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The Songs 123 Remember this well: Think of the devotion of our past love, Had we both been intoxicated with love, I would have found it indeed timely to die together with you. Song 48 Wounded Spring Birds cry; flowers fall; spring has a hidden wound; When looking at withered flowers the older man feels broken in spirit. Green spring [i.e. the prime of life] is confident there will be someone to look tenderly on it. But I believe that rouge and powder [i.e. courtesans] will be blown about like leaves from the trees, and be life-long lonely. I cannot tell who is the devoted, who is the fickle lover. It is always the same: the rose-complexioned [i.e. beautiful women] will meet heartless men. Today the butterfly has flown away, deserting the flower in bloom. On whom can I rely for support? Ah, woe is me! I am choking with grief. When I think how jade is shattered and fragrance buried [i.e. of the fate of the courtesan], I cannot check the tears that flood my eyes. Song 49 The Flirting Butterfly The butterfly settles in the heart of the flower, and you cannot drive him away; Certainly it lusts after unctuous fragrance, is bewitched by flowers. Flowers have passion and tenderly regard the butterfly; But the butterfly is wanton and so becomes infatuated. When the flower and the butterfly come together, they are two of a kind. Ah me, I would rather die. The Songs 123 Remember this well: Think of the devotion of our past love, Had we both been intoxicated with love, I would have found it indeed timely to die together with you. Song 48 Wounded Spring Birds cry; flowers fall; spring has a hidden wound; When looking at withered flowers the older man feels broken in spirit. Green spring [i.e. the prime of life] is confident there will be someone to look tenderly on it. But I believe that rouge and powder [i.e. courtesans] will be blown about like leaves from the trees, and be life-long lonely. I cannot tell who is the devoted, who is the fickle lover. It is always the same: the rose-complexioned [i.e. beautiful women] will meet heartless men. Today the butterfly has flown away, deserting the flower in bloom. On whom can I rely for support? Ah, woe is me! I am choking with grief. When I think how jade is shattered and fragrance buried [i.e. of the fate of the courtesan], I cannot check the tears that flood my eyes. Song 49 The Flirting Butterfly The butterfly settles in the heart of the flower, and you cannot drive him away; Certainly it lusts after unctuous fragrance, is bewitched by flowers. Flowers have passion and tenderly regard the butterfly; But the butterfly is wanton and so becomes infatuated. When the flower and the butterfly come together, they are two of a kind. Ah me, I would rather die. 124 Cantonese Love Songs You tell me to sever the bonds of love. You think this will be easy? Only when the butterfly is dead and the flower withered has the end come. Song 50 The Lamp Moth Do not say you have no fear of the fire. Look at that scorched moth;130 It flies hither and thither but still it gropes until it falls down the deep chasm [i.e. of the oil lamp]. It wants to know how deep is the chasm and therefore all night it goes groping around, Completely dazed as if it had met the wind-demon. How can it know that the square inch131 of the lamp's chimney-opening lies above a lake ten-thousand jeung deep [i.e. of infinite depth]?132 You cannot fly over it. Down the waves and tossed on the billows, I do not know how many have perished. When you feel the fire burning fiercely in your body, you will know your passion was wrong; Though you want to fly, you cannot soar aloft. I ask you who will then save you? Even if you were to die - to die ten million deaths - it would not lead anywhere; Ambitious still you pounce on the oil-lamp. Would that you could, like the butterfly, awaken from your dream;133 then flowers too would become awakened. 130 'A moth caught by the lamp' ( it'):1t~T , pok dang ngoh ji) is a phrase which can refer to a...

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