Chinese Literature

晴雯霁月 · 15

Leaf 15 of the Red Chamber · 芙蓉女儿 Daughter of the Hibiscus

Qingwen 晴雯

In Dream of the Red Chamber 紅樓夢 (c. 1791) · in the Third register (又副冊) · nicknamed 芙蓉女儿 “Daughter of the Hibiscus”

Prettiest and sharpest-tongued of Baoyu's maids: the third roll gives her a clear moon nobody catches and a coloured cloud nobody holds.

Origin
Bought by a steward, presented to Grandmother Jia, and handed to Baoyu as his best maid
Given
No contract and no kin; Lady Wang's own phrase for her is rootless and groundless
Won
The mending of the gold-feathered cape, which nobody else in the house could do
判詞 The register verse

霁月难逢，彩云易散。 心比天高，身为下贱。 风流灵巧招人怨，寿夭多因毁谤生，多情公子空牵念。

A clear moon after rain comes once in a lifetime; a coloured cloud is easy to scatter. Heart taller than the sky, born to the lowest of places; her loveliness and wit fetch other people's resentment, her early death comes mostly of the slanders, and her affectionate young lord thinks of her all for nothing.

畫 Nothing but a page washed in wet ink, all dark cloud and foul mist.

The great deeds 大事記

  1. ch. 31

    Tearing Fans for the Sound

    撕扇

    Sulks over the rain, tears a fan at Baoyu's first invitation and then keeps tearing them for the sound, to the chapter's own price of a thousand in gold.

  2. ch. 34

    Carrying Two Old Handkerchiefs

    贈帕

    Carries two of Baoyu's old handkerchiefs to Daiyu on an errand he never wrote out, and is the only servant in the book trusted with the message.

  3. ch. 52

    Mending the Fur Cape by Lamplight

    補裘

    A foreign cape is burned through and the whole household cannot mend it; sick as she is she takes up the lamp and works the pearl silk out to match.

  4. ch. 74

    Turning Out Her Own Box

    翻箱

    Meets the night searchers at her own box by turning its whole contents out in a single crash, the one maid in the garden who dares treat them with contempt.

  5. ch. 77

    The Pared Nails Given

    抱屈

    Fetched out of her fever in her underwear and handed back to her own relations to die, she gives Baoyu her pared nails and the shirt she wears next to her skin.

  6. ch. 78

    The Elegy at the Hibiscus Pool

    作誄

    Is made by Baoyu's prose elegy at the hibiscus pool into the spirit set over its flowers, and he reads the draft aloud to Daiyu without knowing which of them he mourns.

結局 The ending

Her verse is the plainest in the register and she answers it line by line: heart higher than heaven, station the meanest in the house, grace enough to draw resentment, a short life made by slander and a fond young lord grieving for nothing. She is dead within a day of ch. 77 in the 120-chapter text.

In the same register & chapters 同冊

The book itself: what happens, how long it is, which English version to read — The story · How long it is · Which translation · The lamp-oil night · The family tree · The first expulsion