Scenery killers

Waley’s introduction to the Pillow Book mentions an older list-book: the Za zuan (義山雜纂, “Yishan’s Miscellany”), attributed to the Tang poet Li Shang-yin (c. 813–858), though scholars now doubt the attribution. It’s bare lists with no stories. Waley quotes three. He leaves out the one I like best, 殺風景, “things that kill the scenery.” Here it is whole, from the text on Chinese Wikisource, in my own rough translation. I’ve marked the places where I’m guessing.

• 花間喝道 — Outriders shouting “make way!” among the flowers.
• 看花淚下 — Weeping at the flowers.
• 苔上鋪席 — Spreading a mat over moss.
• 斫卻垂楊 — Cutting down the weeping willows.
• 花下曬裩 — Drying your trousers under the blossoms.
• 遊春重載 — A spring outing with a heavy load.
• 石筍係馬 — Tying your horse to a garden rock. (A 石筍, “stone bamboo-shoot,” is a tall ornamental stone.)
• 月下把火 — Carrying a torch in the moonlight.
• 妓筵說俗事 — Talking business at a party with courtesans.
• 果園種菜 — Planting vegetables in the orchard.
• 背山起樓 — Building a tower with its back to the mountain. (So it can’t see the mountain, I think.)
• 花架下養雞鴨 — Keeping chickens and ducks under the flower trellis.
• 步行將軍 — A general on foot.
• 清泉濯足 — Washing your feet in a clear spring.
• 燒琴煮鶴 — Burning the zither to cook the crane.
• 對花啜茶 — Sipping tea in front of the flowers. (Wine, I assume, was the proper drink.)

My favourite is the torch in the moonlight. The one that surprised me is “weeping at the flowers”: too much feeling spoils the view as surely as too little attention. Sei Shōnagon, whose tears wouldn’t come when they were supposed to, might have agreed. The crane is still around. 焚琴煮鶴, “burning the zither to cook the crane,” is a Chinese idiom for wrecking something fine out of coarseness.