As maids-in-waiting helped her up, she was lovely-bereft of all energy,
For that was when she’d but newly first received her lord’s love-liberality.
Cloud-billowing tresses, flower-like mien, and gold-strand jewel-sway coronet,1167
And in the warm of lotus-bloom bed-curtains1168 she whiled away the springtime nights;
Bitter ruing the spring nights’ shortness, she rose when the sun was high.
It was from that time on that her lord and monarch held no more-early courts.
She received his love,1169 was beside him at feasts, without pause, without respite,1170
Was ever with his spring train and spring tours,1171 had him all to herself every night;
Three thousand exquisite charmeuses1172 the imperial seraglio1173 held,
On but one of those three thousand the emperor’s love and favour dwelt.
In Gold Chamber,1174 adorned full sightly, she nightly served him with her charms,
In jade bowers,1175 at parties’ end, she wine-mellow communed in love’s Spring delight.
Her sister and brothers were all awarded fiefs and titles of high estate;1176
Her house and family came to enjoy most enviable splendours and glories,
Thus changing all parents in the world’s hearts and minds:
So they no more prized1177 bearing boys, but solely the bearing of female babies!
From the Mount Li palace1178 high, set up in the very sky,1179
Immortals’ music’s heard everywhere, upon the breezes floating;
Mellifluous singing, sinuous dancing leisurely led1180 by string and wind1181 playing,
And all day long her lord and monarch watching, never tiring.
War-drums1182 came sounding from Yü-yang,1183 shuddering the very ground:
Her Rainbow-skirt feather-jacket melody1184 broke off in alarm at the sound;
Rebel-war smoke and dust1185 came to gates and walls1186 of the empire’s capital, 1187
A thousand carriages, myriad horsemen, sought refuge, south-east1188 bound.
Kingfisher imperial banners1189 waved, proceeded, and then ... halted,
Gone out west from metropolis gate1190 and after some thirty miles’ ride,
The imperial guards1191 would issue no further, alas, did he have another choice!
There before their horses, graceful submissive, the fair-browed beauty1192 died. 1193
Her gold-flower hair-brooch, cast to the ground, was by no one culled,
Halcyon tail-feather trees-plume, 1194 gold-sparrow crown-pin, nor hair-clasp of jade;
The emperor covered his face, couldn’t save her,
And as he looked back, together shed tears of both water and blood.1195
Scattering the yellow dust everywhere, 1196 the wind soughed bleak,
Along cloud-high winding twisting plank-walkways, 1197 up through Sword Kiosk1198 they made their trek;
Few people come and go there, by the foot of Moth-eyebrow Mountains,1199
And the flags and banners were lustreless, and the sun but glimmered weak.
Jade-green the waters of Shu’s Yangtse,1200and verdant were the hills of Shu,1201
And the Sage Sovereign was with her in his love each day and night;
In his travel-palace, 1202 the moons he saw seemed of heart-grieving hue,
And eaves-bells heard amid midnight rain had for him a heart-rending1203 note.
Heaven and Earth spun their changes.1204
Rebellion over, the imperial dragon-carriage horses turned back,
But on reaching the place, lingered,1205 unable to depart again;
For, in the mud at the foot of Ma Wei’s Slope,
He couldn’t make out the spot where his jade-faced one had died in vain.
Monarch and ministers looked round at each other, and soaked all their robes with tears,
Then, gazing east to the capital’s gate, let their horses carry them thither heedless.
Back home once more, the pools and parks were all as of yore:
Lotuses of Grand Liquid Pond, 1206willows of Unfinished Palace1207
The lotuses were like her face. the willow-wands like her eyebrows,
How could his eyes fail to fill with tears, as he surveyed this all!
In spring breezes when peach- and pear-trees were in blossom,
At time of autumn rains, when parasol-tree1208 leaves fell....
In Great-ultimate Palace1209 and Thriving-celebration Palace1210 were so many autumn plants:
Leaves covered the palace steps, and petals lay unswept;
The Pear Orchard1211 entertainers had fresh-white hair,
Aged were the eunuchs and ladies-in-waiting1212 of Pepper Chamber1213 where she once slept.
