Continuing Jiao of Zheng’s Verses, A Barrow Person

Jiao was a provincial examinee from north of the river. While traveling between Chen and Cai, he passed a burial mound upon which were two bamboo poles, bright green and lovely, and he recited two lines of a poem but was not able to complete it. Suddenly he heard from within the burial mound this continuation. Jiao was frightened and asked who it was, but it didn’t speak again.

Jiao of Zheng:
Upon the tomb, two bamboo poles—
Wind blows them graceful, ever graceful.

Barrow Person:
Beneath lay one for a hundred years—
Through my long sleep, I was unaware.

续郑郊吟
作者：冢中人
〈郊，河北人。下第游陈蔡间，过一冢，上有竹二竿，青翠可爱，因吟诗二句，久不能续。忽闻冢中续此，郊惊问之，不复言矣。〉
冢上两竿竹，
风吹常袅袅。（郑郊）
下有百年人，
长眠不知晓。（冢中人）

Another ghost poem from CTP ch866. Zheng was a Warring State of central Henan, used generically for the region around what’s now Zhengzhou, while Chen and Cai were two neighboring Warring States/regions, in southern Henan. A provincial examinee is one who passed the middle-level imperial exams (as opposed to the higher-level imperial exams of an advanced scholar, or the lower county-level exams). Barrow might not be the best word for a Chinese burial mound, but I like the resonances here, even if I can’t call the ghost a wight. According to one dictionary, this is the first known use of 长眠, literally “long sleep,” in the idiomatic meaning of “eternal rest.”

TL;DR: “Turn that music down—and get off my lawn tomb!”

---L.