Rest), which is probably why Jia Zheng dismisses the poem outright. But, of course, there is an indirect reference. The phoenix traditionally was believed to dwell in bamboo groves and eat bamboo seeds. Therefore, it would naturally be appropriate for the phoenix to spend her time resting in a place like this, lost in silent contemplation of the world outside the window. It’s a pretty subtle poem, but it’s exciting when you understand it.

The most amazing part about this poem is that Jia Baoyu never actually talks about the bamboo, even though it’s clearly the highlight. The poem says nothing about what lies outside the window. However, the phrase 煙尚綠 (the steam is still green) is the clue. The steam of tea isn’t green, of course. The reason it appears to be green, however, is because of the dense green light that pours into the room and permeates everything around it. That color comes from the dense grove of bamboo trees that lie outside. Just like in the previous poem, Jia Baoyu has managed to find a way to talk about the centerpiece of the scene without actually talking about it.

寶鼎 is odd, of course. 鼎 means a censer, but also referred to tea heating vessels or kettles. By calling this a precious kettle (寶鼎), Jia Baoyu establishes the fact that it is appropriate for an imperial visit, but also places emphasis on just how breathtaking the bamboo scenery outside the window really is. It’s amazing to the point that the person inside the room has completely ignored the precious kettle and the tea inside.

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Today’s post will make it obvious why Dream of the Red Chamber absolutely requires extensive textual notes. There’s simply no way you’d ever be able to understand what is going on here without slowing things down and reading very carefully. Jia Baoyu’s poem is absolutely marvelous.

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My Translation

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