Fluttering, ten thousand folds of coloured sunset heaped high; faint and dim, a thousand strands of crimson mist appear.

The rhapsody opens on cloud and coloured mist, which is the standard paint-box for any palace of the gods — and the first hint that this place is going to look far more like heaven than hell.

Gleaming, from the eaves soar the heads of monstrous beasts; glittering, in five courses lie the mandarin-drake tiles.

怪獸頭 are the beast-head finials that ran along a Chinese roof-ridge; 鴛鴦片, "mandarin-duck tiles," are the interlocking pairs of curved tile laid in overlapping courses, named for the ducks that famously go about in couples.

The gates are bored with several rows of red-gold studs; the sill is set with a single bar of white jade.

赤金釘 are the gilded door-studs, 門釘, that covered a palace gate in rows — the fat brass bosses still seen on the red gates of the Forbidden City, where their number was fixed by the rank of whoever lived behind them. This edition reads 釘 as dìng, the noun, throughout. 檻 is kǎn, the raised sill you step over in a doorway.

The lattice-windows, near to the light, breathe out a dawn-like haze; the blinds and casements, dazzling bright, are pierced by crimson lightning.

牕牖, chuāng yǒu, is a variant writing of 窗牖, windows. 簾櫳 are the blinds and the lattice frame they hang in.

The tower-hall rears high to touch the blue empyrean; the galleries range level, linked to precious courts.

廊廡, láng wǔ, are the covered walkways and side chambers running off a main hall — the corridors of any large official compound, here rendered in cloud-height terms.

From beast-shaped censers, clouds of incense steep the royal robes; in crimson-gauze lamps, the firelight brightens the palace fans.

獸鼎 are incense burners cast in animal shapes; 絳紗 is crimson silk gauze, here as lampshades; 宮扇 are the enormous ceremonial fans carried in pairs behind a throne. Every item on the list is imperial furniture.

On the left, fierce and glaring, Ox-Head is ranged; on the right, towering high, Horse-Face is arrayed.

And here the true tenant of the building shows itself. 牛頭馬面, Ox-Head and Horse-Face, are the two great warders of the Chinese underworld, as instantly recognisable as a pair of gargoyles — and still the phrase Chinese reaches for to mean a rogues' gallery of unpleasant characters. 羅 here is "drawn up in ranks."

Receiving the dead and escorting the ghosts, they turn the golden tablets; drawing the souls and summoning the spirits, they let fall white streamers.

The job description of the doormen. 金牌 are the gold warrant-tablets that authorise a soul's collection; 素練 are undyed silk streamers used to marshal the summoned dead — bunting for a procession nobody volunteers for.

This they call the Grand Assembly Gate of the Shadow Administration; below it lies the Hall of Judgment of aged Yama.

陰司總會門 is the main assembly gate of the netherworld administration, and below it stands the 森羅殿, the Hall of Judgment, presided over by 閻老 — "old Yama," an oddly familiar way to speak of the king of the dead.