ABSTRACT
The bulk of Zheng Yuanxun’s account of his garden provides readers with a tour of the various sites of the garden. ‘Ming gardens were social spaces, celebrated in some ways not so much for themselves as for the social gatherings which took place there’, argues Craig Clunas. The outer gate of the garden faces east and overlooks the river, with south city standing on the opposite bank and both banks lined with peach and willow trees, their floating reflections stretching away to both north and south. The essential melancholy of his reflection seems to be captured by the commentary attached to Chen Jiru’s preface by Wei Yong, the compiler of the anthology in which it was published, writing under the sobriquet ‘The Lazy Immortal’. Beneath the cottage once grew two ancient ‘Western Palace’ crab-apples, both two zhang in height and ten wei of girth.
