DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷八
重陽
Up the hill with cakes.
The Double Ninth as five named chrysanthemums, tavern doorways built from flowers, an outing to seven named heights, cakes with lions and barbarian kings on top, and a month-ahead market in clothes for the dead.
READ THE DOUBLE NINTH ↓1. Five chrysanthemums and a gateway of flowers.
九月重陽，都下賞菊，有數種：其黃白色，蕊若蓮房，曰「萬齡菊」；粉紅色，曰「桃花菊」；白而檀心，曰「木香菊」；黃色而圓者，曰「金鈴菊」；純白而大者，曰「喜容菊」。無處無之，酒家皆以菊花縛成洞戶。
In the ninth month, at the Double Ninth, the capital admires chrysanthemums of several kinds. The yellow-white one whose stamens look like a lotus seedpod is called the “ten-thousand-ages chrysanthemum”; the pink one the “peach-blossom chrysanthemum”; the white one with a sandalwood-colored heart the “wood-fragrance chrysanthemum”; the yellow, round one the “golden-bell chrysanthemum”; and the pure white, large one the “happy-face chrysanthemum.” There is no place without them, and the taverns all bind chrysanthemums into cave-like doorways.
The entry starts as a classification, with one visible criterion for each variety: a seedpod-like center, a color, a heart, a round shape, a size. The names are descriptive and cheerful (ten-thousand-ages, happy-face), and the text gives no prices or growers. The last sentence turns from taste to architecture: the taverns bind the flowers into doorways, so the flower becomes the sign of the house, as the pennants did in the last entry.
2. The hills, and the cakes that travel up.
都人多出郊外登高（如倉王廟、四里橋、愁臺、梁王城、硯臺、毛駝岡、獨樂岡等處）宴聚。前一二日，各以粉麵蒸糕遺送，上插剪綵小旗，摻飣果實，如石榴子、栗黃、銀杏、松子肉之類。又以粉作獅子、蠻王之狀，置於糕上，謂之「獅蠻」。
Many of the capital’s people go out to the suburbs to climb to a height and feast together (as at the Cangwang Temple, Four-Li Bridge, Sorrow Terrace, Liangwang City, Inkstone Terrace, Maotuo Ridge, Dule Ridge and the like). One or two days before, each household steams flour cakes and sends them as gifts, stuck on top with little cut-silk flags and strewn and studded with fruit, such as pomegranate seeds, chestnut yellows, ginkgo nuts and pine-nut kernels. They also model lions and barbarian kings from flour and set them on the cakes, calling them “lion-barbarians.”
The outing is given a list of seven named destinations, set in parentheses. The cake is a second kind of travel: it is made, decorated and sent as a gift a day or two before, so it circulates between households before the day itself. The decorations pile up (flags, four kinds of nuts and seeds, and a lion and a barbarian king modeled in flour), so that the cake itself becomes a small display. The text does not say what the lion and the king stand for.
3. Lion assemblies, and a month ahead.
諸禪寺各有齋會，惟開寶寺、仁王寺有獅子會，諸僧皆坐獅子上作法事講說，遊人最盛。下旬，即賣冥衣、靴鞋、席帽、衣段，以十月朔日燒獻故也。
The various Chan temples each hold a vegetarian assembly, but only the Kaibao Temple and the Renwang Temple have a Lion Assembly, at which the monks all sit upon lions to perform the rites and lecture, and the crowds of visitors there are the greatest. In the last ten days of the month they sell clothing for the dead, boots and shoes, mat hats and lengths of cloth, because these are burned as offerings on the first day of the tenth month.
The sacred layer arrives last. Of all the Chan temples, which each hold an assembly, two have a Lion Assembly with monks seated on lions, and these draw the largest crowds. The lion has appeared two sentences earlier in flour, though the text does not link them. The entry, and the volume, then end looking forward, not back: clothing for the dead goes on sale in the last ten days, because it is to be burned on the first of the tenth month. Much of this stock, boots, shoes and hats, is what entry 66 sold for Zhongyuan, a loop in the calendar that the text leaves implicit.
Three places where the text and the reference part.
The Siku scan has 栗黃 in the list of fruit decorations; the reference edition reads 栗子黃. The page keeps the Siku 栗黃 and renders it “chestnut yellows,” without claiming to know the exact part meant.
The Siku text has no parentheses. The page puts the list of seven places in parentheses after the reference edition, as a gloss on 登高.
The Siku scan writes 㡌, a variant of 帽. The page reads 席帽, “mat hats,” as in the reference edition. The same variant appears in the funerary goods of entry 66.
The ninth day of the ninth month, when the capital climbs heights and gives flour cakes.
A gateway bound out of chrysanthemums on the front of a tavern.
The Double Ninth custom of going up to a high place to feast; here the heights are named in parentheses.
A flour lion and barbarian king set on top of a cake; the name joins the two figures.
A monastic assembly held at only two temples, with monks seated on lions to perform rites and lecture.
Paper clothing for burning, sold in the last ten days of the month for the first day of the tenth.
Entry 70 ends the volume, and its last clause looks past it: clothing is already on sale for a burning that falls on the first of the tenth month. In between are the flowers, the hills and the cakes that carry the season, and a lion that appears twice, once in flour and once with monks on its back.
下旬，即賣冥衣、靴鞋、席帽、衣段，以十月朔日燒獻故也。The sequence is Meng’s. The punctuation is editorial.
The primary text is read from the Siku-family witness (Kanripo KR2k0111, 卷八); punctuation and the standardization of Siku variant glyphs are editorial. The parentheses around the list of heights are editorial.