By noon, the emperor was longing for her so much that he didn’t eat any meal, and his conduct and movements showed that he was losing his temper. Eunuch-chamberlain Kao probed his state of mind, and made a request to be allowed to drive her in a carriage back there again. The emperor sent over a hundred carriages with palace-ladies’ clothes and objects from the court institutes, and rice and yeast wines and delicacies from the Court of the Imperial Granaries.
At first, all her sisters and Yang Hsien had been afraid there’d be a disaster, and were gathered together weeping. As the emperor’s loving gifts, steadily increased, and the imperial delicacies arrived at the same time, they relaxed, comforted somewhat.
When Most-prized-empress Yang had first left, the emperor, in his disgruntled boredom, had rushed around the palace chasing away anyone who crossed his path, and flogging them with a cane, so badly that some died of alarm and fear. So, Eunuch-chamberlain Kao implored him to carry out the summons, and, when night came, An-hsing Ward was opened, and she came into the palace through Grand-flourishing Residence.
When dawn arrived, Emperor Dark-progenitor received her in audience in the inner palace-hall, and was filled with delight. Most-prized-empress Yang made obeisance, weeping, and apologized for her fault. Then he summoned the performers of miscellaneous entertainments1260 from the Two Markets of Ch’ang-an to entertain her. She and her sisters were served food, and musical performances were held.
From then on, the emperor treated her with even deeper love and favour, and none of the other ladies of his seraglio were able to have themselves presented for love-making with him.
In the Seventh Year [i. e. 4th February AD 748 to 22nd of January, AD 749, Yang Hsien was given the extra position of Censor-in-chief, made Probationary Governor of the Capital, and awarded the title of Kuo-chung, “Conscientious Servant of the State”. Most-prized-empress Yang’s eldest sister was enfiefed with the title of Queen of the State of Han, her third eldest sister that of Queen of the State of Kuo, and her eighth eldest sister that of Queen of the State of Ch’in, they all being given their titles on the same day, and all given a hundred thousand pence for their rouge-and-powder expenses.
The Queen of the State of Kuo didn’t use any makeup, neither rouge nor powder, awarding herself the title of “beautiful and gorgeous”, always facing the emperor with unadorned face. Tu Fu 杜甫 [712-770] composed a poem at the time, which went:
The Queen of the State of Kuo received her monarch’s affection,
At dawn rode her horse in through the palace gate;
She rejected rouge and powder, lest it sully her features’ hue,
And with faint-swept eyebrows faced the Most Honoured One in his court.
The emperor also bestowed upon the Queen of the State of Kuo the Night-shining-pearl Seven-leafed Crown of the State of Ch’in, and upon Yang Kuo-chung the Chain Bed-screen, which were rare treasures. Such was his loving indulgence towards them.
Yang Hsien was given the titles of Splendid-blessing Grand-man Minister, Minister of Imperial Entertainments with Silver Seal and Blue Ribbon and Chief Minister of the Court of State Ceremonial, with a cortege vanguard of arrayed cloaked dagger-axes, and exceptionally awarded the title of Supreme Pillar of the State, by three imperial decrees in one day!
Yang Kuo-chung was given five homes in Hsȕan-yang ward, with mighty mansions spacious and wide, unethically imitating and surpassing the palace apartments of the imperial seraglio, and carriages, horses, grooms and retinue, casting splendour on the capital. They each in turn tried to outdo each other in their flaunting extravagance, and each time a hall was built it cost over ten million pence, and if they saw one of which the architecture was more mighty and majestic than their own, they’d demolish their own and rebuild it, the earth and timber work going on ceaselessly night and day. The emperor bestowed gifts of imperial food upon them, and presents to the throne from foreign countries were all distributed as gifts to the five residences. Since the start of Opening-origin reign-period, there had been no comparable unabashed eminence and glorious splendour.
Whenever the emperor went anywhere, it was without fail in the company of Most-prized-empress Yang, and as they were about to mount their horses, it would be Eunuch-chamberlain Kao holding their horses and handing them their whips.
There were seven hundred people in the palace in charge of embroidering and brocade-weaving for Most-prized-empress Yang, and another few hundred carving utensils, in provision for birthday and seasonal festive celebrations. Yang Yi was given a series of orders to go off to South of the Range, at the head of lectors to daily seek out novel and wondrous things as presents for her. The Military Commissioner for South of the Range, Chang Chiu-chang, and the Senior Subaltern of Broad Mound, Wang Yi, on the Tuan-wu festival presented her with precious jewelled-trinket robes, different from those of other provinces. Chang Chiu-chang was given the extra title of Grand-man Minister with Silver Seal and Blue Ribbon, and Wang Yi was promoted to Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue.
