Yuan Dynasty
醉中天 · 咏大蝴蝶
王和卿
弹破庄周梦，
两翅驾东风。
三百座名园，
一采一个空。
谁道风流种，
唬杀寻芳的蜜蜂。
轻轻飞动，
把卖花人搧过桥东。
Translation
It burst through Zhuang Zhou's butterfly dream; with two wings it rode the east wind. Three hundred famous gardens — with one sweep, it gathered each one empty. Who would have known it was such a roving lover? It frightened the flower-seeking bees half to death. With just a light flutter, it fanned the flower seller all the way east of the bridge.
Analysis
Drunk in Heaven · On a Great Butterfly is one of Wang Heqing's best-known sanqu pieces. Its main technique is extreme exaggeration. The butterfly is not merely large; it is so enormous that it breaks Zhuang Zhou's dream, empties hundreds of gardens, terrifies bees, and blows a flower seller across a bridge.The opening allusion to Zhuang Zhou's butterfly dream is brilliant because it turns a philosophical story into comedy. In the Zhuangzi, the butterfly dream concerns transformation, identity, and the dreamlike nature of existence. Here, Wang Heqing makes the butterfly so huge that it physically bursts the dream open. A lofty classical allusion becomes a comic stage effect.With two wings it rode the east wind continues the enlargement. A normal butterfly is carried by wind; this one rides and commands it. The verb gives the insect a grand, almost heroic presence.Three hundred famous gardens, with one sweep gathered empty pushes the joke further. A butterfly gathering nectar becomes a force capable of stripping entire gardens bare. The act of gathering flowers also hints at erotic wandering and romantic excess.Who would have known it was such a roving lover? personifies the butterfly as a dissolute, pleasure-seeking figure. Even bees, the usual seekers of flowers, are terrified by it. The butterfly becomes not just big, but domineering and absurd.The final image is pure comic theater: one light flutter sends a flower seller flying east of the bridge. The movement is ridiculous, visual, and memorable.Although the song can be read simply as a comic object poem, it also carries satirical force. The huge butterfly may suggest a powerful libertine, a swaggering pleasure seeker, or anyone who monopolizes beauty and disrupts ordinary life. It consumes the gardens, scares off the bees, and knocks away the flower seller.The piece shows the strength of Yuan sanqu: colloquial language, bold exaggeration, sharp humor, and a willingness to drag refined literary allusions into the marketplace. It is vulgar in surface energy, but highly controlled in comic effect.
About the Author
Wang Heqing was an early Yuan dynasty sanqu writer from Daming. His dates are uncertain. A contemporary of figures such as Guan Hanqing, he was known for a witty, free, and playful temperament. His surviving songs often depict urban life, romantic situations, satire, and worldly humor. His language is lively, colloquial, and sharply observant. Wang excelled at exaggeration and comic effect, and Drunk in Heaven · On a Great Butterfly is one of the clearest examples of his humorous and satirical style.