Floating Red - 浮紅

This one was inspired by the instrumental piece, “Terra Cotta Warrior” by Noel Quinland. The music reminded me of the perceived carefree ranked Ch’ing Dynasty concubines swaying their large handkerchiefs in the wind as they trod on their platform shoes. In the end, the theme changed into something else as I remembered a story I read eons ago…

1 閑渡銀橋巾帕揚 Crossing leisurely the silver bridge a kerchief fluffed,
2 靜流金水玉帶長 Quietly flows the golden water and the jade belt is long.
3 深宮禁地出入難 Difficult it is to enter and exit the forbidden palace,
4 唯託浮紅人間嘗 Except to entrust the floating red to sample the ordinary world for me.

1 Just a euphemism for a grand looking bridge. The action of fluffing her handkerchief is to distract her action of dropping the leaf into the waters in case if someone was looking.

https://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/beijing/forbidden-city/inner-golden-water-river.htm

2 The river moat in the Forbidden City is known as the Golden Water or the Jade Belt. Here it just means a stream/ditch flowing through the palace.

4 Usually, 人間means the mortal world. In this context, the world of the ordinary people. The palace is considered to be heaven on earth – the Great Within (大內).

This is an allusion to 流紅記 (An Account of Flowing Red), written in the Sung Dynasty about an event that took place in the Tang Dynasty. A scholar was walking by the banks of the imperial stream flowing out of the palace. Perchance, he espied on a floating red leaf that to him looked unusual and fished it out of the water. On it was a poem,

流水何太急 Why do the waters floweth so hurriedly?
深宮盡日閑 Deep inside the palace where time is spent in idleness.
殷勤謝紅葉 With greatest reverence in thanking the red leaf,
好去到人間 Godspeed journeying to the world of the Great Without.

He surmised that some lonely court lady was lamenting about her life in the lonely palace. He fell in love with her through the poem and could not take her out of the mind. His friends laughed at his callowness. Still, he wrote a reply on another leaf and threw it into the upstream:

曾聞葉上題紅怨 Once I heard that upon a leaf was a girl lamenting her woes,
葉上題詩寄阿誰 But to whom was this poem sent?

Unlike other stories about scholars, our hero did not pass the imperial examinations and resigned himself to the harsh realities of the world. He stayed behind in the capital and became a private tutor to an official’s household. He worked diligently and gained the favor of his employer. One day, the employer told him that from someone from the palace having the same last name as his came to seek protection. She was a court lady to be “retired” at age of 30. He would like to matchmake the former scholar and her as husband and wife. Of course, he could not refuse such an offer from his master. Fortunately, for him, when he saw her, it was love at first sight. After many years of a blissful marriage, the wife, one day, went to the husband’s worktable to clear things up. In a box, she found the red leaf on which the poem was written. She immediately exclaimed that it was her poem! The husband was flabbergasted and she said she too had one red leaf poem and produced it to her husband, which of course is his poem. They told the lord of the household about this miraculous impossibility that came true for both of them. Two poems were then composed by the husband and wife for this joyous occasion,

獨步天溝岸 Alone I walked by the banks of the imperial moat
臨流得葉時 It was then by the current approached that this leaf now beholden,
此情誰會得 Who would know that this love could be had?
腸斷一聯詩 Brokenhearted just because of this poetic stanza.

一聯佳句題流水 One elegant stanza on flowing waters,
十載幽思滿素懷 Ten years of silent thoughts filled the heart with this life’s longing,
今日欲成鸞鳳友 Today that we are now a phoenix pair,
方知紅葉是良媒 Knoweth this moment the marvel of matchmaking this red leaf be.

Sunday, September 12, 2021
Monday, September 13, 2021