In eventide palace-hall as fireflies1214 flew, he yearned disconsolate,
And, wick of solitary lamp1215 turned to its end, he could find no sleep;
As the long night began, the watch-bells and -drums came all too dragging slow,
And the stars of the Milky Way1216 shone too bright, as in the east dawn prepared to peep.
The paired mandarin-duck roof-tiles1217 were cold, with frost-bloom heavy on them,
The paired-kingfisher quilt1218 was chill, for who was there now to share it!
They’d been parted one year, dreary endless far,1219 one in life, one in death,
But, never once, had her soul220 come into his dreams1221 in visit.
A necromancer1222 from Lin-ch’iu1223 was staying in the “Swan-goose Capital”,1224
Able to invoke departed spirits, by the strength of his sincerity;
News of him made His Majesty toss and turn1225 with excited longing,
And he bade the magician find her, with all diligent alacrity.
Driving clouds,1226 charioting vapours, hastening swift as lightning,
Ascending Heaven, entering Earth, everywhere he sought;
Went up to Cerulean Heaven’s1227 bounds, and down to Hades’ Yellow Springs;1228
But in neither vastness1229 anywhere any glimpse of her he caught.
Sudden he heard that out in the ocean lay a mountain-isle of immortality,
A mountain that stood between
Seeming Fantasy1230 and Remote clarity;1231
Its towers and mansions, exquisite wrought, rose amid clouds of many hue,1232
And therein dwelt many angels, of tender and lissom beauty.1233
Among them was one named Grand-truth,1234
Of snow-skin and flower-miened her description and the Beloved’s fair matching;
He knocked at Jade Portal1235 of the Gold Tower’s1236 west wing,
And the maid Little-jade1237 was bidden announce him to the maid Pair-fulfilling.1238
At the proclamation, an envoy arrived from Son-Of-Heaven1239 of the House of Han,
Within her Nine-Flower bed-curtain1240 her dreaming soul1241 was startled awoken;
She wrapped clothes around her, pushed pillow back, rose, dithered1242 a while,
Then wove through pearled portiere and silver screen, one after the other drawing open.
Her cloud-like chignon1243 half-askew, she but newly from sleep aroused,
Her flower-coronet1244 tilted awry, through the front-hall she stepped.
Breeze blew her fair sleeves, floating, drifting, lifting,
As if she were dancing
Rainbow-skirt feather-jacket1245 again;
Tears railed bars across1246 her lovely forlorn pale-jade cheeks,
A sprig of pear-blossom wet by springtime rain.
She gave her monarch thanks, love-brimming, gazing rapt:
“Ever since we separated, we’ve been in voice and sight1247vast distance apart;
Our love in Shining-sunlight Palace-hall1248 was severed,
And here in an Erigeron-chenopodium Palace1249 long1250 days and months have passed;
If I turn my head, and gaze down to the Mortal Sphere, 1251
I can’t see Ch’ang-an, only mist and dust.
>
I convey my love to you through these old merest tokens:
Gold-inlaid casket and gold hairpins
I send you, now to him to entrust:
I keep one limb of the hairpin, and one half of the casket, 1252
Splitting the hairpin’s yellow gold, dividing the gold-strip
flower-adorned casket in twain;
If our hearts be but fine and firm as the gold,
Be it in Heaven or mid mortals, we shall surely meet again.”
She made to leave, then spoke again, more tender urgent word to send,
Mentioning a love-vow only their two hearts
could truly comprehend:
“On the Seventh Night of the Seventh Month, 1253 in Lasting-life Palace-hall, 1254
At midnight, we secret whispered, when no others were around:
‘Pray in Heaven we may be Twin-winged Birds, 1255
And on Earth be Flower-Stems Entwined.’”1256
Heaven endures and Earth lasts long, but one day they’ll come to naught,
This love’s keen woe winds on and on, 1257 with no term when it shall end.
Appendix Three
(As referred to in the Introduction to the Play, Volume 1)
Unofficial biography of Grand-truth1258
by Yȕeh Shih (930-1007)
(translated by William Dolby)
Most-prized-empress Yang, personal name Jade-bangle, was a woman of Hua-yin in Hung-nung. Later, she moved to live in Hou-t’ou village in Yung-le in P’u-chou. Her paternal great-great-grandfather Yang Ling-pen was governor of Chin-chou, and her father Yang Hsȕan-yen was a Revenue Manager of Shu.
