知否 知否 - 如梦令 by 李清照

I was reintroduced to this poem "如梦令" by 李清照 when I was watching one of those singing competition online. The duo (郁可唯 and 胡夏) gave a beautiful rendition of the song, which is a song from one of the popular Chinese drama "知否知否應是綠肥紅瘦". The name of the drama is part of the poem versus. The poem in turn formed the chorus of the song for the drama.

Here's the YouTube video for those interested to hear the song:

Hearing the song prompted me to search for the entire poem again, and here's the poems for those interested:

昨夜雨疏风骤，浓睡不消残酒。

试问卷帘人，却道海棠依旧。

知否，知否？

应是绿肥红瘦。

A direct interpretation of the poem would be the reminiscence of a scene by the author 李清照. The author remembered that it was an extremely windy night (the night before) with sparse rain. This was after a night of drinking where even after much sleep (浓睡), there is still the remnant of wine in her body.

This prompted her to remember about the flowers in her garden. The flower here referred to (海棠), which incidentally is the name for a group of flowers (see Wiki about 海棠), that generally has no fragrant. This sets the somewhat melancholic scenery, and it could be inferred that the author feels sorrowful, whether it is due to the changing of seasons (flowering spring to summer rainy season) or her background, or possibly both.

Thus she asked her maid about the garden, who is helping her to roll up the curtains (卷帘). The maid replied that everything is the same, which is of course contrary to what the author felt, i.e. the strong wind would have ruin the flowers.

This then lead to the 3rd and 4th line, where the author asked that famous line of "dont you know, dont you know", the scenery should be one of many greens (i.e. many leaves) and little flowers. There is an interesting symbolic inference where 绿肥, which literally translates to "green - fat", and 红瘦 for "red slim", painted a more graphically image of a ruined garden with much leaves and not many "red" flowers.

The entire poem painted a very beautiful image, that started with the sorrowful scene of strong winds (and sparse rain) giving rise to expectations of ruined garden, but yet the reality (if you believed the maid) of a normal garden. Poem ended with the author asking if it should be the other way round instead. Guess in a way this is a reference to her life. The author 李清照 lived in the Song dynasty, and initially she was leading a happy married life with her husband until the invasion of the Jin army. 

知否，知否？应是绿肥红瘦 is thus used as a way to indirectly state that the life is the other way round (instead of what the maid sees normally).