By now the elder, seeing how much respect the king showed him, had no way out of it and could only make a show of enjoying himself — glad on the outside and grieving within, as the saying goes.

Five characters that could stand as the chapter's own summary: 外喜而內憂, glad outside and grieving within. Hold it against the second half of the chapter's title, which promises a monster cherishing her longing 空懷情慾喜 — to no purpose. Two kinds of false gladness are being set up, one in each half of the room.

Sitting there he saw four gold screens hung on the wall, and painted on them the four scenes of spring, summer, autumn and winter, each with a poem inscribed, and all of them by celebrated men of the Hanlin:

The setting for the finest thing in the chapter. Painted screens with poems written on them were real furniture, and a king would naturally commission the verses from his best men. The 翰林 was the imperial academy — the pool of top examination graduates who drafted edicts and wrote the court's official verse. Saying the poems are by Hanlin men is saying they are the best in the kingdom, which matters, because Tripitaka is about to be asked to answer them.

The Poem of the Spring Scene ran:

Each of the four titles sits on a line of its own in this edition, and each is given a segment of its own here. Four characters and a colon, four times over.

One breath goes round the heavens and turns the great wheel; over the wide earth all is bright and the ten thousand shapes are new.

洪鈞 is the great potter's wheel, an old name for the turning of the cosmos: the world is thrown on it the way a pot is. The poem opens as far out as it can and comes in from there. 熙熙 is a doubled word for a bright and cheerful bustle, still current.

Peach and plum contend in their beauty and the blossom blazes; the swallows come to the painted beams and layer the scented dust.

The season arrives in two birds and two trees. 疊香塵 — layering the scented dust — is the fallen petals getting trodden and settled into a fragrant film, which is a very precise thing to notice about a garden in late spring.

The Poem of the Summer Scene ran:

The second title, and the second season. The four are read in order, and Tripitaka will answer them in the same order.

The warm wind comes stirring and stirring and the thoughts go slow and slow; in the palace courts the pomegranate and the hollyhock catch the light of the sun.

Two doubled words in one line, and they set the pace: 拂拂 for the wind moving in little pushes and 遲遲 for a mind that will not hurry. Keep 拂拂 in view. Six hundred characters further on, in one of the wedding lyrics, this chapter writes the same doubled word with a different second character, and that site is the one genuinely unsettled reading in the chapter.

The jade flute's tune startles the noonday dream; the scent of water-chestnut and lotus drifts as far as the curtained hall.

音調 is the tune, so 調 is diào here. The same character in this chapter's other use is tiáo, in 調嘴, to wag the tongue — Tripitaka snapping at Pilgrim two nights ago. One character, two jobs, and only the sense to tell them apart.

The Poem of the Autumn Scene ran:

The third title. Autumn is where these four poems stop being decorative.

By the golden well the wutong tree has one leaf gone yellow; the pearl curtain is not rolled up, and in the night the frost comes.

The best line of the four screens. 一葉黃 is the oldest autumn signal in Chinese — a single leaf of the wutong turning is how you know, and the phrase is still in use for reading a whole change from one small sign. And 珠簾不捲, the curtain left down, tells you somebody inside has stopped looking out.

The swallow knows the festival day and quits its nest; the wild goose snaps a reed-flower and passes into another country.

Two birds leaving, which is what autumn is for in this tradition. 社日 was the festival of the god of the soil, kept in spring and again in autumn, and swallows were held to arrive at the one and depart at the other — a calendar with feathers. The wild goose is the bird of the traveller and of letters carried a long way. Note where it goes: 過別鄉, into another country. Tripitaka is reading this on a wall in India.

The Poem of the Winter Scene ran:

The last of the four titles.

The sky rains flying cloud, dim and cold; the north wind blows the snow and it piles on a thousand hills.

朔風 is the wind out of the north, and the character carries the first day of the lunar month with it — north and beginning are the same word here. It is the standard term for a winter gale in verse.

Deep in the palace there is a red brazier and warmth of its own; word comes that the plum has opened and the jade fills the balustrade.

The four screens end indoors, warm, with a flower opening in the cold — which is the conventional and correct way to finish a set of four seasons. The plum is the one thing that blossoms in the snow, so it stands for endurance and for a promise kept; 玉滿欄, jade filling the rail, is the white blossom read as stone.