A positive perspective on lost chickens
- Rachelle
- Apr 7
- 2 min read
王西樓磐平生不見喜慍之色。其家嘗走失雞,公戲作《滿庭芳》云:
Wang Pan, [style named] West Tower [ca. 1470-1530], was a man who hardly showed emotions on his face. One day, when his family lost chickens, he wrote a lyric to the tune “Mantingfang” in jest:
平生澹泊,
雞兒不見,
童子休焦。
家家都有閒鍋灶,
任意烹炮。
煮湯的貼他三枚火燒,
穿炒的助他一把胡椒。
到省了我開東道。
免終朝報曉,
直睡到日頭高。
Always calm is my life.
Chickens are gone,
Don’t worry, kids.
Every household has a spare stove
For boiling or roasting, you name it.
Give a couple of flatbreads to those who are making soup [with our chickens],
And a handful of pepper corns to those who are stir-frying [them],
Saving me the trouble of hosting a dinner.
Spared from the crowing at dawn,
[I’ll] snooze until the sun is high.
* From Feng Menglong 馮夢龍 (1574-1646), Gujin xiaoshi 古今笑史 (Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 1985), 442.

Album leaf by Ye Xin (ca. 1640–1673)
Image credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Copyright Declaration*:
The texts and images used on the website of Rachelle's Lab are either from the public domain (e.g. Wikipedia), databases with open data licences (e.g. Shuhua diancang ziliao jiansuo xitong 書畫典藏資料檢索系統, National Palace Museum, Taipei), online libraries that permit reasonable use (e.g. ctext.org), or original work created for this website.
Although fair use of the website for private non-profit purposes is permitted, please note that the website of Rachelle's Lab and its content (including but not limited to translations, blog posts, images, videos, etc.) are protected under international copyright law. If you want to republish, distribute, or make derivative work based on the website content, please contact me, the copyright owner, to get written permission first and make sure to link to the corresponding page when you use it.
版權聲明:
本站所使用的圖片,皆出自公有領域(如維基)、開放數據庫(如臺北故宮博物院書畫典藏資料檢索系統)、允許合理引用的在線圖書館(如中國哲學電子化計劃)及本人創作。本站允許對網站內容進行個人的、非營利性質的合理使用。但請注意,本站及其內容(包括但不限於翻譯、博文、圖像、視頻等)受國際版權法保護。如需基於博客內容進行出版、傳播、製作衍生作品等,請務必先徵求作者(本人)書面許可,并在使用時附上本站鏈接,註明出處。
*Read more about copyright and permission here.
Bình luận