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Dieter Maue, a specialist on Old Uyghur, Tocharian, Sanskrit, and Brahmi script, wrote to ask:

The simile 'like the moon of the third day' (tertium comparationis: delicate, graceful; curved (eyebrows)) is currently occupying my mind. Attested in Tocharian A and in Uigur, it sounds, but it doesn't seem to be, Indian.

Tentatively I have translated Uig. üč yaŋıdakı ay täŋri ‘third day’s moon god’ into Chinese word for word; but sān rì yuè 三日月("moon of the third day") is not found in the dictionaries. In the Chinese Tripitaka, there is just one suitable instance. Elsewhere, the moon of the third day seems to be called éméi yuè 蛾眉月 ("moth eyebrow moon" — only poetically?). According to Giles (ChinEnglDict s.no. 7714 ): “ éméi 蛾眉 moth eyebrows, – alluding to the delicate curved eye-markings of the silkworm moth … moth-eyebrows is used figuratively for a lovely girl.   Also wrongly explained as referring to the small curved antennæ of the silkworm moth. ­ Éméi yuè 蛾眉月‚ the crescent moon’. “  The antennae of Bombyx mori are clearly visible, while I cannot find anything which corresponds to  the “eye-markings”. Do you have an idea how to solve the problem?

My reply to Dieter:

Sān rì yuè 三日月 does exist, and it does indeed mean the moon of the third day of the lunar month.

Here's a Japanese dictionary entry for the term.

Chinese encyclopedia entry.

And, yes, it is a parallel expression to "moth eyebrow moon", for which see phase 2 here.

Here the "e" part of the expression is written with the female radical, not the insect radical:  éméi yuè 娥眉月 ("beautiful [young] woman's eyebrow", i.e., "waxing crescent moon").

Here are two mid-Tang poems (by Bo/Bai Juyi [772-846] and Dai Shulun [732-789]) referring to the moon of the third day of the lunar month, the second also using the conceit of the eyebrow:

一道殘陽鋪水中，半江瑟瑟半江紅。可憐九月初三夜，露似珍珠月似弓。——《 暮江吟》 白居易

涼月如眉掛柳灣，越中山色鏡中看。蘭溪三日桃花雨，半夜鯉魚來上灘。——《 蘭溪棹歌》 戴叔倫

I think you are justified in linking the Uyghur and Tocharian expressions about the moon of the third day of the lunar month with Chinese conceptions.

Dieter responded:

Thank you for the prompt reply and the substantive advice. It is difficult for the non-sinologist (who still uses the traditional dictionaries like Giles, Rüdenberg-Stange, etc.) to find the appropriate tools. Therefore, it was important to learn that 三日月 is also attested outside the Taisho. (I had already found out about its presence in Japanese).

As to éméi 娥眉 vs. éméi 蛾眉: What should one conclude from this? Is é 蛾 (with the "bug / insect" radical) the inferior variant? (The philologist would rather say: it is the lectio difficilior and therefore probably original!) Where did Giles, who lived in China for more than twenty years, get this spelling and the accompanying explanation, which in my opinion is factually incorrect?- In the case of éméi 娥眉, one would have to ask whether in é 娥 (with the female radical) there is perhaps the older meaning "moon" (Schuessler, EtymDictOChin p. 222).

From Zihan Guo:

I do not have a definite answer, but I think your philologist theory sounds right. The idea probably originally has to do with moths as an analogy to eyebrows. The phrase appears in Odes (ca. 6th c. BC), where the beauty is described with a series of natural and animal imagery characteristic of Odes:

Shǒu rú róu tí,

fū rú níngzhī,

lǐng rú qiú qí,

chǐ rú hù xī,

qín shǒu éméi;

qiǎo xiào qiàn xī,

měi mù pàn xī

手如柔荑，

膚如凝脂，

領如蝤蠐，

齒如瓠犀，

螓首蛾眉,

巧笑倩兮,

美目盼兮

Her fingers were like the blades of the young white-grass;
Her skin was like congealed ointment;
Her neck was like the tree-grub;
Her teeth were like melon seeds;
Her forehead cicada-like; her eyebrows like [the antenne of] the silkworm moth;

What dimples, as she artfully smiled!
How lovely her eyes, with the black and white so well defined!

    (translation by James Legge [1815-1897])

Éméi 蛾眉 fits perfectly there. With é 娥 the idea seems to become more abstract, meaning beautiful in general, and more feminized. Now I would definitely say éméi 娥眉 rather than éméi 蛾眉 because describing someone with moth-like eyebrows does not sound very nice to me personally. But I am not sure how ancient people would have thought of the epithet.

Here's another translation of the same poem:

From Shī jīng 詩經 (Poetry Classic), circa 6th c. BC:

(Her) hands are like catkins;

skin is like congealed lard;

neck is like larva of longicorn;

teeth are like calabash seeds;

forehead (like that of) cicada,

eyebrows (like antennae of) moth,

(her) enchanting smile is winsome;

(her) beautiful eyes are clear-set.

         — Ode 57, tr. Diana Shuheng Zhang

Shǒu rú róu tí
fū rú níng zhī
lǐng rú qiú qí
chǐ rú hù xī
qín shǒu é méi
qiǎo xiào qiàn xī
měi mù pàn xī.
      —— Wèi fēng·shuòrén

手如柔荑
膚如凝脂
領如蝤蠐
齒如瓠犀
螓首蛾眉
巧笑倩兮
美目盼兮。
 —— 衛風·碩人

When I first read this poem half a century ago, I was stunned — and have been charmed by it ever since.  Now I wish that there were a talented artist who could draw a picture of this eminent beauty from the "Airs of Wei" in the Poetry Classic!

As a side-note, there's a famous mountain called Éméi shān 峨眉山 in Sichuan.  Here the character for the "é" syllable has a mountain radical.

峨眉 derives from the word 蛾眉 (éméi, “the feathery feelers of a moth”), so named because the peaks of Mount Emei do in fact resemble the feelers of a moth (see pictures). The “insect” radical (虫) on the left side of the first character 蛾 was later replaced with the “mountain” radical (山). Thus, 蛾 eventually became 峨, so as to denote the mountain. The “mountain” radical can be optionally added to the second character 眉. Both 峨嵋 and 峨眉 have been used through the centuries. 山 simply means “mountain”.

(source, with pictures of the moth-eyebrow peaks and the antennae of a moth that do indeed resemble the gently arched eyebrows of a beautiful woman)

Poetic conceits travel far.

 

Selected readings

• "Similes for female pulchritude in an ancient Chinese poem" (7/1/20)
• "The sanitization of a sensual Chinese poem" (5/6/17)
• "Tocharian love poem" (4/1/20)
• "How to teach Literary Sinitic / Classical Chinese" (9/6/18)
• "Poetry as 'Word Temple' — NOT" (10/4/13)
• "Plum > apricot and wine > brew: the language of poetry and painting" (7/14/17)
• "Translating Chinese poetry is hard" (4/4/14)

February 8, 2022 @ 8:03 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Idioms, Language and geography, Language and literature, Metaphors, Philology, Translation, Writing systems

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