1238Shuang-ch’eng 雙成, Pair-fulfilling, being the name of an immortal maidservant to Most-prized-empress Yang. One modern note says that it was the name of an immortal girl/angel of ancient times.
1239t’ien-tzu 天子, Son of Heaven, i.e. emperor. Tai Sheng 戴聖 (early first century BC), Rites record (Li-chi 禮記), “Yȕeh-ling”, says: “He who’s monarch over all-under-Heaven is called the Son of Heaven.” An early note to this says: “‘All-under-Heaven’ means to more than seven thousand Chinese miles. If the Son of Heaven receives all the rulers of states within seven thousand Chinese miles and more of the world [Four Seas], then Receptors-of-Guests address him with the title of ‘Son-of-Heaven’. The reason why they do so, is that the world’s hard to make submit, and it’s natural that a title of honour should be used to overawe it, and the reason why they do not say ‘true king’ [wang 王] is that his father is Heaven, his mother Earth and so he is the son of Heaven, and is also the son who has been commanded by Heaven to look after the people under him, hence the title of honour.”
1240Chiu-chua-chang 九華帳, Nine-flower Bed-curtain, i.e. gorgeously decorated bed-curtains. Chang Hua Chang Hua張華 (232 - 300) says: “Emperor Warrior of the Han dynasty was fond of the principles of the cult of immortality, and at that time the Royal Mother of the West sent an envoy riding a white deer to inform the emperor that she was due to come, so he provided bed-curtains in the Nine Flower Palace-hall for when she arrived.” This reminds of the present poem. Anything that was decorated with flowery patterns could be termed “nine-flower”. Huang T’ao 黃滔 (fl. ca. AD 900) bards of a “Nine-flower Lamp”. “Nine Flower” was also the name of a palace built by Shih Hu 石虎 (reigned 334 - 349) of the Latter Chao dynasty (319-451), because of its three by three layout.
1241meng-hun 夢 魂, dreaming soul/spirit. The idea being that dreams weren’t just activities of the mind, but that one entered the dream world as one’s spirit. Li Pai uses the term: “My dreaming soul can’t get to the hard pass-mountains.”
1242p’ai-huai 徘徊, to move to and fro (without moving on), to dither, to dilly-dally. A term used by Ssu-ma Ch’ien 司馬遷 (145 BC - ca. 90 BC).
1243yȕn-pin雲鬢, cloud temple-hair, i.e. woman’s hair at her temples done-up in cloud-like shape, piled up like “raven clouds”.
1244hua-kuan 花冠, “flower hat/headdress”, i.e. a hat or headdress beautifully decorated: flower coronet, flower headdress.
1245Ni-ch’ang yü-yi wu 霓裳羽衣舞, a dance to (the tune) Rainbow skirt and feather jacket.
1246Lan-kan欄杆, “railings”, i.e. to make railings/bars, to criss-cross, to lie criss-cross. An ancient Music Treasury (yȕeh-fu 樂府) song Shan-tsai hsing says: “The Northern Dipper criss-crosses.”
1247Yin-jung音容, voice and face/facial looks. A term used in phrases concerned with parting through death.
1248Chao-yang-tien 昭陽殿, Bright-/ Brilliant-/Resplendent-/Shining-sunlight Palace-hall, the name of a Han dynasty palace-hall. Emperor Warrior (Wu-ti 武帝, reigned 140 - 87 BC) had eight quarters for his womenfolk, and this was one of them. During the reign of Emperor Cheng-ti (reigned 32 BC - 7 BC), Chao Flying-swallow (Chao Fei-yen 趙飛燕), and her younger sister were lady-mandarins in his court, and lodged in a Shining-sunlight Building (Chao-yang-she 昭陽舍), which was the same place as Shining-sunlight Palace-hall. In this present poem, the Han hall is again used instead of a T’ang one, and it is particularly appropriate here, since like Most-prized-empress Yang, the fabulously lascivious Chao Flying-swallow was the emperor’s beloved.
1249P’eng-lai-kung 蓬萊宮, Erigeron-chenopodium Palace, a palace of Erigeron-chenopodium Paradise. This is confusing. There was actually a Tang dynasty palace named Erigeron-chenopodium Palace, originally named Great-shining Palace (Ta-ming-kung 大明宮), and also called Eastern Interior/ Inside (Tung-nei 東 內), situated east of present-day Ch’ang-an county in Shensi province. Ch’eng Ta-ch’ang 程大昌 (1123 - 1195), Record of Yung (Yung-lu 雍 錄), says: “Great-shining Palace was originally the rear imperial park of Great-extremity Palace (T’ai-chi-kung 太極宮). Emperor High-progenitor (Kao-tsung 高宗, reigned 650 - 683] changed its name to Erigeron-chenopodium Palace, taking its name from the Erigeron-chenopodium Pond (P’eng-lai-ch’ih 蓬萊池) to its rear. It had three palace-halls, which were all up on Mount Dragon-head (Lung-shou-shan 龍首山). Origin-/Greatness-holding Palace-hall (Han-yȕan-tien 含元殿) had foundations forty Chinese-feet high above ground. North of Origin-holding Palace was Government-proclaiming (Hsȕan-cheng 宣政). And to the north of Government-proclaiming was Scarlet Imperial-residence (Tzu-ch’en 紫宸). Moving back northwards, each was progressively higher. The greatest height being reached with Scarlet Imperial-residence. Behind it was P Erigeron-chenopodium Palace-hall (P’eng-lai-tien 蓬萊殿), which had a pond, and was on ground level.”
