Zha Sheng 1650-1707

signed Zha Sheng, dated guiyou (1693), autumn, with two seals of the artist, zha sheng si yin, zhong wei yi zi sheng shan, and four other collectors' seals, xiao shan zhen cang, ai ri zhai, shen zai shu sheng zhuang shi jian, one other illegible

This Single Feather of Auspicious Light: Old Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, Vol. III, London: Sydney L. Moss Ltd., 2010, pl. 55, pp. 670-687

Artist's inscription:
(1) All other flowers shake loose and fall - but these remain all fresh,
Monopolising the eastern wind inside the little garden.
Their sparse reflections slant across where water is pure and shallow;
Their secret fragrance floats and trembles as moonlight comes with dusk.
Frosty birds wish to descend, but first they steal a glance;
Pollen-seeking butterflies, if they knew, would really break their hearts!
Happily, I have my quiet chanting to draw close to you in pain:
I have no need of sandal-wood clappers or golden goblets of wine.

(2)The spring wind as if purposely compounds their lovely colours,
To pass time with them, bring wine goblets, also write some poems.
Their luscious beauty, announced most loudly by early rains of spring;
Their seductive loveliness is most complete as they prepare to open.
Like Never Sad, applying make-up, too lazy to face the job;
Or Liang Guang's colours, red and green, slowly daubed on by the brush.
Drunk each morning, poems each evening, I can't get enough of them!
I envy those butterflies, staying overnight deep among their branches!

(3) On lotus blossoms, by the obscure Tang poet Li Jianxun.
"Slanting with the autumn wind, entirely beyond compare,
Their thousand beauties mixed with dew, a dye quite hard to match!
As if a natural omen, they are born in southern lands;
Who has captured them in painter's colours, and sent them to us northerners?
For how many nights will the brilliant moon share green waves with them?
The peonies have no such way to leave the world's red dust!
I love them - but I don't have time to stand here very long:
At least I'll capture some perfume - secretly - on my body.

(4) Fortunately, those that open with them all simply hide away:
How can they hope, beside these flowers, to compete in loveliness?
At crack of dawn, they all of them put on their freshest make-up,
Facing visitors, coquettishly full of unspoken emotion.
Paired swallows with no ulterior aims come brush against them then;
Wandering bees, full of longing, are busy among them.
For many years, such things as these I thought I'd put aside;
Today, beside this balustrade, again my eyes are opened.