鱼玄机诗
Poems of Yu Xuanji
Index
送别
Farewell
|
秦楼几夜惬心期 不料仙郎有别离 睡觉莫言云去处 残灯一盏野蛾飞 |
At that dark table in Qin Tower, I had a happy time. Surprising, that even immortal men take their leave. Go to sleep. Don't think about where the clouds will go. Around this small broken lamp, my wild moth flies. |
-- 鱼玄机
废话
Qin (秦) was a section of Chang'an. Qin2lou2 (秦楼) is short for 秦楼楚馆 or "pleasure district." But it could be just a proper name. Lou2 (楼) is just "tower" and often "inn." Yu Xuanji went out for the evening. Probably to somewhere nice. And she had a goodbye dinner with an immortal (仙) which means he was probably a Daoist. Lang2 (郎) can mean either "an official" or a "young man." She said goodbye to her 仙郎, went to bed, told herself not to think about him, and watched a moth circle her lamp.
We often try to make history a simple story. But life is simple for no one. Yu Xuanji loved her ex-husband all her short life as shown by her poems to him. She probably admired and liked Wen Tingyun. Maybe she adored him. And she was probably attracted to intelligent men, inside and outside of the Daoist cloister. Also, she wrote wonderful poetry. Travelled once to Hubei. Fished a lot. Then she died young. I hope she had a normal amount of human intimacy and its joy before she was done.