Here, however, it must mean a palace situated on Erigeron-chenopodium Paradise, a Taoist paradise, also known as Erigeron-kettle (P’eng-hu 蓬壺), a mountain-island situated in the Eastern Ocean. Pan Ku 班固 (32 - 92) says: “People were sent out into the ocean to seek Erigeron-chenopodium, Fang-chang 方丈 and Ying-chou 瀛洲, these three mountains of the gods being, according to tradition, situated in the Po-hai 渤海 Sea.” Anon. (late Chou to third century AD), Sir Lieh (Lieh-tzu 列子), “T’ang-wen”, says; “To the east of the Po-hai Sea there are five mountains, the fifth being called Erigeron-chenopodium.”
1250ch’ang 長, to be long/lengthy. Sometimes taken here to mean that Most-prized-empress Yang has abiding, enduring or everlasting life in paradise, but surely she’s complaining that she’s been there too long away from her beloved emperor?
1251Jen-huan 人寰, the mortal realm, the mortal world, a term used by Pao Chao 鮑 照 (ca. 421 - ca. 465).
1252shan 扇, “fan”, i.e. leaf (of doors, etc.), (perhaps Lid). A modern commentator says “one half”, and “one piece/strip”, explaining “the casket is of two pieces, and she keeps one”
1253Ch’i-yȕeh Ch’i-jih 七月七日, the Seventh day of the Seventh Lunar Month, i.e. “the Seventh Evening/ Night” (Ch’i-hsi 七夕), the festival of lovers. Legend has it that on this date, the constellation deities and celestial lovers Oxherd and Weaving-damsel are allowed by the Jade God of Heaven to meet across a bridge of magpies for their once yearly rendezvous.
1254Ch’ang-sheng-tien 長生殿, Abiding-/Eternal-/Abiding-life Palace-hall, the name of a palace-hall. Seemingly a “fasting palace-hall” (chai-tien 齋殿), and, according to Wang P’u 王溥 (922-982), Assembly of the vital matters of the T’ang dynasty (T’ang hui-yao 唐會要), part of Florescence-purity Palace (Hua-ch’ing-kung 華清宮), it was built in the tenth lunar month of AD 743, and named Assembled-immortals Terrace (Chi-hsien-t’ai 集仙臺) and used for holding sacrificial services for the gods. Chi Yu-kung 計有功 (fl. ca. AD 1126), Background records of T’ang poems (T’ang-shih chi-shih 唐詩紀事) and others have felt a fasting palace-hall to be an unseemly place for lovers’ whispered vows to have taken place. He says: “The Flying-frost Palace-hall (Fei-shuang-tien 飛霜殿) was the sleeping palace-hall (ch’in-tien 寢殿), and it was most wrong of Pai Chü-yi to associate his Abiding regrets with Abiding-life Palace-hall.” But who knows! No doubt Emperor Dark-progenitor and Most-prized-empress Yang sometimes departed from propriety! And Pai Chü-yi was well placed for accurate information. This and the next line of the present poem were a basic inspiration for the magnificent play Hung Sheng’s Abiding-life Palace-hall.
1255Pi-yi-niao 比翼鳥, Wing-sharing Birds, Twin-winged Birds. Anon. (Chou and early Han dynasty), Close exegeses (Erh-ya 爾雅), “Shih-ti”, says: “In the Southern Region there’s a wing-sharing bird, which can’t fly unless it’s sharing another’s wing. Its name is the chien-chien 鶼鶼.” An early note to this says: “It’s like a wild duck, a bluey red colour, and has one eye and one wing, and they can only fly when two of them get on with each other enough to agree to do so.” Close exegeses also say, �
��In the Eastern Region there’s an eye-sharing fish, which can’t move along unless it gets another of its kind to share its eye with it, its name being the tieh 鰈.” The compound term chien-tieh 鶼鰈 for the bird and fish was later used also as a metaphor for a truly loving and inseparable couple, as indeed was each of the terms on its own.