Most-prized-empress was born in Shu. She once fell by mistake into a pond, which later people called Fallen-empress Pond. The pond was to the fore of Tao-chiang county-town. (It’s indeed like Wang Lady-resplendent, who was born in Hsia-chou, and now there’s a Lady-resplendent Village there, and like Green-pearl, who was born in Pai-chou, and now there’s a River Green-pearl there).
Most-prized-empress Yang was orphaned early in life, and was brought up in the home of Yang Hsȕan-chiao, her father’s Manager of Requisitioned Labour in the Levied-service Section of the administration of He-nan prefecture. In the Eleventh Month of the Twenty-Second Year of the Opening-origin reign-period [i.e. sometime during the days 30 November to 29 December AD 734], she came to live in Prince Longevity’s Residence. In the Tenth Month of the Twenty-Eighth Year [i.e. sometime during the days 25 October to 23 November AD 740], Emperor Dark-progenitor blessed Warm-springs Palace with his visit (from the Tenth Month of the Sixth Year of the Heaven Treasure reign-period [i.e. sometime during the days 30 October to 29 November AD 747], its name was again changed to Florescent-purity Palace.), and had Eunuch-chamberlain Kao fetch the daughter of the Yang clan from Prince Longevity’s Residence. He had her converted into a female Taoist, with the title of Grand-truth, and housed her in Grand-truth Palace.
In the Seventh Month of the Fourth Year of the Heaven Treasure reign-period [i.e. sometime during the days 3 August to 31 August AD 745], the daughter of Commandant of the Left Wei Chao-hsȕn was awarded the title of consort in Prince Longevity’s residence. And in that same month, in the Phoenix-pair Garden, the female Taoist Lady Yang of Grand-truth Palace was awarded the title of Most-prized-empress, with the use of half the attire of a principal empress.
On the day that she was presented for an audience with the emperor, Rainbow skirt and feathered jacket melody was performed. (The Rainbow skirt and feathered jacket melody was composed by Emperor Dark-progenitor when he ascended to Three Lands posting-station and gazed at Mount Nü-chi. That’s why Liu Yü-hsi’s 劉禹錫 (772 - 842) poems include one that says: Humbly perusing His Majesty Emperor Dark-progenitor’s Gazing at Mount Nü-chi poem, I was immediately moved by it:
The Opening-origin Son of Heaven has so many things to do,
But, just regretting that at that hour
Time was pressing heavily,
Went up into Three Lands posting-station to gaze at the immortals’ mountain,
Then went home and composed Rainbow-skirt and feathered-jacket melody.
From then on, the immortals’ feelings were present at Jade Mere,
And the Three Purities and Eight Scenes followed him around;
He suddenly went riding a white cloud up into Heaven,
And it no more meant a thing that there was an Autumn-wind lyric in the mortal world!
In addition, Missed-out history of the T’ang dynasty (T’ang yi-shih唐遺事) says: “Early in the Heaven Treasure reign-period, Lo Kung-yȕan was in attendance upon Emperor Dark-progenitor, and. on the night of the fifteenth day of the Eight Month, as they were enjoying the moonlight in the palace he said:
“Are you up to going with me to the moon, Your Majesty?”
And he took a twig of cassia, and threw it into the air, and it turned into a bridge, of silver hue. He respectfully asked the emperor to go up along it with him, and, when they’d gone a few score miles, they reached a big walled and towered palace-citadel.
“This,” said Lo Kung-yȕan, “is the palace of the moon.”
There were several hundred immortal maidens, in loose flimsy white plain-silk dresses, dancing in a wide courtyard.
“What’s that melody?” asked the emperor, going up to them.
“It’s Rainbow skirt and feathered jacket,” they replied.
The emperor secretly noted down its music, then went back to the bridge. As he looked back, it disappeared behind them at each step they took. At dawn, he instructed his entertainer mandarins1259 to imitate the music and compose a ‘Rainbow skirt and feather jacket’ melody.”
These two explanations differ, so I record them here in full.
