縈迴曲逕 Winding Paths Dotted with Moss
但見那：但见那：
逐句解 Line by line
But he saw:
Three characters, and the rhapsody begins. 但見那 — he saw only that — is the standard cue, and it has introduced every set-piece in this chapter.
Winding, doubling, twisting paths, thickly dotted all over with grey moss;
The rhapsody opens on the ground and works upward, which is how a walker sees a garden. 蒼苔 is grey-green moss, and moss on a path is a sign of cultivated neglect — the mark of an old garden rather than a neglected one.
secluded, delicate latticed windows, everywhere quietly veiled in embroidered blinds.
The matched line, moving from ground to building. 綺窗 is a window with a patterned lattice, and 繡箔 is an embroidered blind — the first of several blinds in this rhapsody, and worth noticing, because a later line will hang a rather stranger one.
A light wind first stirring, and lightly, lightly it spreads out Shu brocade and Wu silk;
The two place names are trade names. 蜀錦 is brocade from Shu, modern Sichuan, famous for it since the Han; 吳綾 is patterned silk from Wu, the lower Yangtze. Naming the province was how you named the quality, rather as one might say Harris tweed.
The garden rhapsody is the longest single set-piece in the chapter at three hundred and forty-six characters, and it is built on a strict pattern: a four-character opening, then a longer clause, then a matching pair. A performer could ride that rhythm for a very long time.
The two fabrics in the third line are doing a job that a modern reader can miss. Shu brocade and Wu silk are regional luxury brands, and putting them side by side is a boast about expense, not about colour. The wind is spreading out money.
And the moss matters. A path thick with moss is not a neglected path in this vocabulary; it is an old and settled one, the sort a family has walked for generations. The garden is being given a history.