Lord Yu Answered, So I Again Used His Rhymes and Respectfully Replied — Another庾公見和。復次韻奉答。 又
我昔佯狂放意時。八荒爲庭四海以爲池。又欲升天捉圓月。持下人間作酒巵。雪毛老免怯縮難露體。倚樹隈藏深窟底。遺予玉臼欲贖月。其中空洞何止百石貯。世人下杵恐裂拆。拱手空對寒氷色。截爲片段欲作適手用。下界無人工翦刻。是應玉兔誑且戲。濩落無用安置矣。浮之江中任所如。波濤洗出奇文理。君不見昔年江海浪淘沙。今爲平地生綠莎。是時此臼朘削自成杯。流移閱歲今幾何。我緣薄命棄之不祕惜。庾君得有眞相適。琢氷淸質肯暫昏。久沒猶無土花碧。寶重宜爲君得蓄。物靈幸免吾所瀆。君能有之似在我。要令不出於吾屬。自我昏襟飮此觴。似向瑤臺吸得寒露漿。得而飮者三四君。拾遺晚聞恨未嘗。作詩賦詠皆仙翁。靑竹汗盡南山童。庾公得詩可無謝。已約置酒更與諸君同。金玉滿堂何足保。但願水精杯與玉山倒。然不然請問省中同舍老。
In the old days, when I feigned madness and roamed as I pleased, I made the eight directions my courtyard and the four seas my pond. I meant also to climb the sky and seize the round moon, and bring it down to the world of men to make a wine cup of it. The old hare with fur white as snow shrank in fear and would not show itself, but leaned on a tree and hid in a hollow and went down to the bottom of a deep burrow. It offered me a jade mortar to repay me in place of the moon, and the inside of it was so hollow that it would hold far more than a hundred bushels. The people of the world feared it would split if they brought a pestle down, and only folded their arms and faced its cold ice-light in vain. Even to cut it into pieces and use it to fit the hand, there was in the world below no craftsman skilled enough to cut and carve it. This must have been the jade hare's deceit and sport, and it was left lying there useless and bare. I floated it on the river and left it to go as it would, and the waves washed it until strange patterns and grain appeared. Have you not seen? Last year the rivers and the sea turned up the sand with their waves, and now it has become level ground where blue sedge has grown. At this time that mortar was worn and worn away and became a cup of itself: how many years has it now spent adrift? My fortune is thin, so I left it and did not grudge it or hide it away, and Lord Yu obtained and kept it — truly they were matched to each other. How should its clear substance, as though chiseled out of ice, be clouded even for a moment? Though long buried, it has not one mark of green moss. What is treasured and held heavy ought rightly to be in your keeping, and happily the numinous thing has escaped being defiled by me. What you have is as though it were in my hands, and I would not have it go outside our company. With my darkened heart I drink from this cup, and it is as though I drained cold dew-gruel on the Jade Terrace (瑤臺). Those who got to drink were three or four, and the Reminder (拾遺) regrets that he heard late and did not taste. Those who made poems and chanted are all old men like immortals: the sap of the green bamboo will be used up and South Mountain will go bare. Lord Yu has got his poems, and there is no need to thank him: he has already set out the wine and promised to be with us all again. Though gold and jade fill the house, how should they be preserved? All I wish is that the crystal cup and the Jade Mountain (玉山) should fall over together. Is it so, or is it not? Ask the old men of one room in the office.