Suddenly, something like lotus-gathering crosses my mind. It used to be celebrated as a folk festival in the South, probably dating very far hack in history, most popular in the period of Six Dynasties. We can pick up some outlines of this activity in the poetry. It was young girls who went gathering lotuses, in sampans and singing love songs. Needless to say, there were a great number of them doing the gathering, apart from those who were watching. It was a lively season, brimming with vitality, and romance. A brilliant description can be found in Lotus Gathering written by the Yuan Emperor of the Liang Dynasty:

于是妖童破女，荡舟心许：鹤首徐回，兼传羽杯;掉将移而藻挂，船欲动而萍开。尔其纤腰束素，迁延顾步;夏始春余，叶嫩花初，恐沾裘而浅笑，畏倾船而敛裾。

So those charming youngsters row their sampans, heart buoyant with tacit love, pass to each other cups of wine while their bird- shaped prows drift around. From time to time their oars are caught in dangling algae, and duckweed float apart the moment their boats are about to move on. Their slender figures, girdled with plain silk, tread watchfully on board. This is the time when spring is growing into summer, the leaves a tender green and the flowers blooming,- among which the girls are giggling when evading an outreaching stem. Their shirts tucked in for fear that the sampan might tilt.

可见当时嬉游的光景了。这真是有趣的事，可惜我们现在早已无福消受了。

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