Yuan Dynasty
干荷叶（二）
刘秉忠
干荷叶，
色无多，
不奈风霜锉。
贴秋波，
倒枝柯。
宫娃齐唱采莲歌，
梦里繁华过。
Translation
A dried lotus leaf, with little color left, cannot withstand the cutting of wind and frost. It clings to the autumn waves; its branches and stems have fallen aside. Palace girls once sang lotus-picking songs together, but that splendor has passed through like a dream.
Analysis
This second "Dried Lotus Leaf" song continues the imagery of withered lotus, but it places greater emphasis on vanished splendor and historical memory. The first song focused on loneliness by the autumn river; this one moves from the ruined lotus to the dream of past music and palace life. The opening is stark. The lotus leaf has almost no color left. It has lost the green vitality of summer and the beauty associated with lotus blossoms in full season. "Unable to withstand the cutting of wind and frost" gives the decline a sharper force. Wind and frost do not merely touch the lotus; they wear it down like a file. This can be read as natural weather, but also as time, fate, and worldly change. The image of the leaf clinging to autumn waves and the branches falling aside reverses the usual image of the lotus rising proudly from the water. What once stood upright now droops and collapses. The final two lines open a larger historical space. "Palace girls singing lotus-picking songs" evokes youth, music, pleasure, and courtly elegance. But all of this is now only dreamlike memory. The present contains only the dried lotus; the past survives as a vanished song. "Splendor has passed through like a dream" is the emotional center of the piece. It suggests not only the passing of a season, but the disappearance of youth, pleasure, and dynastic glory. The song's power lies in compression. With only a few images — dried leaf, autumn waves, fallen stems, palace song, dream — Liu Bingzhong turns a small natural scene into a meditation on the impermanence of all flourishing things.
About the Author
Liu Bingzhong, courtesy name Zhonghui, originally named Liu Kan and literary name Cangchun Sanren, was a Yuan dynasty statesman and writer from Xingzhou. In his youth he became a Buddhist monk under the name Zicong, but he was later employed by Kublai Khan and played an important role in Yuan institutional planning and capital design. He rose to high office and was known for his broad learning in Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. Although few of his sanqu survive, "Dried Lotus Leaf" is especially famous for its spare language and deep sense of transience, decline, and vanished splendor.