That evening, he gave her a gold-strip flower-shaped casket with golden hairpins. The emperor also in his own hands took a Step-shake coronet carved from rolled gold, from the Scarlet Treasury of River Li Market-town, to her boudoir, and personally fixed it in her temple tresses.
“Now I’ve found Most-prized-empress Yang,” the emperor, delighted, exclaimed to the ladies of his seraglio, “it’s as if I’ve obtained the most precious treasure!”
Then he composed a melody called Obtaining a treasure.
Prior to that, at the beginning of the Opening-origin reign-period, Emperor Dark-progenitor had his Beloved Imperial-wife Wu and Majestic Empress Wang. Majestic Empress Wang bore him no sons, whereas Beloved Imperial-wife Wu did have some sons, and was, moreover, beautiful, and she capped the whole seraglio in her receiving of the emperor’s favours.
In the Thirteenth Year [28 January AD 754 to 15 February AD 755], Majestic Empress Wang was dismissed, and none of the other imperial wives could compete with Beloved Imperial-wife Wu. In the Eleventh Month of the Twenty-First Year [i.e. sometime during the days 11th December to 31st December AD 733], she passed away, and, even though there were ladies of good social status in the seraglio, there were none who pleased the emperor’s eyes, and he felt bleakly forlorn. At that time, he found Most-prized-empress Yang, and favoured her with his love even more greatly than he had his Beloved Imperial-wife Wu.
Most-prized-empress Yang had three elder sisters, who were all full-figured, gracefully tall, dandy and trim, and were skilled at joking and coquetry, and ingenious at grasping meanings. Whenever they came into the palace, they didn’t emerge until the sun fist moved its beams.
In the palace, they called Most-prized-empress Yang “queen”, and she was accorded the same courtesies due to a Majestic Empress. On the day that she was appointed imperial wife, her father Yang Hsȕan-yen was awarded the post of governor of Ching-yin, and her mother Li Min the title of Lady of Yu-hsi Commandery. Yang Hsȕan-yen was further awarded the post of Minister of War, and Lady Li the title of Queen of the State of Liang. Her junior paternal uncle - Hsȕan-yen’s younger brother - Hsȕan-kui became a Splendid-blessing Lord-minister Grand-man Minister of Imperial Entertainments with Silver Seal and Blue Ribbon. Her elder second cousin Y
ang Chao was appointed a Vice Minister and concurrently Numerical Commissioner. Her elder brother Yang Hsien/ Kuo was also in the ranks of court ministers. Her younger cousin Yang Ch’i married the imperial Princess Grand-flourishing, who was the child of Beloved Imperial-wife Wu, and who, because of her mother, was treated in a manner surpassing the other women, and was awarded a residence joined to the imperial palace’s forbidden precincts.
From then on, the Yang clan’s power capped the world, and whenever they had instructions or requests, they made them to the top ministerial Three Departments or to the prefectural or county authorities, who behaved as if they’d received imperial commands. Rare goods from all Four Quarters of the world, pages and grooms, camels and horses, were daily presented at their gates.
Shortly, An Lu-shan became Military Commissioner of Fan-yang, and enjoyed most profound favours and affection and generous treatment, the emperor addressing him as his “son”. Once they were feasting and making merry, together with Most-prized-empress Yang, in a Casual-relaxation Palace-hall. Whenever An Lu-shan went to his seat, he didn’t bow to the emperor, but bowed to Empress Yang.
“Why do you bow to Most-prized-empress and not to me?” the emperor asked, looking round at him. “What do you mean by doing so?”
“We barbarians in our homes,” replied An Lu-shan, “don’t acknowledge our fathers, only our mothers.”
The emperor laughed, and forgave him. He further commanded all from Yang Hsien downwards to make themselves An Lu-shan’s sworn brother or sister, and wherever An went he was unfailingly greeted with a feast and given a send-off with a goodbye party. Although at first they bound themselves in a quite deep friendship, later they clashed in power, and there was discord between him and them.
In the Seventh Month of the Fifth Year [i.e. sometime during the days 25th May to 23rd June AD 746], Most-prized-empress Yang went against the emperor’s wishes by her jealous fierce impertinence, and, mounting a single-person carriage, ordered Eunuch-chamberlain Kao to see her back to the residence of Yang Hsien.
Appendices and Endnotes Page 2