1256Lien-li-chih 連理枝, Twined Flower-stems/Intermingled Branches. Lian-li basically refers to the stems or twigs or branches or trunks of two different plants or trees growing joined together, making them as one, which was viewed in ancient times as an auspicious sign of good fortune. Fang Ch’iao 房喬 (T’ang dynasty) et alia, (eds.), Tsin history (Chin-shu 晉書), “Yȕan-ti chi”, of the early seventh century AD has the words: “There were as many as a hundred one-horned animals and joined plants or trees that were regarded as splendid propitious signs.”
Li Yen-shou’s 李延壽 (T’ang dynasty) Southern history (Nan-shih 南史), “Sung Hsiao-wu-ti chi”, says: “To the east and west of Fragrant-perfume Dulcimer-hall (Fang-hsiang Ch’in-t’ang 芳香琴堂) there was a pair of joined tangerine-trees, so they changed the name of the Hall to Joined-trees Hall (Lien-li-t’ang 連理堂).”
Li Yen-shou’s Northern history (Pei-shih 北史), “Liang Yen-kuang chuan”, says: “When Liang Yen-kuang 梁彥光 was Commissioner for Ch’i-chou 岐州, he administered government with great kindness and wisdom, and huge ears of grain and joined plants were produced within the borders of the region. The emperor approved of his ableness, and sent down an edict praising him.”
A similar term was lien-chih 連枝, “joined branches/ stems”. A poem by Emperor Chien-wen-ti 簡文帝 (reigned 550-551) has the line: “In Yangtze South the cardamom grows with joined stems.” This term was used as an image for brothers, they being like branches grown from the same root or thus joined. A poem attributed to Su Wu 蘇武 (140 BC-60 BC) says: “Brothers are like trees with joined branches, and I am of the same body as you.”
In this poem, though, the term Lien-li-chih surely refers to the Love Trees of Kan Pao’s story below, being used as a metaphor for a truly loving and life-and-death inseparable couple, and is reminiscent of Western stories about rose and columbine, as in such songs as Barbara Allen.
Kan Pao 干寶 (fl. ca. AD 317) has a story about Han P’ing and his wife:
Prince K’ang of Sung’s (Sung K’ang-wang 宋康王) Personal Edict Secretary, Han P’ing 韓憑/馮, married a Miss He (He-shih 何氏). As she was beautiful, the Prince snatched her from him by force, and, because of P’ing’s resentment over it, put him in prison, and then sentenced him to be a Wall Dayman - a builder, repairer and guard of the state’s defensive walls. The wife, nee He, secretly sent P’ing a letter, couching it in nonsense words:
The rain floods on and on,
The rivers mighty and its waters deep.
When the sun goes out,
My heart will be fulfilled.
Before long, the Prince discovered the letter, and showed it to his entourage, but none of them could understand it, except the minister Su He 蘇賀. “‘The rain floods on and on’,” he said in answer to the Prince’s query, “means that she yearns sorrowfully for him. ‘The river is mighty and its waters deep’ refers to their being unable to have meetings with each other. And ‘When the sun goes out, my heart will be fulfilled’ says that she’s resolved to die.”
Very soon afterwards, P’ing committed suicide. His wife secretly made the cloth of her dress rotten, and when the Prince took her up onto his palace terrace with him, she threw herself over the edge of the high terrace. His entourage tried to grab her, but her dress came away in their hands, and she went to her death. In her girdle, she’d left a letter, which said: “Your Highness had the benefit of me when I was living, but now, for my own sake, I die. I pray that you’ll grant it for my corpse to be buried together with that of P’ing.”
Furious, the Prince refused to agree to this, and had their fellow-villagers bury them, with their tombs facing each other but well away from each other.
“You two, husband and wife, loved each other unendingly,” proclaimed the Prince, “So make your tombs join by your love, and I’ll not keep you apart!”
In less than a day, a great catalpa-tree had grown at the inner end of each of the two tombs. And in ten days the trees were so big in girth that one could only just get one’s arms around each. They bent their trunks over to one another, and their roots entwined below and their branches intermingled above. And what’s more, a pair of mandarin ducks, one duck and one drake, made their constant perch up in the trees, never leaving, day or night. The people of Sung felt for them, and named the trees the Love Trees.”
1257mien-mien 綿綿, to be endlessly long, to wind on and on, to extend very far. A term found in Songs classic (Shih-ching).
1258Translated from Wang Hua 王 華, Sung-jen ch’uang-tso hsiao-sho hsȕan 宋人創作小說選, Hong Kong: Hsin-yȕeh Ch’u-pan-she 新月出 版 社, 1960, pp. 53 - 67.
1259ling-kuan 伶官.
1260tsa-hsi 雜戲.
1261Chang Yu 張佑 (circa T’ang dynasty).
1262Chinese “ten”.
1263a-man, the first person personal pronoun mostly used by the emperor when in the forbidden precincts of the palace
1264That some such poems were composed by Li is supported by the official histories.
