The fisherman said: 'Brother Li, your life in the hills is not so merry as my trade on the water. I have a lyric to the tune Moon over the West River to prove it:'

The ground shifts again, now to the work itself: 生意快活 is a livelihood both carefree and lively. 《西江月》 (Xījiāngyuè, 'Moon over the West River') is among the most familiar of all tune-titles, and the novel reaches for it again and again. (為 in 為證 is wéi.)

Red smartweed in heavy bloom mirrors the moon; yellow reeds toss their leaves in the wind.

紅蓼 is the red-flowered smartweed of the water margin and 黃蘆 the withered yellow reeds. The two lines run six syllables each, matched image for image, because that is precisely what the 西江月 form asks for at the head of a stanza.

The azure sky stretches clear and far, the Chu river lies empty; a single stir sets the whole pool of stars atremble.

楚江, 'the river of Chu,' is a poetic name for the great southern waters. 牽攪 is to tug and stir, and 一潭星動 is a whole pool of reflected stars set shaking by one dip of the oar. (一 is read yì.)

Great fish come into the net in ranks; little mandarin-fish take the hook in clusters.

鱖 (guì) is the mandarin fish. The couplet's parallel is exact and faintly smug: 作隊, 'in files,' against 成叢, 'in throngs' — big fish to the net, small fish to the hook, and nothing gets past him.

Once got and cooked, the flavor is all the richer; laughing proud on rivers and lakes, I make merry din.

味偏濃 is 'the taste especially strong.' 笑傲江湖, laughing in proud freedom upon the rivers and lakes, is a set phrase for the untrammeled wandering life, and it has stayed in circulation: modern readers know it best as the title of a Jīn Yōng novel. 打鬨 (dǎ hòng) is to make a boisterous racket. The 」 ends the fisherman's lyric.

The woodcutter said: 'Brother Zhang, your trade on the water is still not so merry as mine in the hills. I also have a lyric to Moon over the West River to prove it:'

The matched rejoinder once more, and the woodcutter caps the fisherman's own 不如 with 還不如, 'still no match.' (為 in 為證 is wéi.)

Withered leaves and dead creepers litter the path; broken tips of aging bamboo fill the hills.

What is litter to everyone else is stock-in-trade to a woodcutter. 敗葉枯藤 is the fallen debris of the woods, his raw material; 破梢 is the broken stalk-ends and 盈山 'fill the mountains.' A hill-scene answering the fisherman's water-scene.

Old-man's-beard and dried kudzu tangle and climb every which way; I break them off, bind them with cord, and lash down my load.

女蘿 is the climbing lichen-vine called old-man's-beard, and 葛 is kudzu, here 乾, read gān, 'dried.' 收繩 is to take up the binding-rope and 殺擔 to cinch the carrying-load tight.

Worms have bored the elms and willows hollow; the wind has snapped the crowns of pine and nanmu.

蟲蛀 is worm-eaten, 榆柳 are elm and willow, and 柟, a variant of 楠 (nán), is the nanmu, a prized timber. Dead and broken wood is exactly the woodcutter's harvest, so the ruin of the forest reads to him as a good day.

I gather it, heap it up against the winter cold, and trade it for wine and coin just as I choose.

備冬寒 is to lay in a store against the cold, and 從俺 is 'just as I choose' — 俺 being a blunt northern colloquial 'I,' a word that has no business in polished verse. The plain vernacular close answers the fisherman's 打鬨; the 」 ends the lyric.