Wong Tai Sin lot 54 of 100
Zhuangzi dreams of a butterfly
Middling (中平). Grade as given on the named web transcriptions. We have not seen it on a temple printing, and we do not know that the temple prints one.
莊子酣眠成蜨夢
翩翻飛入百花叢
天香採得歸來後
猶在高床暖枕中
Zhuangzi sleeps soundly and dreams he is a butterfly.
Fluttering, he flies into a clump of a hundred flowers.
Having gathered their heavenly scent, he comes back
and is still lying on his high bed, on a warm pillow.
What this lot says
A dream of flight and flowers that ends with the sleeper unchanged on his bed. Nothing was lost, and nothing was brought back except the scent.
The grade is middling. The verse is about the line between the dream and the waking and does not promise any outcome.
A lot is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
The story behind it
Zhuangzi dreams of a butterfly (莊周夢蝶蜨)
A traditional allusion named with this lot. We have not traced the story to a source we could read, so we do not retell it here.
Where this text comes from
This verse is a traditional temple text with no known author, here read from named web transcriptions. We compared the sites character by character and show every difference. We could not establish whether the sites are independent of one another, and we have not read a temple printing.
Fortune Sticks (fortunesticks.org) (the text shown above)
莊子酣眠成蜨夢 / 翩翻飛入百花叢 / 天香採得歸來後 / 猶在高床暖枕中
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Luckeyes (算命眼, luckeyes.com)
庄子酣眠成蝶夢 / 翩翩飛入百花叢 / 天香采得歸來後 / 猶在高床暖枕中
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Andy.hk (加賀風水)
莊子酣眠成蜨夢 / 翩翻飛入百花叢 / 天香採得歸來後 / 猶在高床暖枕中
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Where the sources differ
- Line 1, character 1: fortunesticks.org and andy.hk read 莊; luckeyes.com reads 庄. This is the same character in a different written form.
- Line 1, character 6: fortunesticks.org and andy.hk read 蜨; luckeyes.com reads 蝶. This is the same character in a different written form.
- Line 2, character 2: fortunesticks.org and andy.hk read 翻; luckeyes.com reads 翩. This is a different character.
- Line 3, character 3: fortunesticks.org and andy.hk read 採; luckeyes.com reads 采. This is the same character in a different written form.
- The allusion in the lot title: fortunesticks.org and andy.hk name it 莊周夢蝶蜨; luckeyes.com names it 庄周夢蝶.
English translation and commentary are by Cast & Chart.