1265The “spring breezes” means the breezes, and hence the season and moods, of Love. The mention of heavy dew seems perhaps to be likening Empress Yang to a richly fragrant flower?
1266The legendary abode of the Royal Mother of the West, it being a mountain covered in jewels or precious stones. In early times the Royal Mother seems to have been a folk deity, human in form but with tiger’s teeth, leopard’s tail, disheveled hair and a crown of jewels, being good at whistling! Later depictions are more conventionally divine! This and the next line merely imply that Empress Yang is as beautiful as an immortal angel or fairy, so that one would normally only expect to encounter her in such immortal abodes.
1267The Terrace of Jade seems to have meant:
a) specifically, the dwelling-place of the Royal Mother of the West,
b) generally, the abode of immortals. The term is probably earliest seen in Ch’u elegies (Ch’u-tz’u), and was also used by Shen Yȕeh (441 - 513), relating it to the moon, in a poem.
1268Scarlet Gorgeousness or GorgeousScarlet was the name of a type of peony, it would seem, although it could he taken as a generalised “red (i.e. splendid, rich) gorgeous beauty”, referring more directly to Empress Yang. The dew is seen as embodying the essence of the flower’s perfume within it.
1269Notes by Kuo P’u (276 - 324) to Mountains and seas classic (Shan-hai ching) of the Chou dynasty and early Han dynasty mention Yao-chi (“Jewelled Beauty”) as being the youngest daughter of the God of Heaven. She became the goddess of Mount Shamaness (Mount Wu), south-east of Wushan county in present-day Szechwan province. High Pond rhapsody (Kao-t’ang fu) attributed to Sung Yü (ca. 290 BC - ca 223 BC) tells how this goddess gave her love to a King of Ch’u, and described herself as being the clouds of morning and the rain of evening, from which “clouds and rain” has become the most common Chinese metaphor for “love-making”, “sex”. This line of Li Pai’s seems to say that with such a beauty as Empress Yang before him, the Emperor has no need to seek elsewhere, as even the beautiful goddess of Mount Wu could not surpass her charms.
1270Flying-swallow, Chao Fei-yen 趙飛燕, was a palace lady who found favour with Emperor Ch’eng-ti (reigned 32 BC - 7 BC) of the Han dynasty. She was famed for her lascivious beauty and influence over the Emperor. Unofficial biography of Flying-swallow attributed to Ling Yȕan fl. ca. AD 1), but probably post-Han and even as late as the Tang or Song dynasties, tells how “Flying-swallow made herself a curly hair-do and called it ‘New Hair-do’; made herself fine eyebrows and called them ‘Distant Mountains Eyebrow-black’; and applied Little Vermilion [to her cheeks] and called it ‘Languor-inducing Make-up’.” The �
�poor” might conceivably be taken in its other possible meaning of “pretty”, which would shift the sense quite appreciably, and the “flaunting” is literally “relying on”, “with”. This line is the one which Yȕeh Shih took as the one quoted by chamberlain-eunuch Kao Li-shih to turn Empress Yang against Li Pai, and indeed at first sight the comparing of her with Flying-swallow, later usually regarded as notorious, seems decidedly odd. It’s questionable, however, whether Flying-swallow’s notoriety was so commonly accepted in T’ang times, and she may only, or principally, have been famed for her beauty. The comparison seems to have been made, as elsewhere in T’ang writings, for the latter reason, and indeed, as with the other insinuations that ingenious critics have read into other parts of these poems, it seems highly unlikely that Li Pai would have been so silly as to use such an occasion to make such dangerously snide aspersions, even allowing for the remnants of his hangover!
1271“State-toppling beauty” is surely a perilous term to have used, even granted that there was no prescience of the outcome of the malignant influence of Empress Yang and her relatives upon the T’ang state, which lead, it was said, directly to the rebellion of An Lu-shan in AD 755 that split the Tang empire asunder; and even granted that the term was a poetic commonplace for describing great beauty in a woman! But perhaps, in the balmy days of trips to Eaglewood Pavilion, the cliché was taken without any glance at its ill-omened etymology. History of the Han by Pan Ku (32 - 92) and his sister Pan Chao (-ca. AD 116) says: “In the North there’s a beautiful lady, outstanding above all in the world. With one glance she can overturn one’s city-walls, and with another glance she can overthrow one’s state,”
1272The yearning is that occasioned by spring, the season of love. Eaglewood is Aquilaria agallocha (also explained as garu-wood or lign aloes), a perfumed wood with which no doubt the pavilion or bower was built or walled. The Bower was where the peonies were planted, and where the Emperor was whiling in the company of Empress Yang and others, the railing being the balustrade of it. During the Ming dynasty, a play was written called Eaglewood Bower by Hsȕeh-shuai Yü-yin, which concerned these poems and the legends around them.
Appendices and Endnotes Page 58
