Poem Recited in a Post-Station Tower, Woman of Central Hunan

The servant Zheng was once sent to central Hunan. While lodging in a post-station tower, he encountered at night a woman who recited a poem, then immediately vanished.

The red trees drunk on autumn colors,
The emerald stream plucks evening’s strings.
That happy time can’t come again:
The winds and rains are deep as years.

驿楼诵诗
作者：湘中女子
〈郑仆射愚尝游湘中，宿于驿楼。夜遇女子诵诗，顷刻不见。〉
红树醉秋色，
碧溪弹夜弦。
佳期不可再，
风雨杳如年。

Slightly misleading translations: happy time is more literally an “auspicious time,” as in a tryst, rather than a longer period of a romance, and commentaries understand 夜 as dark “night” instead evening. (Yes, this one actually has commentaries, including one that compares it to Poem of Hidden Resentment by another female ghost, which is a couple episodes later in the collection.) “Winds and rains” means troubled times.

It is really striking to see metaphors in a Chinese poem, instead of symbols and explicit similes.

(Is it a relief to get back to a short episode? Yes, it is.)

---L.