摘仙花 He Picks Flowers To Trim His Hat
逐句解 Line by line
"He carries a basket and a gourd, going into the hills to visit friends; he gathers the hundred herbs and comes to the world to save people.
簞瓢, a bamboo basket for rice and a gourd dipper, is Confucius's image for a contented poor scholar; the Daoist has taken it for his own. The second half is the pitch: he gathers herbs and uses them to help people. Everything the courier chief described three thousand characters ago is being presented here as public service.
"He picks immortal flowers to trim his rain hat; he breaks fragrant orchid to spread as a mat.
鋪 is pū here, the verb — to spread something out — and not the pù that means a shop, which is how the same character read in the market poem earlier in the chapter. One character, two sites, two readings.
"He sings and claps his hands; the dance done, he sleeps on cloud.
罷 is bà, the completive verb — the dance being finished — not the light ba. The picture is of a man with no obligations at all, which is a genuine and attractive part of the Daoist ideal.
"He sets forth the Way and its methods, exalting the true teaching of the Most High;
太上, the Most High, is Laozi in his deified form — the founding deity of religious Daoism, and the counterpart of the Buddha in the other man's speech.
The portrait being offered is a real and appealing one, and the novel does not sneer at it. Free of obligation, at home in the mountains, gathering herbs and healing people, singing and sleeping on clouds — this is what Chinese readers actually wanted from a Daoist adept.
The line about coming into the world to save people is the one to hold. He is claiming, in the king's hearing, that his herb-gathering is philanthropy. The reader already knows what he wants the herbs for, and that the last ingredient is sitting in wicker baskets that were emptied last night.