Discussing the Jidang Flower and Sending It to Junior Minister Yi論地棠花寄李少卿
世號地棠花者。其花穠黃可愛。未知古人詩集中是何花也。有賦之者耶。又未識世之所稱之意。豈字之或訛耶。因作詩一絶云云。明日。君見訪。予以此言之。君曰。予所聞者。昔君王之選花。帝所留者曰御留。時此花見黜。故名黜壇。予曰。予亦似有所見而未詳者。幾乎予所言而有異也。俱不可的信。今皆不取。以別意釋之。有以慰花之見擯之意耳。
What the world calls the 「jidang flower (地棠花)」 is lovely for its deep yellow. Among the poetry collections of the ancients I do not know what flower this is, nor whether anyone has chanted it. Nor do I know the meaning the world gives the name, so is it not likely that the characters were wrongly handed down? And so I made one quatrain.
The next day you came to visit, and when I said this to you, you said, 「As I have heard it, long ago when a king was choosing flowers, what the king kept back was called 「eoryu (御留)」, and at that time this flower was cast out, so it was named 「chuldan (黜壇)」.」
I said, 「I too seem to have seen something of it, but there is what is not detailed, nearly the same as what I said and yet different. Neither can be firmly trusted, so now I take up neither, but will read it in another sense and set down only the meaning of consoling the flower for having been cast out.」
Interlinear notes 2
需○幷序
This is Su (需). ○ The preface is carried along with it.
詩見上。
The poem appears earlier.
地棠地棠是何花。命名之意又如何。將名索實了無謂。恐此二字傳之訛。人間花卉何物不由地。而於地也偏擧似。色與海棠棠棣略不侔。稱之以棠亦非是。君言伊昔君王乘政閑。養花壇上選花看。帝所留者是御留。此花見黜名黜壇。我言御留紅淡又且一時零。不及穠黃竟夏開盈盈。彼豈獨留此被擠。無奈聞者或未精。君不見漢宮却座愼夫人。本非上意未可妨其親。又不見譴還私第楊貴妃。未幾復召寵愛日逾新。花嬌不愧二妃色。何必便爲君所斥。黃中正色正合人君觀。我願移之上林植。龍顔賞詠鏘天韻。侍臣爭和筆落如風迅。狀渠姿態無遺妍。爲雪當年曾見擯。
Jidang flower, jidang flower, what flower are you? And what is the meaning in which you were named? Take the name and look for the reality, and it makes no sense at all, so these two characters were likely handed down wrongly. Among the flowers and grasses of the world, which does not come out of the ground? Yet this one alone seems to be called by raising the ground. In color it is not the least like the haedang (海棠) or the dangche (棠棣), so calling it 「dang (棠)」 is not right either.
You say that long ago, when a king was at leisure from governing, he looked the flowers over and chose among them on the flower-rearing terrace, and what the king kept back was 「eoryu」, while this flower was cast out, and so is called 「chuldan」. I say that the eoryu is thin in its red and falls all at one season, and so is less than this flower, deep yellow and blooming in riot all summer long. How should that one alone have stayed and this one been pushed away? Perhaps the one who heard it was not exact.
Have you not seen Lady Shen (愼夫人), whose seat was moved back in the Han palace? It was not the king's own wish at first, so it could not block her nearness. And have you not seen Yang Guifei (楊貴妃), driven back to her house? Before long she was called again, and the love for her was new day by day. The loveliness of this flower is not shamed by the color of those two consorts, so why should it at once be cast out by the king? Yellow is the correct color of the center, and fits a king's eye exactly, so I would have this flower moved and planted in the Shanglin Park (上林苑). If the royal countenance should look on it and chant, the airs of heaven would ring out, and the attending officials would vie in reply, their brushes falling swift as wind. They would draw its form and leave nothing of its beauty out, and so wash away the casting-out of that year.