Vice Minister Yi Again Replied to My Four Poems on Peaches and Pears and Showed Them to Me, So Following His Rhymes I Made Six Poems — Of the Last Two Stanzas, One Thanks Him for Picking All the Peaches Left on the Tree and Sending Them, and One Thanks Him for the Large Golden Pears Sent Last次韻李侍郞復和桃梨詩四首見示。依韻和成六首。其末二章。一謝摘盡樹上餘桃見寄。一謝最後所餉金色大梨云。
眞他此仙菓。不定似珠團。無脛猶跳至。滋唇使快飡。齊成雙絶色。俱帶十分酸。我若明年在。何如更惠看。
Truly these are the fruits of the immortals; one cannot say only that they are round as beads. Without feet they leap of themselves and arrive, wetting my lips and letting me eat with refreshment. Side by side both make an outstanding luster, and alike they carry a full measure of sourness. If I am still alive next year as well, how would it be for you to send them again?
跳圓長習見。咀破尙疑團。碧把瑠璃嚼。黃擎琥珀飱。譬梅形校大。方橘味尤酸。必自神仙得。難將百菓看。
I am used to seeing how round things bounce, yet even after biting I doubt whether they are still round. The green is like holding glass and chewing it, the yellow like cupping amber in the hand and eating it. Set against the plum, their shape is a little larger; set against the tangerine, their flavor is more sour still. These must surely have been got from the immortals, and are hard to compare with any other fruit.
緻內皮成隔。嫌隅狀作團。欲消多小䬼。須殿暮朝飱。物性於吾稱。書生本自酸。還思眞侈菓。翻愧眼寒看。
The inside is close-packed and the skin makes the space between; disliking corners, their shape has grown round. To melt them, how many must one swallow? They should be set at the end of the morning and evening meals. The nature of this thing befits me, for a scholar is by nature sour and straitened. Instead I think them truly generous fruit, and am rather ashamed that my eyes are not fit to see what is precious.
Interlinear notes 2
酸 — a play of words overlaying the sourness of fruit with 酸 (酸寒), used of a poor and straitened scholar. — Translator
眼寒 — some read it literally, as "the eyes smart with cold." — Translator
仰樹難觀的。堆盤始覺團。感宜頭上戴。奉惜口中飱。物自成君蓄。生應爲我酸。衰翁病已久。天肯不哀看。
Looking up at the tree it is hard to see them clearly, but piled on a tray I know at last that they are round. In gratitude I ought to bear them on my head, and holding them up and cherishing them I put them in my mouth and eat. The things of themselves became what you had stored up, and in growing they turned sour, I suppose, for my sake. A worn old man has been ill a long while now, so would not even heaven look on him with pity?