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長恨歌(唐)白居易
漢皇重色思傾國,御宇多年求不得。楊家有女初長成,養在深閨人未識。
天生麗質難自棄,一朝選在君王側。回眸一笑百媚生,六宮粉黛無顏色。
春寒賜浴華清池,溫泉水滑洗凝脂。侍兒扶起嬌無力,始是新承恩澤時。
雲鬢花顏金步搖,芙蓉帳暖度春宵。春宵苦短日高起,從此君王不早朝。
承歡侍宴無閑暇,春從春遊夜專夜。後宮佳麗三千人,三千寵愛在一身。
金屋妝成嬌侍夜,玉樓宴罷醉和春。姊妹弟兄皆列土,可憐光彩生門戶。
遂令天下父母心,不重生男重生女。驪宮高處入青云,仙樂風飄處處聞。
緩歌謾舞凝絲竹,盡日君王看不足。漁陽鼙鼓動地來,驚破霓裳羽衣曲。
九重城闕煙塵生,千乘万騎西南行。翠華搖搖行復止,西出都門百餘里。
六軍不發無奈何,宛轉蛾眉馬前死。花鈿委地無人收,翠翅金雀玉搔頭。
君王掩面救不得,回看血淚相和流。黃埃散漫風蕭索,雲棧縈紆登劍閣。
峨嵋山下少人行,旌旗無光日色薄。蜀江水碧蜀山青,聖主朝朝暮暮情。
行宮見月傷心色,夜雨聞鈴斷腸聲。天旋地轉回龍馭,至此躊躇不能去。
馬嵬坡下泥土中,不見玉顏空死處。君臣相顧盡沾衣,東望都門信馬歸。
歸來池苑皆依舊,太液芙蓉未央柳。芙蓉如面柳如眉,對此如何不淚垂。
春風桃李花開日,秋雨梧桐葉落時。西宮南內多秋草,落葉滿階紅不掃。
梨園弟子白發新,椒房阿監青娥老。夕殿螢飛思悄然,孤燈挑盡未成眠。
遲遲鐘鼓初長夜,耿耿星河欲曙天。鴛鴦瓦冷霜華重,翡翠衾寒誰与共。
悠悠生死別經年,魂魄不曾來入夢。臨邛道士鴻都客,能以精誠致魂魄。
為感君王輾轉思,遂教方士殷勤覓。排空馭气奔如電,升天入地求之遍。
上窮碧落下黃泉,兩處茫茫皆不見。忽聞海上有仙山,山在虛無縹緲間。
樓閣玲瓏五雲起,其中綽約多仙子。中有一人字太真,雪膚花貌參差是。
金闕西廂叩玉扃,轉教小玉報雙成。聞道漢家天子使,九華帳里夢魂惊。
攬衣推枕起徘徊,珠箔銀屏迤邐開。云髻半偏新睡覺,花冠不整下堂來。
風吹仙袂飄飄舉,猶似霓裳羽衣舞。玉容寂寞淚闌干,梨花一枝春帶雨。
含情凝睇謝君王,一別音容兩渺茫。昭陽殿里恩愛絕,蓬萊宮中日月長。
回頭下望人寰處,不見長安見塵霧。唯將舊物表深情,鈿盒金釵寄將去。
釵留一股盒一扇,釵擘黃金合分鈿。但教心似金鈿堅,天上人間會相見。
臨別殷勤重寄詞,詞中有誓兩心知。七月七日長生殿,夜半無人私語時。
在天愿作比翼鳥,在地愿為連理枝。天長地久有時盡,此恨綿綿無絕期。
Song of Everlasting Regret
by Bai Juyi of Tang Dynasty
The emperor of Han preferred women of great beauty,
He sought them out for years but in vain.
A girl in the Yang family just grew up,
Not known to anyone, being raised in deep boudoir.
Born too beautiful to give herself away easily,
She was eventually chosen at the side of the emperor.
One glance back from her beams one hundred kinds of charm,
And the beauty of all the ladies in the six palaces1 was shadowed.
In still cold spring she was granted a bath in the pool of Huaqing2,
Her smooth skin bathed in the warm spring water.
So delicate, she was helped up by her maids,
That’s the first time she enjoyed the love of the emperor.
Cloud-like hair, flower-like face, golden dangling ornament,
Spring3 nights all spent under the warm lotus canopy.
The night was too short and the sun rose high,
The emperor neglected his morning levee ever since.
Pleasing and waiting on the emperor at feast, she got no moment to spare,
Outing in spring every day, sleeping with the emperor every night.
The emperor had three thousand fairs in the harem,
But his love of the three thousands centered on one.
In the golden boudoir she made herself up for the evening,
After a feast in the jade pavilion she’s drunk in spring3 action.
Her brothers and sisters all got fiefs,
Her family was admirably endowed with Imperial glory.
This made all the parents under the heaven
Desirous of having girls instead of boys.
The palace on the Li Mountain towering high into the clouds,
The fairy music carried by the wind, heard everywhere.
Charming songs, graceful dances with string and bamboo instruments,
The emperor could not enjoy enough all day long.
The war drums came from Yuyang4, shaking the ground,
Breaking the Melody of Rainbow Dress and Feather Garments5.
Smokes and dusts rose from nine gates6 of the capital,
Thousands of coaches and horses marching southwest.
With emerald coach canopies swaying, they moved, then stopped.
Only a hundred miles west outside the capital.
As the troops refused to advance, the emperor could do nothing,
And the sobbing beauty died in front of his horse.
Pearl-inlaid headdress fell on the ground, but none cared to pick it,
Also hair ornaments of emerald and gold in bird shape, and jade hairpins.
