DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷七
駕幸射殿射弓
Arrows, wings and bowls.
At the archery hall the emperor shoots while twenty-odd guardsmen in purple stand in wing formation and dance on each shot, and one last performer, a silver bowl in his mouth, can receive the arrows as they come.
READ THE SHOT ↓1. Arrows, wings and bowls.
駕詣射殿射弓。垜子前列招箭班二十餘人，皆長腳幞頭、紫繡抹額、紫寬衫、黃義襴，雁翅排立。御箭去，則齊聲招舞，合而復開，箭中的矣。又一人，口銜一銀盌，兩肩、兩手共五隻，箭來則能承之。射畢，駕歸宴殿。
The emperor goes to the archery hall to shoot. Ranged before the target mound are more than twenty men of the arrow-signaling squad, all in long-legged caps, purple embroidered headbands, wide purple tunics and yellow robes with banded hems, standing in a line like a goose’s wing. When the imperial arrow flies, they cry out together and dance a signal, closing together and then opening again; the arrow has hit the mark. Then another man, a silver bowl in his mouth and bowls on his two shoulders and two hands, five in all, is able to receive the arrows as they come. When the shooting is over, the emperor returns to the banquet hall.
The shortest entry in the volume works as a single sequence: the emperor shoots, the squad answers, one man catches. The squad is described first by uniform (cap, band, tunic, robe) and then by formation (a goose’s wing), the same arrow-signaling squad that stands before the targets in the Liao envoys’ archery match in entry 45. Here its duty is to answer the shot with a shout and a dance, and the text pairs the closing and opening of the line with the report that the arrow hit. It does not say how many arrows were shot or what a miss would look like. The last performer is counted by what he holds: a bowl in the mouth and a bowl on each shoulder and hand, which makes five. The text leaves the noun out, and says only that he can receive the arrows. The entry then closes by returning the emperor to the banquet hall named in entry 56.
A missing noun, a small variant.
The text does not name what the five are. One bowl in the mouth plus a pair on the shoulders and a pair in the hands makes five, so the page reads them as bowls.
The Siku witness reads 箭來則能承之; a modern edition reads 箭來皆能承之 (“all the arrows he can receive”). The page keeps 則 and translates the sentence with no quantifier.
The same squad name appears in entry 45, in the archery match with the Liao envoys. The page treats it as one unit in two settings and adds no detail beyond the text.
The hall west of the banquet hall where the emperor shoots.
The squad that stands before the target and answers each shot with a shout and a dance.
The mound or butt on which the target is set.
The slanting two-sided line in which the squad stands.
A band worn across the forehead, here embroidered in purple.
A robe with a band at the hem, here yellow.
Entry 58 is a single clean mechanism: an arrow, a shout, a dance, a catch. It shows the court as audience and as marksman in one scene, and it ends with the emperor walking back to his hall. The next entry leaves the court altogether and returns to the public stalls.
御箭去，則齊聲招舞，合而復開，箭中的矣。The mechanism is Meng’s. The punctuation is editorial.
The primary text is read from the Siku-family witness (Kanripo KR2k0111, 卷七); punctuation and the standardization of Siku variant glyphs are editorial. The 抺額 of the Siku scan is standardized to 抹額, and 垜 is kept.