Song of a Fairy m the Cave Madame Pistil
洞仙歌 花蕊夫人
When I was seven, a ninety-year，old nun told me that she had visited the palace of King Meng Chang, where she saw, on a sweltering hot night, the king and his favorite wife Madame Pistil sitting in the shade by a big pool, writing a poem, which she could still recite. Now forty years have passed. As the nun died long ago, nobody knows that poem now. I still remember the first two lines and think it is perhaps written to the tune of the “Song of a Fairy in the Cave”. So I complete Meng Chang's poem as follows:
余七岁时，见眉州老尼，姓朱，忘其名，年九十岁。自言尝随其 师入蜀主孟相宫中。一日大热，蜀主与花蕊夫人夜纳凉摩诃池上，作 一词。朱具能记之。今四十年，朱已死久矣，人无知此词者。但记其 首两句。暇日寻味，岂洞仙歌令乎？乃为足之云。
Your jade-like bones and ice-like skin
Are naturally sweatless, fresh and cool.
The breeze brings the unperceivable fragrance in
And fills the bower by the pool.
The embroidered screen rolled up lets in
A bright spot of a moon which peeps at you there
Leaning on the pillow, not asleep, a hairpin
冰肌玉骨，
自清凉无汗。
水殿风来暗香满。
绣帘开、一点明月窥人。
人未寢，
欹枕钗横鬓乱。
Across your dishevelled hair.
We two rise hand in hand,
Silent in the courtyard we stand.
At times we see shooting stars stray
Across the Milky Way.
How old has night become?
The watchmen thrice have beaten the drum.
起来携素手，
庭户无声，
时见疏星渡河汉。
试问夜如何？
夜已三更，
The golden moonbeams begin to fade,
Low is the Big Dipper’s string of jade.
We count on our fingers when the west wind will blow.
What can we do with years which drift as rivers flow?
金波淡、玉绳低转。
但屈指、西风几时来,
又不道流年，
暗中偷换。