Xiang Cheng, Volume 16: Incense Matters V · Spring Message in Snow
Spring Message in Snow — Original Text (compiled and edited), with vernacular translation and annotations.
Volume 16 · Incense Matters V · Spring Message in Snow
Original Text (compiled and edited)
Huang Taishi's Xiang Pu: Spring Message in Snow is made with agarwood, sandalwood, borneol, and musk, taking the meaning of plum blossom tidings in the snow. A favorite of Mr. Dongpo.
Vernacular Translation
Spring Message in Snow takes the delight of seeking plum blossoms in the snow, blending agarwood, sandalwood, borneol, and musk; it was favored by Su Shi, reflecting the elegance and ingenuity of Song dynasty incense blending.
Annotations
- Plum tidings: the news of plum blossoms opening
- Huang Taishi: Huang Tingjian
- Dongpo: Su Shi
Editorial Notes · Editions and Compilation Notes
Edition basis:The transmitted text of Xiang Cheng traces its ancestry to the Ming Chongzhen-era printed edition; extant today are the Wenyuan Ge Siku Quanshu edition, the Siku Huiyao edition, and various Qing manuscript copies. This compilation takes the commonly circulated modern critical edition as its base text and collates it against the Siku Quanshu edition.
Collation for this volume:Records Su Shi's "Spring Message in the Snow" and various reconstructed formulas by other authors; this formula is traditionally attributed to Dongpo and is recorded in Chen's Xiangpu and Xiang Cheng, with minor verbal differences; here the essentials of both are preserved together.
Facsimile comparison:The "original text" on this page is a compiled transcription (punctuated and paragraphed according to modern conventions), not a facsimile of the original book; for character-by-character collation, please consult authoritative public-domain editions:Full text of Xiang Cheng (twenty-eight volumes), Siku Quanshu edition, on Wikisource、Facsimile scans of Xiang Cheng (PDFs including the National Library of China copy) on Wikimedia Commons. This site does not fabricate ancient book layouts, so it substitutes external links to authoritative public-domain facsimiles.