Each with moth-brows arched in kingfisher-green, / powdered faces breathing spring.

蛾眉橫翠 is moth-antenna brows spread with kingfisher green — the oldest compliment in Chinese poetry for a woman's eyebrows, and a reminder that eyebrows were painted, not merely groomed. 粉面生春, a powdered face bringing forth spring. 一個個, each one of them.

Bewitching, a nation-toppling beauty; / graceful, they stir the heart.

傾國色 is beauty that topples a kingdom, from the idiom 傾國傾城, toppling states and toppling cities — still the highest thing Chinese can say about a face, and originally a warning rather than a compliment. 窈窕, graceful and demure, comes from the very first poem in the Book of Songs, so it arrives carrying three thousand years of respectability.

Flowered hair-ornaments show their many charms; / embroidered sashes flutter, far beyond the dust of the world.

花鈿 is an inlaid floral ornament, worn at the temple or on the forehead. The reading here is tián, which looks wrong to anyone who met this word in a modern dictionary, where it is diàn — but both readings are old and both carry the same meaning. The Song rhyme book 廣韻 files the character twice: once among the level-tone words, glossed 金花, gold flower, which is precisely what one of these is; and once among the falling-tone words, glossed 寶鈿, jewelled inlay. Each entry ends by noting that the other reading exists too. 康熙 leads with the level band and files every sense beneath it, women's hair ornaments included. 多嬌態, many alluring poses; 迥絕塵, utterly beyond the dust of the world — which, given who these women actually are, is more accurate than the poem lets on.

Where the half-held smile breaks, cherry-lips part; / as they step slowly, orchid and musk waft forth.

櫻桃綻, the cherry bursting, is the stock figure for a small red mouth opening. 緩步行時, when they walk with slow steps, takes 行 as xíng; 蘭麝 is orchid and musk, the two standard perfumes.

Their heads heaped with pearls and kingfisher-jade, / a-tremble with countless jeweled hairpins;

珠翠 is pearls and kingfisher-feather ornaments — real kingfisher feather, glued onto gilt frames, and ruinously expensive. 顫巍巍 is the trembling of a headdress as its wearer moves; 寶釵簪, jewelled pins and combs.

Their whole persons subtly fragrant, / delicately lovely, with fine gold thread worked in flowers.

遍體幽香, a faint scent over the whole body; 嬌滴滴, tender to the point of dripping; 花金縷細, fine gold thread worked into flowers.

Why speak of the Chu maidens' beauty, / or Xi Shi's alluring face?

說甚麼, why even mention, with 甚 as shén. 楚娃 are the celebrated beauties of the old state of Chu; 西子 (Xīzǐ) is Xi Shi, the most famous beautiful woman in Chinese history, sent as a living weapon to distract an enemy king — and 子 here is the honorific zǐ. Naming her and then dismissing her is the poem's way of going one better.

Truly they are as fairy maidens of the Ninth Heaven come down from the sky, / or the Moon's Chang'e stepping forth from the Cold Palace.

九天仙女, fairy maidens of the Ninth Heaven; 從天降, coming down from the sky, with 降 as jiàng, to descend. 嫦娥 is Chang'e, who stole the drug of immortality and fled to the moon; 廣寒, Vast Cold, is the palace she has lived in alone ever since. The comparison is meant as the highest praise available, and it is also, if anyone were listening, a very large hint.