DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷七
駕回儀衛
Home in flowers.
The emperor rides home with flowers in his cap and gives flowers to his escort, a horse is made a general, the closing weeks of the pond become a parade of riders and sedan chairs, and the month ends with flower sellers’ cries and soldiers drilling.
FOLLOW THE RETURN ↓1. Flowers and a horse.
駕回，則御裹小帽，簪花乘馬。前後從駕臣寮、百司儀衛，悉賜花。大觀初，乘驄馬至太和宮前，忽宣小烏。其馬至御前，拒而不進。左右曰：「此願封官。」敕賜龍驤將軍，然後就轡。蓋小烏，平日御愛之馬也。
When the emperor returns, he wears a small cap with flowers pinned on it and rides on horseback. The ministers who accompany the carriage before and behind, and the guards of all the offices, are all given flowers. In the early Daguan years, riding a piebald horse, he reached the front of the Taihe Palace and suddenly called for Xiaowu. That horse came before him and refused to go forward. His attendants said, “It wants to be given an office.” By decree it was granted the title General Longxiang, and then it submitted to the bridle. Xiaowu, it should be said, was the horse that the emperor loved in ordinary days.
The return is first a uniform: a small cap, flowers pinned in the hair, a horse, and flowers for every minister and guard, front and back. The text then switches to the entry’s only anecdote, dated to the early Daguan years. The emperor, on another horse, calls for Xiaowu; the horse comes and balks; the attendants explain it as a wish for an office; a decree makes it a general, and it takes the bridle. The tale runs on the idea that office is the thing everyone wants, and it ends with an explanatory clause (蓋…) that identifies the horse as the emperor’s favorite. The text offers no further moral. Placing it at the head of the return gives the procession a personal beginning before the city takes over the narration.
2. The city in motion.
莫非錦繡盈都，花光滿目，御香拂路，廣樂喧空，寶騎交馳，綵棚夾路。綺羅珠翠，戶戶神仙；畫閣紅樓，家家洞府。遊人士庶，車馬萬數。妓女舊日多乘驢，宣、政間惟乘馬，披涼衫，將蓋頭背繫冠子上。少年狎客往往隨後，亦跨馬，輕衫小帽。有三五文身惡少年控馬，謂之「花褪馬」。用短韁促馬頭刺地而行，謂之「鞅韁」。呵喝馳驟，競逞駿逸。遊人往往以竹竿挑掛終日關撲所得之物而歸。仍有貴家士女，小轎插花，不垂簾幕。自三月一日至四月八日閉池，雖大風雨亦有遊人，路無虛日矣。
Everything is brocade filling the capital and the glow of flowers filling the eye. Imperial incense brushes the road, wide music clamors in the sky, jeweled mounts cross at speed, and colored stands line the road on both sides. Silks, pearls and kingfisher: every household is of the immortals; painted halls and red towers: every family has a grotto-palace. Visitors, gentry and commoners, carriages and horses number in the tens of thousands. Courtesans used to ride donkeys, mostly; in the Xuanhe and Zhenghe years they rode only horses, wearing cool gauze jackets, with the veil tied back over the headdress. Young hangers-on often followed behind, also on horseback, in light tunics and small caps. Three or five tattooed ruffians lead a horse by the bridle, called a “faded-flower horse.” They shorten the reins and press the horse’s head to stab at the ground as it goes, called “yangjiang.” Shouting and galloping, they vie to show off swift and handsome mounts. Visitors often carry on bamboo poles the things they have thrown for all day, and go home with them hanging. And there are women of rich families in small sedan chairs decked with flowers, the curtains not lowered. From the first day of the third month until the eighth of the fourth, when the pond closes, even in great wind and rain there are visitors, and on the roads no day goes empty.
The register shifts from anecdote to description, and the sentence rhythm turns to four-character pairs (brocade, flowers, incense, music; households of the immortals, families in grotto-palaces). The inventory of what is in the streets is concrete: riders, courtesans on horseback in veils and gauze, young admirers behind them, tattooed youths leading the horses with short reins and shouting. The text dates one change, from donkeys to horses, to the Xuanhe and Zhenghe years, as at the end of the previous entry. The prizes won in the day’s throwing games come home on poles, tying the street scene back to entry 59. The final sentence supplies the season’s dates (the first of the third month to the eighth of the fourth) and a claim that even in storms there are visitors; the text does not say how many days that is.
3. Flowers for sale and the troops.
是月季春，萬花爛熳，牡丹、芍藥、棣棠、木香，種種上市。賣花者以馬頭竹籃鋪排，歌叫之聲，清奇可聽。晴簾靜院，曉幕高樓，宿酒未醒，好夢初覺，聞之莫不新愁易感，幽恨懸生，最一時之佳況。諸軍出郊，合教陣隊。
This month is late spring, and ten thousand flowers are in riot; peonies, tree peonies, kerria and Banksian roses, flowers of every kind come to market. The flower sellers lay them out in horse-head bamboo baskets, and their sung cries are clear and strange to hear. Behind sunlit blinds in quiet courtyards, in dawn curtains in high towers, with last night’s wine not yet slept off and good dreams only just ended, no one who hears them fails to feel new sorrow stirred and hidden regret arise; it is the finest of the moment’s scenes. The armies go out to the suburbs and drill their formations together.
The volume ends on sound and then on a drill. The flower sellers’ cries are heard from rooms, and the text records the effect on the listener in some detail (a man half awake, with last night’s wine still in him, stirred to sorrow and hidden regret), then calls it the finest of the moment’s scenes. This is the book’s own idea of the best of the season, and it is a hearing, not a sight. The final sentence is administrative and abrupt: the armies go out to the suburbs to drill together. It reintroduces the military institution that has run underneath the whole volume, from the Qingming horsemen in entry 52 to the water drill and the cavalry in this group, and it leaves the volume on an order, not an image.
A lacuna, a flipped glyph and a hedged phrase.
The Siku witness has an unreadable glyph before 轡. Modern editions supply 就, giving 就轡 (“took the bridle”). The page adopts it and flags the choice.
The Siku scan reads 花光滿日. Modern editions read 目, which gives the idiom (“the glow of flowers fills the eye”). The page adopts 目.
The Siku witness reads 雖大風雨亦有遊人，路無虛日; a modern edition reads 雖風雨亦有遊人 and 略無虛日 (no 大, and 略 for 路). The page keeps the Siku wording, which is readable.
The emperor’s procession back from the pond.
A military title; in the anecdote, conferred on a horse.
The veil worn by women riders, here tied back over the headdress.
The name for a horse led by tattooed youths.
A short-rein style that presses the horse’s head toward the ground.
The end of the season on the eighth of the fourth month.
Entry 60 closes Volume VII with a return that begins with a pinned flower and a horse made a general, becomes a street of riders and sedan chairs, and ends with flower sellers’ cries and soldiers marching out to drill. The pond opens in entry 53 and closes here, and the boats, towers and stalls that fill the space between are Meng’s record of a season.
賣花者以馬頭竹籃鋪排，歌叫之聲，清奇可聽。The return is Meng’s. The lacuna is filled from modern editions.
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 小㡌 of the Siku scan is standardized to 小帽, and the 就 in 就轡 fills a lacuna.