Zhang Shao said: 'Li Ding, we two are truly the sort who can be close through soft-hummed verse, with no need of clappers and golden goblets. But merely reciting set lyric pieces is nothing rare. Let us each link a few lines, and see how this fisher-and-woodcutter talk of ours turns out.'

Zhang Shao proposes to raise the stakes. 微吟可相狎，不須檀板共金樽 adapts a couplet on the easy companionship of poetry: two men humming verses to each other need none of the trappings of a formal party, neither the 檀板, the sandalwood clappers that keep time for singers, nor the 金樽, the golden wine-cups. What he wants instead is 聯句, linked verse, composed in turns with each man taking up where the other stops. 相 in 相狎 is xiāng, 'mutually'; 散 in 散道, 'to recite offhand,' is read sǎn; 為 in 不為稀罕 is wéi.

Li Ding said: 'Brother Zhang has put it most finely. Please, brother, recite first.'

言之最妙 is 'has said it most aptly.' Li Ding hands the opening to Zhang Shao, whose 排律 follows: a single long regulated poem in linked couplets, blending the imagery of both their trades.

The boat lies still within green water and misty waves; the home stands deep in the mountains, amid empty wilds.

The 排律 starts here, marked by the opening 「. An 'arrayed regulated poem' takes the eight-line form and stretches it as far as the poet's stamina allows, every middle couplet parallel. Zhang Shao opens by yoking both lives in one breath, boat and mountain hut together. 曠野 is open country; 中 is zhōng.

Dearly I love the stream-bridge when the spring waters rise, and most I cherish the crags and peaks veiled in dawn cloud.

偏愛 and 最憐 are the couplet's paired verbs, each meaning roughly 'this above all is what I love.' 漲 (zhǎng) is the swelling spring flood, 岩岫 rocky peaks, and 蒙 the dim shrouding of mist.

Fresh carp from the Dragon Gate, stewed and boiled in season; worm-bored dry firewood, kindled and blazing by day.

龍門 is the Dragon Gate gorge, where by legend a carp that clears the falls turns into a dragon. It was the standing image for a poor scholar passing the examinations, and it remains the phrase for any life-changing leap — so serving Dragon Gate carp for dinner is already a small joke, and in a chapter that ends with a dragon's head on the pavement it becomes a grim one. 乾 in 乾柴, 'dry firewood,' is gān; the couplet pairs the fisherman's catch with the woodcutter's fuel.

Hook and net, in all their kinds, suffice to keep one in old age; carrying-pole and rope, these two things serve one to the end.

多般 is 'of many sorts,' 贍老 'to provide for one's later years,' 容終 'to see one through to the last.' 釣網, the fisherman's gear, and 擔繩, the woodcutter's, are weighed here and found equally sufficient: a retirement plan consisting of a net and a rope.

In the little boat, lying face-up, I watch the wild geese fly; on the grassy path, leaning aslant, I listen to the honking swans.

仰臥 is to lie on your back and 斜欹 to recline sidelong; 唳 is the cry of wild geese and 鴻 the great swan-goose. River-repose paired with hill-repose, both of them horizontal.

In the arena of wagging tongues I have no part; in the sea of right-and-wrong my footprints are few.

口舌場, 'the field of mouth and tongue,' and 是非海, 'the sea of right-and-wrong,' are the world of argument, gossip and slander the recluse has walked out of. 分 (fēn) is one's share or involvement in a thing, and 海內, 'within the four seas,' means the whole inhabited world. 中 is zhōng.

By the stream I hang out nets to dry, fine as brocade; on the rock I grind my axe anew, till its edge is keen.

繒 is the net-cloth, hung out to dry 如錦, 'like brocade.' 重 in 重磨, 'to grind again,' is chóng, and 似 in 似鋒, 'like a blade's point,' is sì. Net and axe, the two tools, close the couplet.

Under the bright, bright autumn moon I often fish alone; in the still, still spring hills I meet no one at all.

暉暉 is radiant and 寂寂 deep and silent; the two doublings set autumn water against spring mountain, each in perfect solitude. 獨釣, fishing alone, calls up the classic figure of the solitary angler.

When fish are plenty I trade them for wine and drink with my wife; when firewood is left over I buy a jug and gather with the children.

子 in 共子 is zǐ, 'children'; 沽壺 is to buy a pot of wine, and 叢 is to cluster together. 同妻 and 共子 make the couplet's parallel of domestic pleasure: whatever is left over goes on drink and company.

Singing to myself, pouring for myself, I follow my own wild ease; with long songs and long sighs I give myself to the tossing wind.

自唱自斟, singing to yourself and pouring for yourself, is unforced solitary pleasure, and 放蕩 here means free rather than dissolute, though the word has since drifted toward the second sense. Both 長 in 長歌長嘆 are cháng, and 顛風 is the buffeting wind.

Hailing elder brothers, calling younger, I gather my boat-mates; leading friends and bringing companions, I gather the old men of the wilds.

船夥 are boat-companions and 野翁 the old men of the countryside; 挈 is 'to lead by the hand.' 呼兄喚弟 and 挈友攜朋 pile up verbs of easy sociability as the poem widens out from family to fellowship.

Calling the forfeits, guessing fingers, we pass the cups round and round; breaking up tallies, calling out words, we idly pass the wine-bell.

A short catalogue of drinking games, and most of them survive. 行令 (xíng) is running the drinking-rules with their forfeits; 猜拳 is the finger-guessing game still audible in any noisy restaurant; 遞盞 is passing the cup round. 拆牌道字 names word- and tally-games, 傳鐘 is another drinking pastime, and 漫 is 'idly.'

Boiling shrimp and cooking crab, merry morning after morning; frying duck and stewing fowl, abundant day after day.

Both 朝 in 朝朝, 'every morning,' are zhāo, and 爊 (āo) is to braise over slow heat. 朝朝 against 日日 makes a couplet of unbroken daily plenty: the boast is not the feast but that there is one every day.

My simple wife brews the tea, her mood loose and at ease; my mountain wife cooks the rice, her heart calm and unhurried.

散 in 散淡, 'leisurely, unhurried,' is sǎn. 愚婦 and 山妻 are both self-deprecating ways of naming your own wife, and 從容 is 'composed.' The couplet sets the two households' women side by side in the same unhurried calm.

At dawn I raise my pole and rinse it in the light waves; at sunrise I shoulder my firewood and cross the great torrent.

淘 is to rinse in water and 大沖 is a large mountain stream. 舉杖 and 擔柴 pair the fisherman's morning labor with the woodcutter's.

After rain, cape thrown on, I seize the living carp; before the wind, plying my axe, I fell the withered pine.

披簑 is to throw on the straw cape, 擒 is to seize, and 弄斧 to wield the axe. 雨後 against 風前 sets weather against weather, each kind of day favoring one of the two trades.

Hiding our tracks and fleeing the world, we play the dull and foolish; hiding our names and burying them, we act the deaf and mute.

Two set phrases for dropping off the map: 潛蹤避世, hiding your tracks and fleeing the world, and 隱姓埋名, hiding your surname and burying your given name. The second is still the ordinary Chinese for going to ground under a false identity. 妝 is 'to feign' and 作啞聾 'to play deaf and dumb.' The closing couplet makes the recluse's self-concealment a deliberate act; the 」 ends Zhang Shao's linked verse.