"The Unicorn Purse" (锁麟囊) 2/2 [English Subtitles]

Re-uploaded with some slight revisions

Random notes

-"Soup kitchen" : It's not actually a "soup kitchen", but a "粥厂/zhou chang". Its function is the same, but it serves zhou, a kind of rice porridge, rather than soup.

Blue clothing: Just a side note it's one of the interesting conventions of jingju that poor female characters wear plain, blue robes that are nevertheless decorated with pearls.

-Landlord Lu: He's not exactly a "landlord" in the modern sense; he is a 员外/yuan2wai4, a wealthy land owner.

-"Porridge is a dish served...": traditionally, in a wealthy northern Chinese family, the bulk of the meal would be devoted to meat and vegetable dishes; starchy staple foods like rice, porridge, noodles, bread and so on would be served last to fill up any remaining room in one's stomach. This was in stark contrast with the majority of families, who could rarely afford meat and so filled themselves with staple foods instead. It was, in other words, a luxury to consider porridge as just the final course, rather than the bulk of a meal.

-"Putting on airs": The actual idiom Hupo uses is "咬言咂字", which means "to overthink one's words," which I think implies that one is acting like a literati. Hupo then continues this literati theme by quoting a line from Mencius ("now this moment, now that moment").

-"take care of the young master": They're actually looking for someone to "哄/hong3" the young master. This means something like "put in good spirits" and is the same word that Meixiang used to describe Madam Xue's efforts to cheer Xiangling up. I couldn't figure out how to translate it consistently, though.

-"Playing and studying": Maybe this doesn't need explanation, but in China, it was expected that sons of wealthy families would study for, and struggle to study for, the imperial exams.

-"Do not laugh at those in servant's livery": Xiangling literally says "[My] black clothes, (青衣), do not laugh at me." In the old days, "black clothes" referred to both the uniforms of servants, as well as to the servants themselves. In the next line, this version of the script has Xiangling say "想亲" which would mean that she now 'thinks' of servants as her relatives. I found some guy's blog which said that in the original script, Xiangling says "相亲", which is pronounced similarly, but means that she actually counts servants as her close relatives; the blogger preferred 相亲since it says something about Xiangling, whereas 想亲 is mostly just narrative. I took him up on that idea.

-Taihu rocks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taihu_stone

-"Heavenly Father": Not the God of Judaism/Christianity/Islam.

-"Long gone waters": 逝水 apparently refers to waters that only flow in one direction. To "恋逝水" would mean being attached to something that will never come back.

-Orchid's bloom is passing: "兰因" is short for "兰因絮果", which refers to "the vicissitudes of life".

-"I mistook this clever child for my own": There may be some kind of wordplay here; 宁馨 would mean "my own", but it is also similar to "宁馨儿" which is a word of praise for a good child.

-"Spirit of Du Yu": There are many versions of the tale, but, basically, after Du Yu (the semi-mythological king of Shu) died, his soul transformed into the bird we call a "cuckoo" in English. Also, birds and apes mourned his death.

-"Red... purple": I think I get this, but I may be wrong. In Chinese, if someone is described as "red", it means they are a luminary, or a cause celebre. "Purple" is a color associated with the imperial family.

-"Servant humiliating her master": Biyu says "奴欺主了", which I think is a play on the idiom "打狗欺主", which means "hitting a dog to humiliate its owner".

-"Our disaster has passed": In this production, Xiangling sings a word in this line that is subtitled 净身, but in other places has been transcribed as 庆生. They sound similar, but the first is a euphemism for castration, while the second could mean "celebration of life." I couldn't figure it out, so I just inserted a line from another version of the script entirely: 这才是脱危难吉人天相

-"Fragrant peach": In the final line, Xiangling refers to the purse as a "木桃", a literary term for a large peach (like a pomewater) and a metaphor for a good deed.