Kenji: Thoughts of Yang Kuei Fei

A fisherman’s boat drifts along the Wei river,
the snow softly falls on the mulberry tree.
The pools of Huaqing are filled with dead leaves now,
the wild geese have flown to the lands of lychee.

The buds of the willow glisten with silver,
the storm clouds have cleared from the peak of Mount Li.
The courtyard retains a faint scent of lotus
and the waters of Shu still flow to the sea.

~~

Yang Kuei Fei was known as one of the Four Beauties of ancient China. She was the beloved consort of the 8th century Tang dynasty Emperor Xuanzong during his later years.

During the An Lushan Rebellion, as Emperor Xuanzong and his cortege were fleeing from the capital Chang'an to Chengdu, the emperor's guards demanded that he put Yang to death because they blamed the rebellion on her cousin Yang Guozhong and the rest of her family. The emperor capitulated and reluctantly ordered his attendant Gao Lishi to strangle Yang to death.

She was the subject of a film by the great Japanese director Mizoguchi, and of a famous poem The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by the Tang dynasty poet Po Chu-I.