Li Shangyin loves willowy trees...
...and willowy women
For the Willows Li Shangyin Your shade is everywhere Down Zhanghua Palace way, And in old Ying, An undulating skyline on every street. I heard tell of your style, Your fashion, your chic, And now I’m here, You are everything I was led to believe. Coming back over the bridge, It's as if my way is blocked. Where you range along the riverbanks, I just want to follow... How profligately your flowers are spread, White as snow, And here is a house of pleasure, With its boozy pennant.
Willows represent feminine beauty, and particularly the beauty of escorts. Li Shangyin lards this poem with double-entendres. Zhanghua Palace was an ancient southern palace, but it was also the name of the road south out of Chang’an, where many of Chang’an’s brothels were located. Ying was the name of an ancient southern city, but here stands for any southern city – they all had a reputation for loucheness, perhaps because men from the capital often went there to work, without their families.
The unusual words that Li uses for the beauty of the willows (style, fashion, chic) reinforce the personification. When he crosses the bridge into the red light district, he is both brought up short by the curtain of weeping willow branches and waylaid by escorts propositioning him; looking along the street, the beauty of the long row of willow-women makes him want to follow them.
This double reading of the poem explains the last line, which seems like an obscene intrusion into a beautiful description of trees – until you realise that Li was never talking about trees.
李商隐 赠柳
章台从掩映，郢路更参差。
见说风流极，来当婀娜时。
桥回行欲断，堤远意相随。
忍放花如雪，青楼扑酒旗。