The plum blossom is like a beauty who has washed away her powder, possessing her own true grace without adornment. One branch slants out beyond the bamboo, recalling the lovely woman standing alone in the cold at dusk. In the courtyard at evening, no one appreciates its pure fragrance; a faint breeze stirs, and snowflakes fall—how much more so for plum blossoms along the bleak, cold road beside the river.

The faint plum shadows beside the moon draw even dreams into a realm of soul-stirring beauty. When the plums begin to yellow, unbroken rain will come again. You guard your secluded fragrance all your life, bringing endless sorrow to tender hearts; I have grown thin like Shen Yue of Dongyang. Tell me, plum blossom, do you know?

铅花: the same as 铅华, cosmetic powder. 御: to use. 竹外一枝斜: a branch slanting beyond the bamboo, expressing refined elegance through the plum branch’s form. 天寒日暮: cold weather and gathering dusk, adapting the poetic sense of the ending of Du Fu’s “The Beauty.”

著: to place or settle. “无处著清香” (nowhere for the delicate fragrance to settle) conveys the loneliness of a fragrance no one appreciates. 垂垂: falling downward. 疏影: sparse shadows of branches.

廉纤: fine and closely woven. 供断: to supply without end. 东阳: Shen Yue once served as governor of Dongyang; the lyric invokes the story of his emaciation to describe the speaker's own condition.

Reading guide: Cao Zu compares the plum blossom to a beautiful woman who wears no makeup and keeps her integrity in solitude. The first stanza emphasizes the blossom’s bearing and circumstances; the second gradually turns to the feelings of the person admiring it, creating a structure that moves from the flower to the human observer.

Pure fragrance ought to spread, yet it is said to have “无处著,” nowhere to settle. The emphasis is on the absence of anyone to receive it, rather than any lack of scent. The plum blossom amid wind and snow is thus both noble and lonely.

The sudden question addressed to the flowers at the end shows that the viewer has entrusted personal sorrow to them. The plum blossoms' slenderness earlier and the person's wasting away later mirror one another, while the tone remains delicate and restrained throughout.