The word jedebule

In Resigning as Prime Minister I wondered if Jakdan inserted a specifically Manchu cultural reference into his translation by adding the word takan, “mustard greens.”

In his translation of The Lament of Jiéyú by Huángfǔ Rǎn he seems to have done it again with the word jedebule.

花枝出建章，		giyan jang gurung-ni ilhai gesengge tucike,
鳳管發昭陽。		jao yang deyen-i garudangga sihakū jedebule,
借問承恩者，		bai dacilaki doshon be aliha gegese,
雙蛾幾許長。		juru faitan antaka šuwar seme yangse.

The flowery ones of Jiànzhāng palace have come out,
The phoenix flutes of Zhāoyáng hall are [jedebule].
May I ask you, young ladies who receive favor,
How is it your eyebrows are so [šuwar seme] beautiful?

Jakdan uses the word jedebule to translate Chinese fā [發], but what does it actually mean? It is not inflected, and its placement suggests either a noun or an adjective.

The Qianlong dictionary explains jedebule as follows: kukji haijan be uculere de deribure mudan, “a starting tune when singing kukji and haijan.” The word haijan is further explained: ucun-i mudan kukji de adali, “the tune of a song, like kukji,̦” and kukji is explained as maksire de uculere ucun-i mudan, “the tune of a song where one jumps when one sings.”

From this, it seems jedebule refers to a type of tune that starts a type of dancing song. Amyot adds a bit of detail here in his definition of haijan: “Contenance des chantres mantchoux, qui imitent en chantant les plis et replis des serpents. On dit aussi kouktchi” – “a capacity of Manchu singers, who imitate in song the bending and folding of snakes. One also says kukji.” It is possible that Amyot witnessed this type of singing first-hand, so we can credit him on this.

Amyot’s definition is interesting for two reasons. The first reason is that it works well with the later šuwar seme used to describe the eyebrows of the young ladies. This onomatopoetic phrase refers to the sound of swords being drawn from their sheaths or of snakes slithering, but obviously eyebrows don’t make a sound, so it apparently refers to the shape or movement of the eyebrows.

The other reason that Amyot’s definition is interesting is that it was apparently misunderstood at some point by later lexicographers, and this misunderstanding has gained a life of its own. At some point Amyot’s replis were taken to mean “replies,” creating a set of definitions (including the best dictionaries in the field) which take either kukji or haijan to mean a call-and-response type of song.

By using jedebule and šuwar seme, Jakdan has anachronistically inserted Manchu cultural performance into a Tang dynasty poem, with the effect of decorating the entire poem with a lively and sinuous movement that was not at all present in the original. I try to reflect this as follows in my translation:

The flowery ones of Jiànzhāng palace have come out,
The phoenix flutes of Zhāoyáng hall strike up a snake-dancing tune.
May I ask you, young ladies who receive favor,
How is it your eyebrows are so sinuously beautiful?