鱼玄机诗
Poems of Yu Xuanji
Index
和人次韵
Answer-Poem for a Friend
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喧喧朱紫杂人寰 独自清吟日色间 何事玉郎搜藻思 忽将琼韵扣柴关 |
Noisy, noisy, purple, red, mixed-up human world. All alone, I chant this poem out in bright sunshine. What matter if precious poets all chase precious verse? Suddenly a perfect rhyme will knock on your front door. |
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白花发咏惭称谢 僻巷深居谬学颜 不用多情欲相见 松萝高处是前山 |
White flowers burst into song, ashamed to give their thanks. Narrow alleys, rustic huts, are no place to study fame. Don't use too much emotion if you want to share your sight. Pine lichen grows highest when it grows on mountain trees. |
-- 鱼玄机
废话
No idea when Yu Xuanji wrote this. But if it is true that all her "friend" poems are to the same friend, then she is writing her childhood friend who is an imperial prince. She is answering his challenge poem and, turning it on him, uses it to teach him how to write better poetry.
Note that emperors had lots of princes. An emperor who kept himself to the "normal" eighty-one consorts, nine concubines, and an empress ended up with plenty of offspring. Boys became princes and girls passed into obscurity (unless they were married famously.) Emperor Xuanzong wasn't satisfied with sowing his wild seed in only ninety-one fields. His Six Palaces of courtesans hit around three thousand inhabitants before he found a woman he could stick with. That man had a lot of offspring. He was eventually forced to step down and watch his lover being strangled. There's a moral in there somewhere. Something about moderation...