Ninth Lunar Month, Fifteenth Day, Evening Moon Through Thin and Delicate Osmanthus Branches, Its Northern Exposure Lush, Southern Patchy, No Old Friends Have Written of This: Two Four-Line Poems: No. 1
九 月 十 五 夜 月 细 看 桂 枝 北 茂 南 缺，未 经 古 人 拈 出 记 以 二 绝 句
桂 树 冰 轮 两 不 齐
桂 圆 不 似 月 圆 时。
吴 刚 玉 斧 何 曾 巧？
斫 尽 南 枝 放 北 枝。
Jiu Yue Shi Wu Ye Yue Xi Kan Gui Zhi Bei Mao Nan Que, Wei Jing Gu Ren Nian Chu Ji Yi Er Jue Ju
(1)
Gui shu bing lun liang bu qi
Gui yuan bu si yue yuan shi.
Wu gang yu fu he ceng qiao?
Zhuo jin nan zhi fang bei zhi.
Ninth Lunar Month, Fifteenth Day, Evening Moon Through Thin and Delicate Osmanthus Branches, Its Northern Exposure Lush, Southern Patchy, No Old Friends Have Written of This: Two Four-Line Poems: No. 1
Osmanthus tree, two icy moons not the same
Osmanthus tree, sky of one full moon not like the tree-shrouded one.
How skillful is the jade hatchet of Wu Gong?
He chopped off the southern branches, but left alone the northern ones.
Notes:
Wu Gong: In Chinese folklore, he was endlessly cutting down a giant, self-healing osmanthus tree on the moon. This serves as a metaphor for endless toil and trouble. Somewhat like Sysphus in western legends, who rolled a huge boulder up to the top of hill, only to have it roll down to the bottom again and again for eternity.
A Chinese origin myth explains that the phases of the moon were a result of a great forest, or giant osmanthus tree losing, and then growing again its leaves on the monthly basis. In this poetic twist, Wu Gong is a part of this process where he prunes the tree totally for a full moon, and then partially as the moon goes through its phases to a new moon.