怎生模樣 What Manner Of Creature
你看他怎生模樣：你看他怎生模样：
逐句解 Line by line
Look at the shape of him:
模樣 takes mú, appearance — the everyday reading of the first character gives mó, and this pairing is one of the standing exceptions.
Nine chǐ of body, long and hideously fierce; a pair of ringed eyes flashing like golden lamps.
A 尺 (chǐ) is the Chinese foot, so nine of them makes a giant. The opening line rhymes, which in a poem of this shape it is under no obligation to do. 長 is cháng, long, not the zhǎng of seniority. 惡 is è here, ugly and fierce — the other reading of that same character closes this chapter.
Two wheels of jutting ear like fans spread open; four steel teeth like driven nails.
查耳 are ears that stand out from the head. Every comparison in this portrait is to a made object — fans, nails — and it keeps that up throughout.
Red hair coiling at the temples, eyebrows standing up like flame; a pitted nose hanging down, the nostrils gaping wide.
糟準 is a nose lumpy as the lees in the bottom of a wine jar; 準 is the bridge of it. This is the ugliest line of the six and the only one that works downward.
A few strands of whisker like cinnabar thread; cheekbones jutting sharp in a face all blue.
崚嶒 is a word used of mountain ridges, applied here to the bones of a face. Cinnabar red against a blue face — the portrait has been assembling a colour scheme since the golden lamps in the second line.
Red sinews on both arms and hands of indigo; ten sharp claws holding a spear aloft.
And a weapon at last, in the tenth of twelve lines. 觔 stays jīn, sinew — the older way of writing 筋.
A leopard-skin kilt tied about the waist; barefoot and wild-haired, like the shape of a demon.
The closing comparison is to a ghost, and that will be disputed at length very shortly. 繫 is jì, to tie fast — the same reading it took of the golden threads at the very start of this chapter. 子 is the light suffix and 間 is jiān.
The portrait is the tightest verse in the chapter. Every line that has to rhyme does, and the opening line rhymes as well, which it is under no obligation to do — every rhyming position lands, all on one sound, with the alternate lines correctly outside it.
What it builds is a body, from the top down, entirely out of made objects. Ears like spread fans, teeth like driven nails, whiskers like cinnabar thread, cheekbones ridged like mountains, hands the colour of indigo. Nothing in the description is organic. This is a thing assembled rather than born.
A colour scheme runs through the whole of it — golden lamps for eyes, red hair, cinnabar whiskers, a blue face, red sinews, indigo hands, a leopard-skin kilt. Only in the tenth of twelve lines does a weapon appear, and the last comparison of all is to a ghost. That comparison is about to be argued over at some length.