Couplet, Nonghua

[lnhammer]

When the Wang family of Junyi buried their mother, son-in-law Pei Lang lay down drunk behind her coffin. The members of the family didn’t know this and covered her grave. When he sobered up, he saw the grain of the cypress-wood (of her coffin) and took it for (the wall of) the entrance hall. When a crowd of maidservants linked arms for a round-dance, one maid named Nonghua sang thus:

The cypress hall is newly finished—music hasn’t ended.
Turning to come, turning to go—Pei Lang is perplexed.

句
作者：秾华
〈浚仪王氏，葬其母，有婿裴郎，醉卧棺后，家人不知，遂掩其圹。酒醒，见文柏为堂，群婢连臂踏歌，一婢名秾华，歌云：〉
柏堂新成乐未央，
回来回去绕裴郎。

The former county of Junyi is part of Kaifeng, Henan. As for why the spirit medium (whose name means “lush flower”) gets attribution instead of the ghost, I can only speculate that possibly it’s the ambiguity over whether it’s the matriarch or presumably-now-dead son-in-law who’s speaking through her.

Blackest humor yet, for one of these episodes.

---L.