A dancer on a dancer

A powerful consort comments on another dancer

For the Dancer Zhang Yunrong

Yang Yuhuan

When she dances

—— Her sleeves pulse with perfume

—— ——that doesn't fade

When she dances

—— She is pearly pink lotus

—— —— in autumn mist

When she dances

—— She is the breath of hilltop cirrus

—— ——fanning us

—— The weeping willow's first caress

—— —— on still water

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Yang Yuhuan (719-756) was the concubine with whom the Emperor Xuanzong fell in love as an old man. What we know of her is mainly the grotesque story of how Xuanzong took her from his own son, and at the end of his life, had her executed to save his own skin. Her own voice is almost absent from the historical recored, but she must have been an extraordinary individual, so it is fascinating to think that these might have been her own words.

In this poem, she comments on another dancer in Xuanzong’s harem. Lines two (“pink lotus”) and four (“first caress”) look like sexual references, presumably just euphemistic enough to be considered suitable for the official palace records. The cloud metaphor in line three may have been inspired by Zhang’s name, which means “cloud appearance” (though it may not have been her birth name; women’s original names from this time are often unrecorded).

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杨玉环  赠张云容舞

罗袖动香香不已，红蕖袅袅秋烟里。

轻云岭上乍摇风，嫩柳池边初拂水。