Grief

Bai Juyi's Song of Eternal Suffering (4)

Shadow II by Gao Xingjian. Source: artnet.com. A modern artist and writer who knows all about the look of grief.

The story so far: The emperor (unnamed in the poem, but it’s the Xuanzong Emperor) has taken the beautiful Consort Yang to be his concubine. He is so bewitched by her that he neglects his duties as emperor, and spends his days and nights carousing, in particular watching her dance. The empire is destroyed by an invasion (unspecified, but it’s An Lushan, 756), and the emperor must flee his capital. His troops blame Yang for the catastrophe (she distracted the emperor from his job; also, historically, she installed her cousin as chancellor, though this isn’t mentioned in the poem), and she is executed beside the road.

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The Song of Eternal Suffering (4)
Bai Juyi

The heavens spun,
Soon it was time to return to his dragon throne,
But when he came

To that place, his heart broke, and he could not go on.
In the earth
At the bottom of Mawei Hill, there was no sign

In the filth
Of where her precious face had met
That needless death.

The lord and ministers leant together and let
Their tears stream,
Then looked to the east, to the city gate,

And trailed home,
Trusting the horses to find their own way.
Chang’an was the same:

Taiye Pool where the waterlilies lie,
And Weiyang Palace
With elegant willows row by row—

But each one traced
The curve of her eyebrows, and every lotus flower
Was her face.

Seeing all of this, of course he shed a tear.
In the spring zephyr,
When peach and plum blooms appear,

In an autumn downpour,
When the leaves of the scholar tree cascade,
He missed her.

In Western and Southern Hall, where he stayed,
The weeds sprang up,
And the red leaves, thick and unswept, heaped

On the palace step;
Grey hairs sprouted on the Pear Garden players,
And the makeup

Of the ladies in the pepper-scented chambers
Would fade and crack.
When the fireflies danced around his old quarters,

He didn’t look;
His lonely, sleepless tallow light
Burned out its wick.

The slow watch drums brought only long night,
Until the stars,
As dawn approached, faded from sight.

Fired in pairs,
The tiles on his roof were now frosted over;
Crystal layers

Settled thick. The kingfisher marriage cover
Was cold as ice,
And would not be shared with any lover.

白居易  长恨歌（选段四）
天旋地转回龙驭，到此踌躇不能去。
马嵬坡下泥土中，不见玉颜空死处。
君臣相顾尽沾衣，东望都门信马归。
归来池苑皆依旧，太液芙蓉未央柳。
芙蓉如面柳如眉，对此如何不泪垂？
春风桃李花开日，秋雨梧桐叶落时。
西宫南内多秋草，落叶满阶红不扫。
梨园弟子白发新，椒房阿监青娥老。
夕殿萤飞思悄然，孤灯挑尽未成眠。
迟迟钟鼓初长夜，耿耿星河欲曙天。
鸳鸯瓦冷霜华重，翡翠衾寒谁与共？

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This section is the beating heart of the poem. Bai Juyi may have been writing about events on the most cataclysmic scale, but his interest is firmly on the personal. What does the world look like when your joy has gone? He explicitly tells us that Chang’an hadn’t changed, and yet everything has changed. Things which used to have their own beauty now weirdly echo her. And everything takes on a cold rime, from the rooftiles to the greying orchestra players.

Notes:

Mawei Hill: The site of Yang Yuhuan’s execution.

Pear Garden players: A conservatory founded by Xuanzong to train the players who would accompany his harem singers.

Pepper-scented chambers: The walls of the women’s quarters were decorated with a plaster that had peppercorns mixed in, so that the chambers had a permanent exotic aroma.

The tiles on his roof: Roof tiles were placed in the kiln in pairs, so they became a symbol of romantic love.