RAS-1969 — Page 116

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JOHN MCCOY

4) The character (S) nü. I interpret this to be (M) nü 'woman' read in a slightly different way, probably equivalent to the 'changed tone' phenomenon in Cantonese. Compare here the Shanghai usage yang-nü-nü- ‘doll' contrasting with (S) nü-ning 'woman' showing two pronunciations for the element nü. Morohashi records this form in his great dictionary, Dai Kan Wa Jiten, and glosses it as a Wu dialect variant meaning simply 'woman',

5) (M) shã chiao ling erh I found in the dictionaries as 'water caltrop'. Here I exercised a little poetic license on the assumption that the English name for this plant is rather obscure.

約約到月上時,
邦了月上子山頭弗見渠,
咦沸知奴處山低月上得早
咦弗知郎處山高月上得遲。

'I agreed with my sweetheart to meet when the moon came up.
Why is it that the moon is on the mountain tops but I still don't see him?
I wonder if it could be because in my place the hills are low and the moon rises early,
Or is it because at his place the hills are high and the moon rises late?'

Note in this poem:

1) The character, at the beginning of the second line, which I have reconstructed as na-, I find this form in Morohashi where it is described as an alternate for the character (M) nà meaning 'that, those'. It seems to have a slightly different connotation in the Mountain Songs, more like the interrogative form of the same character in Mandarin, nă. From an analysis of the various contexts in which it appears in my texts I translate it as 'why' or 'how is it that'. 2) Note the use of the character (M) ch'u meaning 'he'. The only significant point here is that in this dialect I would expect (S) yi-, although forms related to ch'ü are found in a number of Wu dialect areas.