史湘云英豪阔大 · 6
Leaf 6 of the Red Chamber · 枕霞旧友 Old Friend of the Cloud Pillow
Shi Xiangyun 史湘云
In Dream of the Red Chamber 紅樓夢 (c. 1791) · in the Main register (正冊) · nicknamed 枕霞旧友 “Old Friend of the Cloud Pillow”
Loud, frank, found drunk on a stone step under the peonies: the register gives her orphanhood in one clause and then scatters her like clouds over the Xiang water.
富贵又何为， 襁褓之间父母违。 展眼吊斜晖， 湘江水逝楚云飞。
What did all that wealth amount to? Father and mother gone while she was still in swaddling clothes. In the blink of an eye she mourns the slanting sun — the Xiang water runs off, the Chu clouds fly.
畫 A few strands of drifting cloud, one bend of water passing away.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 31
The Double Star of the Trinket
麒麟Picks up the little gold qilin Baoyu had dropped and keeps it, not knowing the chapter's own phrase: the trinket lays a double star to grow old together.
- ch. 38
The Crab Feast She Staged
螃蟹宴Stages the club's second sitting on her own money, with crabs and chrysanthemums, and writes two answering crabapple poems to make up for arriving late.
- ch. 49
Roasted Venison in the Snow
割腥啖膻Roasts venison in the snow with Baoyu, to Daiyu's teasing that they are eating raw flesh in a garden of plum blossoms, and asks for more.
- ch. 62
Asleep Among the Peony Petals
醉眠芍藥Drops off asleep on the flagstones after drinking, covered in blown-out peony petals, her fan slipping from her hand — the maids sweep a stone's worth of flowers off her.
- ch. 76
The Crane's Shadow on the Pool
凹晶館聯詩Keeps the linked verse going with Daiyu beside the cold pool by moonlight and throws out the crane's-shadow line that her friend's answer answers with death.
結局 The ending
Wealth was no use to her, the verse says, and ends with the Xiang river running off and the Chu clouds scattered. Her story is the register's own prediction more than the narrative's: a husband of matchless talent and looks, and then a widowhood as quick as the rain letting up.
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