梁元帝《采莲斌》里说得好:
Suddenly, something like lotus-gathering crosses my mind. It used to he celebrated as a folk festival in the South, probably dating very far hack in history, mast 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 rote their sampans, heart buoyant with tacit lone, pass on to each other cups of wire while their bird-shaped prows drift around. From throe to time their oars are caught in dangling alga, and duckweed flow apart the moment their boats are about to mote