from Vol. #6, Fall 2015
translated by Yang Jing

At a Country Palace
from the Chinese of Yuan Zhen

Deserted are the old imperial bowers,
Save by lonely red palace flowers.
Some white-haired dames at leisure,
Chat about Xuan Zong, the late emperor.

行宫
元稹

寥落古行宫，
宫花寂寞红。
白头宫女在，
闲坐说玄宗。

Translator's note: "At a Country Palace" is a poem intended to mourn for the bygones of the splendid Tang Dynasty, one of the most powerful empires in ancient Chinese history, with a hint that the Emperor Xuan Zong (685-762), at the historical turning point, should be held responsible for the uprisings within and the invasions without which led to the collapse of the empire. However, Zhen, as a poet, cannot criticize the emperor explicitly but to turn to the poem as a political allegory. So in my translation, I choose "deserted" instead of "forlorn", and use "chat" instead of "talk," which strikes me as too formal and grave.

Some translators—like Herbert A. Giles—elect to put the white- or silver-haired maid in singular form. I consider this a misunderstanding of the original meaning, so I decided to render them in the plural. After all, if there was only one chambermaid, with whom shall she chatter?

About the author: Yuan Zhen ( 779-831) was a politician and writer of the middle of Tang Dynasty (618-907). He was considered one of the "New Yuefu" poets, who used poetry as a form of expression and subtle protest, but one potentially subtle enough to avoid the likely repercussions of more direct criticism. In 813, Zhen wrote a grave inscription for the poet Du Fu, which contains some of the earliest known praise for his predecessor's works.

About the translator: Yang Jing is Associate Professor in the Department of English at Nanjing Normal University, China.

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