朱宮貝闕 Vermilion Halls and Cowrie Towers
但見：但见：
逐句解 Line by line
He saw only this:
⚠ Two graphs standing as their own unit at the close of a 94-graph line, so the tag alone opens the showcase. 但見 occurs exactly once in the whole chapter and this is it. Ch.60's first three rhapsodies were opened by fused descriptive tags; its last three have all been opened by a tag standing alone.
Vermilion halls and cowrie towers, in nothing different from the world above.
朱宮貝闕 is the standard formula for a dragon palace. 與世不殊 makes the claim the whole rhapsody will illustrate: that the underwater court is furnished exactly as a court on land.
Gold serves for the roof-tiles; white jade makes the door-pivots.
為 is wéi, the copular, and is paired with 作 in the second half — two verbs for one relation, which is what keeps the couplet from repeating itself.
Screens are spread with plates of tortoiseshell; railings are laid with beads of coral.
玳瑁 and 珊瑚 are both marine, and the couplet is the first sign that this is not simply a palace but specifically a palace of the sea.
Auspicious cloud and lucky haze light the lotus throne; above they reach the three luminaries, below they enter the thoroughfares.
三光 are sun, moon and stars. The line stretches the palace vertically between heaven and the streets, which is a curious claim for a hall at the bottom of a pool.
It is not the Palace of Heaven, nor yet the Treasury of the Sea; truly this place outdoes Penglai.
藏 is zàng, a treasury. 賽 is sài, to surpass in contest — the same graph used of the Bull King's staff outdoing a flood-dragon earlier in the chapter. 蓬壺 is Penglai under another name.
In the high hall a feast is laid, host and guests in their ranks; officers great and small in caps and beads.
羅 is to range in order. The couplet turns from architecture to the company, and the vocabulary is entirely that of a terrestrial官 hierarchy.
In haste the jade maidens are called to bear the ivory trays; the immortal beauties are urged to tune the pitch-pipes.
⚠ 調 is tiáo here, to tune — the harmonising sense. This is the only 調 in the body of the chapter, and the reading is kept distinct from the diào of a tune or a transfer. 律呂 are the twelve pitch-pipes, six 律 and six 呂.
The long whale sings, the giant crab dances, the turtle blows the reed-organ, the alligator beats the drum; the pearl from beneath the black dragon's chin lights goblet and platter.
長 is cháng, long. The metre breaks into three-graph phrases for four beats before returning to seven, and the orchestra is made entirely of the creatures the Great Sage listed in his guess two passages ago. 驪頷之珠 is the pearl under the chin of the black dragon, proverbially got only at mortal risk.
Bird-seal script is ranged upon kingfisher screens; curtains of shrimp-whisker hang along the corridors.
鳥篆 is the ancient bird-seal script. 蝦 is xiā. Both halves furnish the hall with things that only the sea could supply, worked into the forms of the land.
The eight timbres sound in turn, mingled with the immortal Shao; gong and shang ring out and halt the clouds of heaven.
八音 are the eight classes of instrument by material. 韶 is the music of Shun. 宮 and 商 are the first two degrees of the pentatonic scale, standing for the whole.
Green-headed perch-girls stroke the jasper zither; red-eyed horse-lads finger the jade flute.
The musicians are named as fish given human offices — the colour-words that would describe a courtesan's dress here describe a species.
Dame Mandarin-fish bears up the fragrant deer jerky; the dragon maidens have golden phoenix pins in their hair.
⚠ Both rare graphs in this line are UNGUARDED. 脯 is fǔ, dried meat, not the pú of the chest that pypinyin supplies. 翹 is qiáo: 康熙 gives 渠遙切 for the long tail-plumes from which a phoenix hairpin takes its name, and reserves 巨要切 for the verb of a tail rising.
What they eat is the eight-treasure delicacies of the heavenly kitchen;
The last two lines break the metre a second time, into a three-graph tag and a seven-graph phrase, and the two are cut apart by the source at an internal semicolon.
what they drink is the jasper liquor of the Purple Palace, well brewed and mellow.
紫府 is the Purple Palace of the immortals. 醞醪 pairs the brewing with the strength of the result, closing the rhapsody on the banquet itself.
The rhapsody's argument is stated in its second line and never departed from: 與世不殊, in nothing different from the world above. Everything that follows is a terrestrial furnishing rendered in marine materials. Roof-tiles of gold and door-pivots of jade are ordinary palace stuff; screens of tortoiseshell and curtains of shrimp-whisker are the same items translated into what the sea can supply.
The translation extends to the personnel. The company is a court — host and guests ranged, officers great and small in caps and beads — and the orchestra is a court orchestra, eight timbres, the music of Shun, the pitch-pipes tuned before the feast. But the whale sings, the crab dances, the turtle plays the reed-organ and the alligator beats the drum. The perch are singing-girls and the mandarin-fish is a matron. Every office is filled by the animal that would naturally hold it.
There is a quiet joke in the Great Sage's position while all this is read. Two passages ago he guessed that the pool held a flood-dragon, a dragon, a fish, a tortoise, a turtle, a soft-shell or an alligator; the rhapsody now supplies him with every one of them at once, employed as musicians. And he is present at the performance in the shape of a crab, which is the one item on the guest list that is also on the menu.