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lnhammerOne dusk with fireflies, he brooded silently:
The lonely lamp went out but he was not asleep—
The watch’s drum struck late, beginning the long night—
The Milky Way shone brightly as he longed for dawn—
The mandarin duck roof-tiles were cold with heavy frost,
The kingfisher quilt was chilly—who’d share it with him?
夕殿萤飞思悄然，
孤灯挑尽未成眠。
迟迟钟鼓初长夜，
耿耿星河欲曙天。
鸳鸯瓦冷霜华重，
翡翠衾寒谁与共。
Sweeping in from the setting to the personal, and setting up our focus on the emperor’s deepening regret. (In a very real sense, the poem is not about the central romance but his manpain, which makes Yang Guifei’s death a fridging—and thinking of it like that explains why it happens so abruptly.) Pairs of mandarin ducks, a symbol of marital fidelity because they mate for life, were a common decoration for roof tiles, especially for residences (they were All Over the Forbidden City in Beijing). Lost in translation: the fireflies “fly” in/at a “hall,” and the roof tiles specifically have drake + duck pairs.
---L.
The lonely lamp went out but he was not asleep—
The watch’s drum struck late, beginning the long night—
The Milky Way shone brightly as he longed for dawn—
The mandarin duck roof-tiles were cold with heavy frost,
The kingfisher quilt was chilly—who’d share it with him?
夕殿萤飞思悄然，
孤灯挑尽未成眠。
迟迟钟鼓初长夜，
耿耿星河欲曙天。
鸳鸯瓦冷霜华重，
翡翠衾寒谁与共。
Sweeping in from the setting to the personal, and setting up our focus on the emperor’s deepening regret. (In a very real sense, the poem is not about the central romance but his manpain, which makes Yang Guifei’s death a fridging—and thinking of it like that explains why it happens so abruptly.) Pairs of mandarin ducks, a symbol of marital fidelity because they mate for life, were a common decoration for roof tiles, especially for residences (they were All Over the Forbidden City in Beijing). Lost in translation: the fireflies “fly” in/at a “hall,” and the roof tiles specifically have drake + duck pairs.
---L.