The emperor couldn’t save her, only covering his face,
When looking back, there flew tears and blood.
Yellow dusts floated up in the air, the wind soughing,
They scaled to Sword Pavilion7 on zigzag wooden board way up into clouds.
At the foot of E-Mei Mountains8 travelers are seldom seen,
While the banners lose brightness and the sun looks pale.
The river of Shu9 is green and the mountains of Shu9 are blue,
The mood of the emperor morning and evening imaginable.
In the temporary palace as the emperor watches the moon, its light seems grievous.
In the night rain the sound of bells is heart-rending.
Like heaven and earth whirling, the dragon coach10 returning,
But at that moment, he hesitated to leave there.
In the earth at the foot of Mawei Mound11
There’s no body of the buried beauty seen.
Emperor and courtiers look at each other, their clothes wet with tears;
Their horses canter eastward to the gate of the capital.
When returning, the pond and gardens are still the same,
Also the peonies in Taiye Pond and willows in Weiyang Palace.
Her face like the peonies and her eyebrows like willow leaves,
Confronting these, how can the tears not be trickling?
Also on the day when the blooms of peach and plum blow in spring,
And at the time when the leaves of Chinese parasol fall in autumnal rains.
There’s a lot of autumnal grass in western and southern palaces,
And the ruddy fallen leaves all over the steps no one swept.
The performers of the imperial troupe have new white hair growing.
The eunuchs and maids in her former chamber become old.
As fireflies dart in the evening hall, the thought of her steals in,
When the wicker in the single lamp burns up, sleeplessness lasts.
The night grows long and the morning bell and drum sounds late,
The day is breaking and the Milky Way still seen across the sky.
The dews dense on the cold tiles of mandarin ducks,
The emerald quilts also cold since no one to sleep in together.
During the lasting separation of life and death experience for years,
Her ghost has never come into the dream of the survivor.
The Taoist from Linqiong12 was the visitor to Hongdu12,
Who can summon the ghost with his spirit of earnestness.
Touched by the whole-hearted thinking of the emperor
The Taoist sets his heart on searching her ghost far and wide.
He rides on the air into the other space as swift as lightning,
Exploring everywhere in Heavens and in the other world.
He seeks in paradise and he seeks in Hades,
And her ghost is not there in either place.
All at once he hears of the fairy mountains on the sea;
The mountains are situated in the vast void.
The magnificent pavilions rise among five-colored clouds,
In which there are a lot of elegant goddesses.
One of them is called Taizhen13,
With snow-white skin and flower-beautiful face as she has.
He knocks at the jade door of the west chamber in the golden pavilion,
Asking Xiaoyu14, the maid, to tell Shuangcheng14, another maid,
When hearing the arrival of the messenger of the Han emperor,
Her ghost startled from the dream in splendid canopy.
Lifting her dress, pushing away her pillow, she loiters forth,
The silver screen with pearly foils opens gradually.
With her piled-up hair tilting aside, just awake from the sleep,
She walks into the hall in disheveled wreath crown.
Her fairy dress flutters up in the wind,
Like in a dance of rainbow-colored feather-adorned garment.
Her pretty face reflects solitude with tears trickling,
Like a pear blossom in the spring rains.
She thanks the emperor with a gaze full of feelings,
His voice and visage is so far away after parting.
Thus ended the love expressed in Zhaoyang Hall;
But here in Penglai Palace the time is eternal.
When looking down back to the human world,
Can’t see ChangAn, the capital, but mists and dusts.
To show her deep feelings she can only produce the old stuff,
And wants to send the gold hairpin and decorated box,
She keeps half of the pin and box for herself.
That is: half of the pin gold, half of the box decoration.
If only our hearts so sincere as gold and box so sturdy,
We’ll meet either in heavens or in the world.
When parting, she sends words by the Taoist,
There’s a vow in the words they both know.
That’s on seventh day of seventh moon in Longevity Hall,
They vowed to each other at midnight when none were near:
They wished to be birds flying side by side in the sky,
They wished to be two bough-interlaced trees on earth.
Heaven and earth, though everlasting, may have an end,
The parting regret of theirs lasts without an end.
[1] Six palaces denoted the living quarters of the emperor’s women collectively.
[2] Huaqing is the name of a place where there is a bathing pool for the imperial family.
[3] The Chinese character spring can imply sex.
[4] Yuyang is the name of a place, where a rebellion happened.
[5] The Melody of Rainbow Dress and Feather Garments meant the dance with music performed by Concubine Yang. The emperor liked it very much. When the rebellious army came, he could not watch the dance any more.
[6] Nine gates meant that the capital city had many gates and also could mean that there were gates after gates to the palace.
[7] Sword Pavilion is the name of a place in the present Sichuan Province.
[8] E-Mei Mountains are in the Sichuan Province, on which there are many temples.
[9] Shu is the nickname of Sichuan Province.
[10] Dragon coach was a coach used only by the emperor. Dragon in China was the imperial emblem.
[11] Mawei Mound was the name of a place where the concubine Yang was forced to die and buried there.
[12] Linqiong was the name of a place and Hongdu denoted the capital.
[13] Taizhen was the another name of Concubine Yang.
[14]小玉,吴王夫差的女儿;双成,董双成,西王母的女儿。二人都是借指杨贵妃在仙境的侍女。Xiaoyu was the daughter of King Fucha of Wu Kingdom in the East Zhou Dynasty. Shuangcheng was the daughter of Queen Goddess in Chinese mythology. Both were used here to denote the maids of Concubine Yang in the fairyland. |
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