#Osmanthus Wine

[rely-able]

[hanatatami]

Had to farm to buy him from the shops. Let's all do our best!!!!!

[the-witchs-cafe]

[dkniade]

“欲买桂花同载酒” / Zhongli’s osmanthus wine idle line

(Disclaimer: I don’t know that much about syntax, so I apologize for the wildly inaccurate syntax trees. I made the mistake of warming up with something that’s not English prose haha… I’ll be focusing on the meaning of the line and its hanzi characters, so the syntax is only there to help me explain some things.)

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“欲买桂花同载酒”…

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This line is from the Chinese songci (宋词, a form of traditional Chinese poetry) 《唐多令·芦叶满汀洲》，by 刘过 (Liu Guo). It’s the one referenced in Zhongli’s osmanthus wine idle line in Chinese. (By the way, it does not directly mean “Osmanthus wine tastes the same as I remember”, but more on that later.)

载 (zai3) as a verb could have the meaning of “to carry (something)(with a vehicle)”. For example, “这车可载��箱酒。” = “This car can carry three crates of wine.”

And since the rest of the songci talks about a harbour scene with boats, 载 could indeed be seen as a verb in the poem’s context, and the vehicle is implied to be a boat. So in the context of the songci, this line could be understood in English prose as “[I] wish to buy some osmanthus and ride [a boat] along with some wine.”

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However, despite the songci’s context, none of these hanzi characters in the line itself directly mean “boat”. While looking at it closer today, the syntactic structure felt a little strange to me even though I’m not familiar with Chinese songci syntax.

It turns out 载 has multiple meanings. 载, pronounced with the fourth tone (zai4), as a preposition used in pairs (in modern Chinese), could mean “simultaneously” or “at the same time”. For example, 载笑载哭 should probably mean “laughing at crying at the same time” or “laughing while crying”…

Also, the original songci doesn’t follow the osmanthus line with a section about old friends, but instead the idea of old friends is actually mentioned two lines prior. For the bolded sections, I’m doing a modern English translation, referencing the modern Chinese translation from the Gushiwen website here, but note that the original songci uses the poetic Chinese wenyan (文言) syntax.

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“黄鹤断矶头，故人今在否？旧江山浑是新愁。欲买桂花同载酒，终不似，少年游。”

“故人今在否？” = “Are [my] old friends still alive in this moment?”

“欲买桂花同载酒” = “[I] wish to buy some osmanthus and ride [a boat] along with some wine.”

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It’s pretty cool that Genshin Impact alluded to the friends idea present in the poem too. Also, both Liu Guo’s songci poem and Zhongli’s line use the term 故人 (gu4ren2) to mean “old friend(s)”.

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Meaning, Zhongli’s poetic-sounding Chinese idle line “欲买桂花同载酒…只可惜故人，何日再见呢？” is closer to “I wish to buy some osmanthus and also some wine… But as for those old friends, when would I meet them again?” in modern English with the game’s context (without taking into account that the real poem alluded to here is about boating). (This is a rough translation that follows the overall sentence structure in Chinese a little closer.)

Thus Genshin Impact’s English localization of “Osmanthus wine tastes the same as I remember… But where are those who share the memory?” might actually be okay in terms of meaning even if it lacks the nuance from the poetic reference. Well, I would’ve liked the first part (the songci) to be localized in Shakespearean English, and the second part to be in modern English, since the difference in syntax and tone still stands out a lot in Chinese… In an English localization, if a character who usually speaks in English prose suddenly quotes something in Shakespearean English, it’s easier to pick up on the fact that it might be a line of poetry ‘cause of the contrast, I believe.

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Somewhat unrelated, but in terms of poetic structure, it seems the entire poem in Chinese has an usually strict rhyming scheme, rhyming nine out of the twelve ending sounds together (roughly speaking. Not gonna go into the phonology of it haha)

Usually Chinese songci have a more diverse (?) rhyming scheme. E.g. “水调歌头•明月几时有” by 苏轼 (Su Shi), which miiight be the base inspiration for Liyue’s general storyline and cast

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In the end… Zhongli quotes a line of songci with seven hanzi/syllables. It’s a wild guess but maybe it refers to the original Seven Archons?

欲买桂花同载酒…只可惜故人，何日再见呢…

[checkuu]

Zhongli

[zkullcat]

Watch the speedpaint: X Don’t Trace, Copy or Edit my art. Reblogs > Likes Commission’s Info // Carrd // Patreon

[nifriel]

Happy B-day dear Geo Archon Zhongli, my fave Genshin Impact character! 💙 You will shine like gold in my memories forever. I can listen to "Osmanthus wine" and everything he has to say over and over again. And we're both from December. x)

[thesilliestangel4ever]

꒰ " Coming to me this late at night... Is there something on your mind too? I'm here to listen. " /ᐠ. ｡.ᐟ\ᵐᵉᵒʷˎˊ˗꒱

꒰ G R E E T I N G S , D E A R U S E R ! ♪(๑ᴖ◡ᴖ๑)♪ . . . . ꒱

ᨐฅ I have decided I'd like to try my hand at writing for the tale of food-- it's unfortunately not very popular so there isn't much fan content out there. I'm sure it'll gain more popularity soon though!

ᨐฅ fair warning though, I have not gotten very far into the story so the characters will likely be out of character. I will be writing my interpretations of the characters.

ᨐฅ also I'll only be writing headcanons [ like, bullet pointed hcs! ]

♪ ꒰Here come the characters I'm willing to write for!꒱ [more coming soon..!]

☆ Cat Ear Cookie

☆ Osmanthus Wine

☆ Yuxiang Pork

☆ Dragon Beard Candy

☆ Harbin Fried Pork

☆ Crab in Orange

☆ Har-gow

☆ Hu-Geng

☆ Dumpling

☆ Claypot Rice

꒰ You can expect a masterlist very soon! ꒱

Before you send in a request, please allow me to direct you to my꒰ RULES ! ꒱

꒰requests for the tale of food are currently: open :3꒱

[donaviolet]

Just started the Lantern Rite event and finally found those who share the memories

[nekoning]

i got into playing the tale of food recently and osmanthus wine is so much like yan zhengming...

[artemisjpotter]

It’s kind of funny how Zhongli complains about Venti being a drunkard when he mentions osmanthus wine every. damn. second.

[kitzent]

OSMANTHUS WINE

[angelicapocalypse]

• The Pretty Ones I Have So Far •

[bungod-hearth]

Special merch preview today: Genshin Impact wines labels :D

The classic red wine from Dawn Winery, their Death After Noon selection, the renown Dandelion Wine and of course, Osmanthus Wine tastes the same as I remember but whe-

These will all be waterproof, so you can slap them on your water bottle and don't worry about the stickers getting ruined when washing it!

[genshin-lover-hehe]

[incubumasc]

blaahhh osmanthus wine thingy