梓人武龍臺，長瘦多力，隨園亭榭率成其手。癸酉七月十一日病卒，素無家也，收者寂然。余為棺殮，瘞園之西偏，為詩告之。
The woodworker Wu Longtai was tall, thin, and strong. The buildings in [my] Garden of Contentment were mostly his work. [He] died of illness on the eleventh day of the seventh month in the guiyou year [i.e. 9 August 1753]. [He] had never had a home; the collector [of his body] looked sombre. I encoffined and buried him in a western corner of [my] garden and communicated what happened with this poem.
生理各有報， Karma is the law of nature,
誰謂事偶然。 Who can call anything a coincidence?
汝為余作室， You made chambers for me,
余為汝作棺。 I made a coffin for you.
瘞汝於園側， Having buried you at the edge of [my] garden,
始覺於我安。 I felt finally relieved.
本汝所營造， What was first built by you
使汝仍往還。 Is where you may now return.
清風飄汝魄， In pure breezes roams your soul,
野麥供汝餐。 With wild wheat as your meal.
勝汝有孫子， Better for you than having a bloodline
遠送郊外寒。 Sent to the coldness of the countryside afar.
永永作神衛， For ever and ever, be a sacred guard,
陰風勿愁嘆。 Against shadowy winds, no grief nor sigh.
* From Yuan Mei (1716-1797), Xiaocangshanfang shiji 小倉山房詩集, Yuan Mei quanji xinbian 袁枚全集新編 edition (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 2018), 9.182; see also here.
Detail of "Zhanyuantu" 瞻園圖 (View of a Garden Villa), handscroll after Yuan Jiang 袁江 (fl. 18th century)
Image credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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