Inscribed on a Wall, [Two] Ghosts in Chongsheng Temple

[lnhammer]

In Chongsheng Temple in Hanzhou, on Cold Food Day, there suddenly appeared a person in crimson robes and another in purple robes, shoving and striking a horse-groom before them with great vigor. Each inscribed a quatrain on the wall and departed, losing their existence.

[Red Robe:]
The festival where smoke is banned—together we travel here:
We raise up cups of twice-brewed wine between the fragrant banks.
The distant chief of the events of these ten years preceding,—
Sing out on the anxiety for his chaotic scenes.

[Purple Robe:]
Whip your horse and seek for now the start of the upper street:
The scattered blooms and scented grasses still are as before.
Families broken, nation ruined—it’s a one-time dream.
I’m melancholy once again, meeting Cold Food Day.

题壁
作者：崇圣寺鬼
〈汉州崇圣寺，寒食日，忽有朱衣一人，紫衣一人，驱殿仆马极盛，各题一绝句于壁而去，失其所在。〉
禁烟佳节同游此，
正值酴醿夹岸香。
缅首十年前往事，
强吟风景乱愁肠。 [朱衣]
策马暂寻原上路，
落花芳草尚依然。
家亡国破一场梦，
惆怅又逢寒食天。 [紫衣]

Hanzhou is part of modern Guanghan, Deyang, northern Sichuan, but I’ve not found a modern reference to its Chongsheng (“venerating the sacred”) Temple. I’ve supplied ascriptions for the two quatrains per a commentary. Cold Food Day aka Qingming is a solar calendar holiday (15 days after the spring equinox, so ~5 April) for honoring one’s dead ancestors—today, it’s often called Tomb-Sweeping Day—during which all cooking fires were extinguished and meals eaten unheated. The shadow of Du Fu stretches long (see for ex 3TP #188 and #190), especially given I’ve not a scrap of evidence of when this supposedly happened, but it’s tempting to identify the “chief” as An Lushan. Even with that idea, however, the “banks,” “upper street,” and “dream” are completely obscure to me. Identifying a historical context would defs help. Idiom: anxiety is “anxious guts.”

Fannish administrivia: I’ve nominated “Poem Thrown at Martial Duke Pei,” “Poem of Hidden Resentment,” and “Three Poems by a Ghost on a Stone Wall in Huqiu” as fandoms for Yuletide. (I’ve added them to the evidence post, given the paucity of English materials on them, but haven’t pimped them yet in the fandom promo post.)

Comments

[sartorias]

Very ... obscure, this pair!

[lnhammer]

If I understood them better, I might be able to make them less obscure!