No Shop Talk

A few days ago, I could not think of what comes after 金風玉露 and so I put it away and totally forgot all about it. I suggested to the Poetry Group on FB when someone wrote that Mid-Autumn is coming this week that to celebrate it, we could all contribute a poem for the occasion. That guy agreed wholeheartedly to the idea…

This was completed during my jog.

1 金風玉露宴交情 Amid the banquet, feelings of the golden wind and jade dew exchanged,
2 酒滿高樓仍未停 Free flow of wine fills the lofty towers with signs of no stopping.
3 舉杯接觴政莫談 One lifted pint to toast, gallons returned with no talk of politics,
4 月到中秋分外明 The moon is especially bright during the Mid-Autumn.

1 Golden wind – autumn air has that kind of crispy feel to it and because the lowered temperature of the season, dew forms easily, hence these two terms are used to mean the time of autumn. At the same time, they represent things of no permanence. The use of banquet alludes to the most important event of the season – the mid-autumn festival. There is the element of frivolities in a party.

2 高樓酒滿 is not as colourful. 滿  used as a verb, “to fill”. The use of “lofty” sets up the scene for the last line. Frivolities at the party never cease.

3 The first four characters are from the Thousand Character Classic - 舉杯接觴, 悦豫且康. I decided that using the literal translation did not work well to paint the exaggeration. 杯 means cup and 觴 is a goblet or stein, a much bigger vessel than a Chinese wine cup. https://daxueconsulting.com/understand-drinking-culture-china/

4 This comes from 馮夢龍’s ”醒世恒言卷十八”. The preceding line is 人逢喜事精神爽.

Thursday, 28 September 2023