Chunyan
春燕
“The Swallow of the Willow Bank”
Her Story
Daughter of Mother He 何婆, from a family given a plot of the Garden to farm after the household hands the grounds over to the servants in Chapter 56. Chapter 59 is hers: its title, 柳叶渚边嗔莺咤燕, names her — Ying’er picks willow shoots to weave with, and Chunyan’s aunt and mother turn on her for it until she runs to Baoyu’s rooms for shelter. She is also the maid who repeats Baoyu’s saying that an unmarried girl is a priceless pearl, a married one a pearl gone dull, and an old one no pearl at all but a fish’s eye.
In Xiang Li's Hands
Two sheets that barely agree. The 小燕 sheet is theatrical: opera headdress, kingfisher blue, one sleeve flung high, a wall of outlined uncoloured roses behind. The 春燕 sheet strips all of it away — yellow jacket, wine-red dress, both palms raised, eyes shut, nothing behind her but a few grey specks.
The Calligraphy
One sheet is inscribed 小燕 and the other 春燕 — the household’s familiar “little Swallow” and the full given name, the same girl addressed twice at two different distances.
Connections
- Mother He 何婆 — her mother, one of the old women farming the Garden’s plots.
- Ying’er 莺儿 — the 莺 to her 燕 in the Chapter 59 title; the willow shoots she picked started the quarrel.
- Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 — master of Green Delights, whose rooms she runs to and whose saying about girls she repeats.
Others of the same kind · maid – Baoyu (Green Delights / 怡紅院) Qingwen 晴雯 · Xiren 袭人 · Sheyue 麝月 · Xiaohong 小红 · Qiuwen 秋纹 · Bihen 碧痕 · Tanyun 檀云 · Qixian 绮霰 · Qianxue 茜雪 · Huixiang 蕙香 · Jiahui 佳蕙 · Zhui'er 坠儿 · Liang'er 良儿 · Liu Wu'er 柳五儿 and 1 more
Named on these pages Ying'er 莺儿 · Xiaojiu'r 小鸠儿 · He Po 何婆
Dream of the Red Chamber
Xiang Li painted all 413 characters of the novel between 1975 and 1985, the first person to complete the entire cast. See the whole collection · Chinese Empresses
