《卷四十二至卷四十三》 Scrolls 42-43 《嶺南宜濛子鮮渴水歌》 Lingnan Good-for-“Meng” Fresh Thirst-Water Poem 廣州園官進渴水 Guangzhou’s garden tender brings forth thirst-water 天風夏熟宜 [氵+ 𫎇 ]子 heaven’s winds, summer heat, good-for-“meng” fruit 百花釀作甘露漿 a hundred flowers brewed into sweet dew-syrup 南國烹成赤龍髓 In the southern garden, boiled to red dragon marrow

[possibly resin from Dipterocarpaceae] 棕櫚亭高內撤餐 We remove to eat high in the palm pavilion 梧桐井壓滄江乾 The Parasol Tree [ Firmiana simplex ] well presses the cold-blue river dry 柏觀金莖擎未濕 The cypress tower’s golden stalk rises without dampness 藍橋玉臼擣空寒 The blue bridge jade mortar pounds the empty chill 小甖封出香覆錦 The small ewer seal, a fragrant brocade, pours out 古鼎貢餘聲撼寢 The sound from the surplus sacrifice in the old ding stirs the sleeping 酒容心情辟酒兵 Wine-guests’ state of mind summons wine-weapons 茶僧手段侵茶品 Tea-monks’ artistry ambushes tea-things 阿瞞口酸那得梅 Cao Cao ’s mouth-sourness attains that of Prunus mume

(A reference to Cao Cao improving morale by telling his troops to think

of the stand of mume plums growing ahead) 茂陵肺消誰賜桮 The Han tomb; lungs flow; who presents a cup? 液奪胡酥有氣味 The melted-away butter has an odd smell 波凝海椹無塵埃 The pool freezes. The mulberry sea has no dirt 向來暑殿評湯物 All along, the summer hall evaluates the hot-broth things 沉木紫蘇聞第一 The Aquilaria wood and purple Perilla frutescens are rumored to be best.

The melted-away butter has an odd smell





In my search for thirst-waters , I came across an 18th century reference to the Yuan dynasty planting lemon trees and using them for thirst-waters. I haven't been able to track down a specific historical provenance for that information, but I did find the poem they additionally cite about lemons (good-for-"meng" fruits). It's sort of helpful, and I suspect it's an oblique reference to bees making honey.Well, and also to drunkenness. This is a Chinese poem, after all, and if they're not about at least one of the moon, autumn, or drunkenness, they're probably not worth much.That said, I think most of the lines read independently like " Medieval China Gothic This poem appears in First Selection of Yuan Poems compiled in the Siku Quanshu, published 1784, but ascribed to Gu Sili, 1669-1722. This poem also appears in the Ming dynasty collection The Stone Granary Collection of Poems from the Ages by Cao Xuequan, 1574-1646, and in the undated Collection of Wu Lai’s Deep Gifts , among other places. I had to correct quite a few errors where the transcription didn't match the facsimile, and there is at least one character that just doesn't seem to exist in Unicode!