1 夜靜風冷星未墜 Quiet is the night when winds are cold and stars yet to set,
2 燈滅影盡船舟去 Lights extinguished, shadows are gone and ships had departed.
3 嫦娥身在廣寒殿 O Goddess of the Moon, bodily in the Palace of Great Frigidity,
4 魄却瑤池蟠宴醉 Drunken is her soul still at the Peach Banquet of the Jasper Pool.
1 No sleep yet and dawn still hasn’t arrived.
2 Hope is gone like the boats.
3 殿 is the administrative part of the palace while 宮 is the residential area. 身is used as a verb. Originally, I had ”嫦娥身在知處難, O Goddess of the Moon, where you are I know not” because of the setting was on a boat but was changed later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e
4 Originally, I had “疑定宴於瑤池去”, “Most probably to the Jasper Pool part she went” as the answer to the previous question. I could not form a good couplet and so had to change the last three lines. Ancient Chinese believes that there are nine souls in a person, 3 superior souls known as 魂 and 6 baser ones as 魄. When a person dies, the baser souls are the last to leave because they could not bear to leave. The longer they remain, the greater chance to become malevolent by causing the body to be animated and cause havoc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaches_of_Immortality
Monday, August 7, 2023
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