Xiang Liu and Xiao Yao’s Story and Romance

 blabla100:

Just to double check, Meng xia means june without a doubt or summer? 

孟夏 is not June. It is the first month of summer, which is the fourth month of the lunar calendar.

 liddi:

If you read the comment below your article, the person stated that 一轮 can only be used when the moon is round. 

Agree to disagree here. I would tend to give more credibility to a well-researched answer citing Song dynasty poetry over the more terse answers that say this usage of 一轮 is wrong. We know that it's not the most grammatically correct usage, but it doesn't prevent people from using it this way.

 liddi:

In any case, the only reason Xiao Yao would look at the moon on the night she learnt of Xiang Liu's death and recall the time she shared that sight with Xiang Liu, was because it reminded her of the moon that night, which means the moon on both nights were round.

I understand where you're coming from, but the text doesn't specifically state that the moon the night she learned of Xiang Liu's death looked the same as the moon she viewed with Xiang Liu. Anyway, I believe the math that calculates a waning crescent moon.

 windiaaa041293:

@liddi I'm counting on you. Thank you very much.

The screenshot of Tong Hua's post is incomplete. 

This is what the screenshot captured:

Long ago, I once mentioned that when I read "Flying Fox on Snowy Mountain", although I was extremely moved, the truth is I could not condone Hu Yidao's wife's suicide. As such, we have [the scenario of] Older cousin (Cang Xuan) and his mother.
Even after he grew up, Older cousin was still haunted by the sight of his mother stabbing herself. He was always battling with the shadow of that stab his entire life.
As a wife, choosing to die with her husband is a moving choice. However, as a mother, since she gave birth to a child, she should have taken responsibility for her child.
There is another emotional outcome in Lost You Forever.
Western Poison Ouyang Feng from Baituo Mountain, was the most outstanding person in the pugilistic world. Ouyang Ke was his son with his sister-in-law.
This residual shadow was transformed into Maggie Cheung's unparalleled elegance, and Leslie Cheung's drunken haze in Wong Kar Wai's movie [东邪西毒 Ashes of Time]. The world keeps them apart, but they can't forget each other even if they tried.
But what about Western Poison's older brother? The lord of Baituo Mountain?
No one cared, and it seemed he did not even have a name.
I listened to 烬 Embers (from the movie), but the one I thought of was the man Ouyang of Baituo Mountain who did not even have a name.
He married a woman who did not love him. Why?
Ouyang Feng missed the woman on Baituo Mountain, yet never thought of visiting his older brother. Why?
That woman could arrange for someone to deliver a jar of wine into Ouyang Feng's hand, and could give birth to his son. He was on Baituo mountain, was the lord of Baituo mountain, but...

-- 桐华tonghua @ Weibo, 4-10, 16:30  (year unknown)

So I can't tell what she wanted to say about Ouyang Feng's brother who was cuckolded and put up with it, and the conclusion she drew (similar to what she did for Cang Xuan's case). 

As for the rest, those are theories that this parallels Hou, Yiying and Jing's situation, where Yiying was married to Jing but had an affair with Hou and gave birth to his son. According to the theory, Ouyang Feng's brother Ouyang Lie was impotent after being accidentally struck by Ouyang Feng many years ago when they were training martial arts. The elders kept the information from the brothers and compensated Ouyang Lie by giving him a wife and making him the lord of Baituo mountain. The idea was that one day when Ouyang Feng had a son, the child would inherit the position as lord. When Ouyang Lie's wife was pregnant, the elders put her to death for being unfaithful. At the time, Ouyang Feng had no idea the reason for their decision, and his protests went unheeded. Even in death, she would not reveal the father of her child, asking only that her child be spared. Not wishing for the scandal to be known, the news was put out that she died at childbirth.

So the theory claimed that since the situation is supposed to parallel the Tushan brothers, they take it to mean that Jing was probably impotent too, since after he could walk, Xiao Liu would have no idea how well his less apparent injuries recovered as he applied his medicine by himself once he was able to.

Without Tong Hua's full post, all these are just theories being bandied about, which I won't put much stock on until we see the entirety of what Tong Hua had to say.

 liddi:

No, Xiao Yao was not lying. At the time when she sang the song to Jing at the sea, it was not to a full moon, but not long after the day of the full moon, which corroborates her 32-day statement.

The text before it says this:

太阳渐渐落下，月儿从海面升起，刚过满月之日不久，不仔细看，月亮依旧是圆的。

The sun gradually set, and the moon rose from the surface of the ocean. The day of the full moon had just passed not too long ago, so without looking closely, the moon still appeared to be round.

-- Vol 3 Ch10  (Chapter 43)

@blabla100

As I quoted in my previous post, the novel itself clearly states that the day of the full moon passed not too long ago, and that it deliberately mentioned that the moon only appeared round if one did not look closely, but was actually not round. As such, Xiao Yao was not lying about the 32 days. She would know clearer than anyone else how long ago it had been since she last saw Jing.

 blabla100:

I personally do believe that the moon XY saw when she found out about XL's death was full, but I choose to put emphasis on it's description, bright and full, yet cold and lonely.

To clarify, the description used in this passage: "一轮皓月，冷冷清清", does not necessarily translate to "a bright full moon, cold and desolate". "轮" can mean round, but used here as "一轮", it is just a measure word, one that usually has the connotation of "round", but not always since we have examples of Song dynasty poetry using the measure word "一轮" to quantify a new moon "一轮新月". 

So another valid translation of "一轮皓月，冷冷清清" is "a bright moon, cold and desolate", with no mention of the word full.

Do you think Tong Hua is more likely to give YaoJing's wedding night a full moon or a waning crescent moon? I would place my bets on the latter.

 solarlunareclipse:

Do you think Tong Hua is more likely to give YaoJing's wedding night a full moon or a waning crescent moon? I would place my bets on the latter.

In what way does seeing a "full moon" on the night she found out about Xiang Liu's death mean Xiao Yao got married on a full moon? The novel clearly states that several days had passed after the wedding before Sir Bi and Lie Yang left for Jade Mountain, and Xiao Yao learnt of Xiang Liu's death. The knowledge of his passing did not happen on the very next day of her wedding.

 liddi:

In what way does seeing a "full moon" on the night she found out about Xiang Liu's death mean Xiao Yao got married on a full moon? The novel clearly states that several days had passed after the wedding before Sir Bi and Lie Yang left for Jade Mountain, and Xiao Yao learnt of Xiang Liu's death. The knowledge of his passing did not happen on the very next day of her wedding.

 blabla100:

But their wedding wasn't on a full moon night.

Ok, this is my bad. I missed the passage that said Sir Bi and Lie Yang stayed a few more days after the wedding before departing. As long as YaoJing gets a waning crescent moon on their wedding night, I'm perfectly happy with Xiao Yao finding out about Xiang Liu's death on a full moon night. In fact, as liddi pointed it, it would be poetic for the moon to come full circle like this.