Bring in more wine! Wench!

Yuan Zhen's take on the same theme as Li Bai is... horrifying

Bring In the Wine
Yuan Zhen

“Bring in the wine! Bring in the wine!”
The wine is poisoned, the Master may die!
But if I tell the Master why,
He’s sure to make my Mistress cry.
The Master is my heaven,
The Mistress is my earth,
When caught between them, I’ll not speak,
It’s more than my life’s worth!
I fling myself down, and the wine,
I play dead at the Master’s feet.
Of course, the Master doesn’t know why,
And whips me till I bleed.
His friends can see what’s going on
And whisper in his ear,
His maid saved him from poisoning!
Now he bathes my wounds with tears.
The Mistress is demoted,
And dragged out of the hall,
This maid is given the seat of honour,
Mistress over all.
“Bring in the wine!”
This wine contains no poison,
It grants longevity,
But Master, think of Mistress,
She deserves your company,
Allow your maid to serve you
In a way that befits me.
If anyone discovers
What has happened here,
The shame of facing others
Is more than I could bear.
If a lowly maid becomes a dame,
Raised too high by her warder,
Then every wretch will grasp for the same,
And upset the natural order.

元稹  将进酒
将进酒，将进酒，酒中有毒鸩主父，言之主父伤主母。
母为妾地父妾天，仰天俯地不忍言。
佯为僵踣主父前，主父不知加妾鞭。
旁人知妾为主说，主将泪洗鞭头血。
推摧主母牵下堂，扶妾遣升堂上床。
将进酒，酒中无毒令主寿，愿主回思归主母，遣妾如此事主父。
妾为此事人偶知，自惭不密方自悲。
主今颠倒安置妾，贪天僭地谁不为。

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In this remarkably unpleasant drinking ballad, Yuan Zhen (779-831) imagines a servant girl caught in the middle of a murderous plot. She willingly accepts a beating rather than betray her mistress, then rejects promotion to the position of chief consort because she fears it is above her station.

My understanding of this poem is that it is a comic farce. To enjoy the jokes, we need to enter into a mindset that believes: beating servants is fine; servants and nobles each know their place in society, and desire to stay in their place; being poisoned by your wife is an occupational hazard for a wealthy man, to be laughed off rather than worried about; the only reason a servant might not want to become a concubine is that it’s just too exalted a position. If you can wrap your mind around all that, then it’s a raucous barrel of laughs!