"do not all forsooth amount to searching for chrysanthemums? And that
"'Last night they got a shower….
And this morn … bedecked with frost,'
"don't both bear on planting them? But unfortunately they can't come up to these lines:
"'Some scent I hold by the side of my mouth and turning to the moon I sing my sentiments.' 'In their pure and cool fragrance, clasping my knees I hum my lays.' '…short hair on his temples….' 'His flaxen turban…. …golden tinge is faint. …verdure is all past. …in autumn … all trace of you is gone. …my dreams then know something of you.'
"But to-morrow," he proceeded, "if I have got nothing to do, I'll write twelve stanzas my self."
"Yours are also good," Li Wan pursued, "the only thing is that they aren't as full of original conception as those other lines, that's all."
But after a few further criticisms, they asked for some more warm crabs; and, helping themselves, as soon as they were brought, from the large circular table, they regaled themselves for a time.
"With the crabs to-day in one's hand and the olea before one's eyes, one cannot help inditing verses," Pao-yü smiled. "I've already thought of a few; but will any of you again have the pluck to devise any?"
With this challenge, he there and then hastily washed his hands and picking up a pen he wrote out what, his companions found on perusal, to run in this strain:
When in my hands I clasp a crab what most enchants my heart is the
cassia's cool shade.
While I pour vinegar and ground ginger, I feel from joy as if I would
go mad.
With so much gluttony the prince's grandson eats his crabs that he
should have some wine.
The side-walking young gentleman has no intestines in his frame at
all.
I lose sight in my greediness that in my stomach cold accumulates.
To my fingers a strong smell doth adhere and though I wash them yet
the smell clings fast.
The main secret of this is that men in this world make much of food.
The P'o Spirit has laughed at them that all their lives they only seek
to eat.