Poetry as makeup

An aspiring poet adopts a female persona to win over his readers

To Zhang Ji of the Water Ministry, Before the Examinations
Zhu Qingyu

they put out the candles
and waited
in the bridal chamber
for the formal presentation
at dawn
to his parents

she finished her makeup
and asked
of her new husband
if her eyebrow mascara
was right
for the season

---

This poem by Zhang Qingyu (fl. 830) is a (mostly) lovely metaphor. The newly-wed wife is a trope for any person in a suppliant position, and as this poem was sent by an aspiring candidate to an official already in place in the Water Ministry, we can see how the metaphor applies: Zhang Qingyu is the wife, anxious before her big moment. Zhang Ji is the husband; the presentation to the parents is the examination; and the makeup is this very poem. This is a nice setup in itself, but it also creates an additional condition: for the mascara/poem to gain approval, this poem actually has to be good (or at least fashionable for the season). It needs to present a genuinely affecting moment that touches the reader on an emotional level, so that the reader will be moved to say, yes, this poem is beautiful, and I will put in a word with the examiner for you. (We don’t know what Zhang Ji might have been able to do for Zhang Qingyu, but we have to assume that it was some help with his career.)

The need for this poem to be genuinely affecting pushed me to make a little change in tone. When we hear a husband asked about the fashionability of makeup, we perhaps picture a mildly comical confusion on his face. His uncertainty brings him, in my/our imagination, onto a level with his bride, and they sit there nervously together.

But in the source poem, there is no such equality between male and female. The nervousness is entirely hers. She asks whether her makeup is right, because she genuinely doesn’t know. She has rarely been outside her father’s house, and at 14 has been married off to a man; the meeting with her mother-in-law could determine how well the rest of her life will go. And he would not in fact be ignorant of makeup styles: as a patron of the courtesans in the capital, he is the right person to judge the quality of makeup, because he has seen the latest fashions, and this makeup exists only to please men.

If that grim reality leaked into the poem, I feel that it might become horrifying rather than moving. I suppressed the reality in order to allow the poem to continue to function as it wants to. I hope that modern readers will enjoy the tender moment presented in this modernised way, and find it in themselves to say to Zhang Qingyu, yes, your mascara poem is beautiful; you will surely succeed. Zhang Ji did: he liked the poem, and helped Qingyu on to a bright future.

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朱庆馀  近试上张籍水部

洞房昨夜停红烛，待晓堂前拜舅姑。

妆罢低声问夫婿，画眉深浅入时无