Riddles and Housekeeping in the Red Chamber

I have been reading the first volume of Cao Xueqin's 1760 novel The Story of the Stone, better known perhaps as The Dream of the Red Chamber. The translation is by David Hawkes, first published in 1973. It's one of the great classics of Chinese literature and a novel of manners; it even has its own field of study: Redology.

Anyway, Chapter 22 has a number of riddles, told as part of a game. I shall list these, with answers below under the picture - they all have fairly mundane answers, but Hawkes's translation, and the anthropomorphism of the riddles mean they could be used to describe divine messengers or elementals or other spirits.

1. My Body's square
   Iron-hard am I.
   I speak no word,
   But words supply.
   [A useful object.]


2. At my coming the devils turn pallid with wonder
   My body's all folds and my voice is like thunder.
   When, alarmed by the sound of my thunderous crash,
   You look round, I have already turned into ash.
   [An object of amusement.]


3. Man's works and heaven's laws I execute,
   Without heaven's laws my workings bear no fruit.
   Why am I agitated all day long?
   For fear my calculations may be wrong.
   [A useful object.]


4. In spring the little boys stand up and stare
   To see me ride so proudly in the air.
   My strength all goes when once the bond is parted,
   And on the wind I drift off broken-hearted.
   [An object of amusement.]


5. At court levée my smoke is in your sleeve:
   Music and beds to other sorts I leave.
   With me, at dawn you need no watchman's cry,
   At night, no maid to bring a fresh supply.
   My head burns through the night and through the day,
   And year by year my heart consumes away.
   The precious moments I would have you spare,
   But come fair, foul, or fine, I do not care.
   [A useful object.]


6. My 'eyes' cannot see and I'm hollow inside,
   When the lotuses surface I'll be by your side.
   When the autumn leaves fall I'll bid you adieu,
   For our marriage must end when summer is through.
   [A useful object.]

1. An inkstone.
2. A firework.
3. An abacus.
4. A kite.
5. An incense-clock.
6. A 'bamboo wife' - that is, one of 'those wickerwork cylinders which are put between the bedclothes in summertime to make them cooler'.

***

A brief piece of housekeeping for the blog - there's a number of posts I've written, on city or a region or a location, some moderately popular but without being tied to any given setting in particular and (generally) written to be quite self-contained. These are now under the label Translucent Polities, which seemed correct. Browse at your leisure.