香菱英莲 · 14
Leaf 14 of the Red Chamber · 秋菱 Autumn Caltrop
Xiangling 香菱
In Dream of the Red Chamber 紅樓夢 (c. 1791) · in the Second register (副冊) · nicknamed 秋菱 “Autumn Caltrop”
Lost as a toddler in the novel's own opening and sold back into the family she was taken from: she heads the second roll, proof the register reaches below the Twelve.
根并荷花一茎香， 平生遭际实堪伤。 自从两地生孤木， 致使香魂返故乡。
One root with the lotus, one stalk fragrant: all the meetings of her life are matter for grief. Ever since the two earths grew the lone tree — the character for osmanthus — the fragrant soul has returned to her old home.
畫 One osmanthus tree, and beneath it a pool with the water gone and the mud dried up, its lotus withered and its roots spoiled.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 1
Lifted Up to See the Lanterns
被拐Lifted up at a servant's arm to see the lanterns on the fifteenth night and never found again; the Zhen family's fire finishes what the trafficker started.
- ch. 4
Sold to the Stronger Buyer
亂判Two men produce bonds for her; the magistrate who once owed her grandfather money finds for the stronger buyer, and she enters the Xue house as a concubine.
- ch. 48
Learning Verse by Heart
學詩Moves into the garden and begs Daiyu for lessons, reading Wang Wei and Li Bai until she can quote them back in the middle of a sentence.
- ch. 49
The Third Attempt at the Moon
詠月Her first two poems on the moon are stiff and her third is so much better than the rule that the whole club names her mad for verse.
- ch. 79
Re-Baptised Autumn Caltrop
改名Xue Pan brings home Xia Jinggui as principal wife, and the new mistress takes away her very name, re-baptising her Autumn Caltrop to spite her.
- ch. 80
Beaten on a False Poison Charge
屈棒Falsely charged by Jinggui with poisoning her, she is beaten by Xue Pan on the strength of it and takes to the wasting illness her painting shows.
結局 The ending
Her leaf in the second roll says the root is one with the lotus and that when two earths grow one lonely wood the fragrant soul goes back to her old home. The 120-chapter text follows the jealousy and the beating; the osmanthus over her cracked pool is her mistress's own surname.
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