葷素共五百餘席 Five Hundred Tables
不覺樂了三四日，正值十二日佳辰。有光祿寺三部各官回奏道：「臣等自八日奉旨，駙馬府已修完，專等妝奩鋪設。合巹宴亦已完備，葷素共五百餘席。」國王心喜，欲請駙馬赴席，忽有內宮官對御前啟奏道：「萬歲，正宮娘娘有請。」國王遂退入內宮，只見那三宮皇后、六院嬪妃，引領著公主，都在昭陽宮談笑。真個是花團錦簇，那一片富麗妖嬈，真勝似天堂月殿，不亞於仙府瑤宮。有喜會佳姻新詞四首為證。不觉乐了三四日，正值十二日佳辰。有光禄寺三部各官回奏道：「臣等自八日奉旨，驸马府已修完，专等妆奁铺设。合卺宴亦已完备，荤素共五百余席。」国王心喜，欲请驸马赴席，忽有内宫官对御前启奏道：「万岁，正宫娘娘有请。」国王遂退入内宫，只见那三宫皇后、六院嫔妃，引领着公主，都在昭阳宫谈笑。真个是花团锦簇，那一片富丽妖娆，真胜似天堂月殿，不亚于仙府瑶宫。有喜会佳姻新词四首为证。
逐句解 Line by line
Before they knew it three or four days had gone in pleasure, and it came to the auspicious hour of the twelfth. Officers of the three departments of the Court of Imperial Entertainments reported back: "Since receiving the command on the eighth your servants have finished building the Prince Consort's residence, and await only the setting out of the trousseau.
The date lands. 正值十二日佳辰 — and everything since the eighth has been leading here. 不覺樂了三四日 uses the same two characters the novel used for Tripitaka chanting a line without meaning to: 不覺, without noticing. Four days of feasting have gone the way the poem went. He keeps not noticing things until they have happened.
"The wedding feast is likewise complete: five hundred tables and more, meat and meatless together."
The single most eloquent number in the chapter. 葷素共五百餘席 — over five hundred tables, in both kinds, because the groom's party does not eat meat and everybody else does. Somebody in that kitchen thought hard about a groom who does not eat meat, and solved it by cooking twice. It is the most considerate thing anybody does in this chapter and it is a catering note.
The king was glad at heart and was about to invite the Prince Consort to the feast, when an officer of the inner palace suddenly announced before him, "Your Majesty, the Queen of the Principal Palace requests your presence." So the king withdrew into the inner palace, and there he found the empresses of the three palaces and the consorts of the six courts, with the princess among them, all talking and laughing in the Zhaoyang Palace.
The scene changes to the women's quarters, where the reader has not yet been and where the thing this chapter is actually about has been sitting all along. 昭陽宮 is a name borrowed from the Han dynasty palace of a famous imperial favourite, and using it here says this is where the beauties are before a word is spent describing anybody.
Truly it was a mass of flowers and a press of brocade; that whole spread of richness and bewitching beauty was better than a moon-palace in heaven and no less than a jade court among the immortals. There are four new lyrics on the joyful meeting and the fine match to bear witness to it.
花團錦簇 is still in use for any dense, gorgeous crowd of things — flowers bunched and brocade clustered. And then the cue. The four lyrics that follow are titled with one character each, and read down they spell 喜會佳姻, the joyful meeting and the fine match — the phrase the narrator has just used. The set is an acrostic on its own introduction.
The chapter turns. Everything up to here has been the garden; from now to the end it is the palace, and the person the whole book has been circling is finally in the same room as the plot.
The passage is built out of administration and it is the better for it. A department reports that a house has been built. Another reports five hundred tables. A queen sends for her husband. Nobody says anything about love, or about the bride, and the one detail that carries any warmth is the decision to cook two kinds of dinner.
And then the narrator does something he has not done in this chapter: he tells us that verse is coming, and how much of it, and what it is for. Four lyrics, on the joyful meeting and the fine match, to bear witness. Nothing so far has needed witnesses.