87. A Ballad for the Beauties

A poem by Du Fu, translated by Hyun Woo Kim

On the third of March, the weather is new—

At the waterside of Changan, there are many beauties:

Their figures are sultry, their thoughts far away, clear, and honest,

Their skin soft and waxy, their bones and flesh well-proportioned.

Embroidered silk tops and dresses shine amidst the fading spring:

Golden peacock embroideries and silver qilins.

What is on the top of their heads?

A leaf of jade accessory, dangling at the end of the hair by their ears.

What do we see on their back?

Belts with hanging pearls fit their bodies comfortably.

Meanwhile, the empress’ relatives are in the middle of cloud-like curtains,

Who were granted the names of big countries, Guo and Qin.

Camels’ humps come out of jade cauldrons;

White fish are brought on crystal plates.

Ivory chopsticks, full and fed up, do not come down for long;

Knives decorated with luan birds are busy julienning them, needlessly.

The eunuchs’ flying horse bits do not raise dust;

The royal kitchen sends the Eight Delicacies, endlessly.

Flutes and drums sing sadly, moving the ghosts;

Guests and their secretaries mingle—they truly have key posts.

A latecomer on a saddled horse—how come he hesitates and roams around?

Having reached a chariot, he dismounts and gets on the chariot’s silk cushion.

Willow flowers fall like snow and cover duckweed white;

A blue bird flies away with a red washcloth in its bill.

Their authority is matchless, hot enough to burn one’s hand!

Dare not approach it, lest the prime minister be angered.

「麗人行」

三月三日天氣新

長安水邊多麗人

態濃意遠淑且眞

肌理細膩骨肉勻

繡羅衣裳照暮春

蹙金孔雀銀麒麟

頭上何所有

翠爲㔩葉垂鬢脣

背後何所見

珠壓腰衱穩稱身

就中雲幕椒房親

賜名大國虢與秦

紫駝之峰出翠釜

水精之盤行素鱗

犀筯饜飫久未下

鸞刀縷切空紛綸

黃門飛鞚不動塵

御廚絡繹送八珍

簫鼓哀吟感鬼神

賓從雜遝實要津

後來鞍馬何逡巡

當軒下馬入錦茵

楊花雪落覆白蘋

靑鳥飛去銜紅巾

炙手可熱勢絶倫

愼莫近前丞相嗔

From Hyun Woo:

There is something very prophetic and deeply unsettling in today’s poem. The poem above, written in the year 753, depicts a grand banquet held on a beautiful spring day. The empress mentioned in it is none other than Yang Yuhan, the legendary beauty of Chinese history. (If you want to read more about her story, here is a poem by Bai Juyi.) Only two years later, the Yang family’s abuse of their power will end with the An Lushan Rebellion, a civil war that tore apart the Tang Empire, and many, if not most, at the banquet will be killed in it.

Nevertheless, the rebellion has not begun yet. Those at the banquet are already so full that their “ivory chopsticks […] do not come down for long”, but the food keeps coming from the royal kitchen. The eunuchs, who bring it to the waterside, even manage to do so without raising dust while riding on horses. There are beauties with jade hair accessories, belts with pearls, and embroidered silk dresses. Guests with “key posts” mingle. Everything is beautiful, and even the people there are beautiful.

There is no way Du Fu could have known in advance with certainty that a civil war was coming. Did he already sense that everything was going to fall, though? The spring is “fading”. To his ear, the “flutes and drums sing sadly”. “A latecomer […] hesitates and roams around”. Then, he sees the “willow flowers fall like snow and cover duckweed white”. The falling flowers, though beautiful, carry the sense of inevitable mutability and transience. It is a party at Gatsby’s, and the Jazz Age will crash.

On top of Fitzgerald, I am also thinking about Vyacheslav Ivanov, a Russian Silver Age poet. At his 7th-floor apartment in St. Petersburg, a somewhat hedonistic weekly salon was held, where all sorts of writers, artists, thinkers, and celebrities gathered, including but not limited to: Aleksandr Blok, Anna Akhmatova, Maria Skobtsova, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Konstantin Somov, and Nikolai Berdyayev. They were talking about anarchism, mysticism, Wagner, Rome, French literature, Ancient Greece, Nietzsche, Christianity, l’art pour l’art, and so on, while overlooking the Tauride Palace and having supper at 2 AM. Then, the Revolution came, and the world they had known burned down. Still, it was a beautiful salon, until there was no more.

If you enjoyed my work, you can buy me a cup of tea. I am not a coffee person, by the way.