In the Second Month of the Ninth Year [i.e. sometime during the day’s 13th March to 19th April AD 750], the emperor, was within a Five Princes Bed-screen that he’d set up a long while earlier, located there together with his brothers, when Most-prized-empress Yang, for no reason, stole the Prince of Ning’s scarlet-jade flute to play. That’s why the poet Chang Yu’s1261張佑 poem says:
Amid the pear-blossoms in the quiet courtyard, there’s nobody else in sight,
And she casually plays the Prince of Ning’s jade flute.
Because of this, she offended the emperor, and was expelled from the court again. At the time, Chi Wen was friendly with the inner court circle of eminent eunuch-mandarins, and Yang Kuo-chung, afraid, besought a plan of action from him. So, Chi Wen went in, and submitted a supplication to the emperor.
“Most-prized-empress Yang,” he said, “is a woman, and has no common sense. She offended your sage countenance, and her crime is such that she must die for it. But since she once received your loving favours, she should only die within the palace: Your Majesty surely won’t begrudge the space of one sitting-mat for her to be executed in, will you! How could you bear to have her humiliated in the outside world!”
“I shall follow your advice,” replied the emperor. “And not pursue the case against EMPRESS YANG.”
Previously, he’d sent the Imperial Commissioner Chang T’ao-kuang to escort Most-prized-empress Yang to her residence, and she’d wept to the Imperial Commissioner.
“Please submit my message to the emperor,” she asked him, “and tell him: ‘I deserve to die ten thousand deaths for my crime. Apart from my clothes and garments, everything I have was bestowed upon me by my sage emperor’s loving kindness, only my hair and skin having been provided for me at birth by my mother and father. I must now immediately die, and have nothing else with which to thank the emperor than this.”
She picked up a knife, cut off a coil of her hair, and put it onto Chang T’ao-kuang for him to present to the emperor.
After Most-prized-empress Yang had left the court, the emperor had felt dejected, and when in addition Chang T’ao-kuang came to address him with her hair draped over his shoulder, he was shocked and remorseful, and hastily sent Eunuch-chamberlain to her to summon her to the palace and bring her back with him, after which he treated her with even more doting favour.
He also increased Yang Kuo-chung’s posts, adding that of Remote Controller Military Commissioner of Chien-nan.
In the Tenth Year, on the fifteenth day of the First Month [i.e. 15th February AD 751], the Lantern Festival, the residents of the Yang clan’s five mansions went out for a trip during the night, and came to dispute the right of way at the western city gate with the Princess of Kuang-ning’s mounted retinue, a slave of the Yang clan’s brandishing his horse-whip, and by accident striking her dress, she falling from her horse. As her prince-consort Ch’eng Ch’ang-yi helped her up, she was then hit several more blows. Weeping, the princess reported thi
s to the throne, and the emperor ordered that the one man, the Yang family’s slave, be executed, and that Ch’eng Ch’ang-yi be suspended from his duties, and not allowed to attend court or visit.
At that, the Yang family grew more flagrantly outrageous, entering and exiting through the gates of the palace’s forbidden precincts without asking permission, and the Subalterns of the capital didn’t dare face them down about it, but averted their gaze. That was why at that time there was a folk-song which had the lines:
If you bear a baby daughter, don’t be sad and sorry,
If you bear a baby son, don’t rejoice or make merry.
And another one said:
If your sons not made a lord, your daughter may be an emperor’s queen,
What a ruler looks for in a woman’s certainly not her family line!
That was how much people throughout the world admired and envied her.
One day, the emperor organized a large scale musical performance in the imperial Government-stimulating Tower. At the time, there was a Madam Wang of the Instruction Ward the imperial entertainments academy, who excelled at carrying a hundred-foot bamboo pole on her head, on the top of which were installed wooden mountains, looking like the Taoist paradise-isles Ying-chou and Fang-chang, with little children holding crimson tallies and made to go in and out of the mountains, dancing non-stop.
At the time, Li Yen had, as a Child Prodigy, been made a Proof-reader of the Department of the Imperial-palace Library, at the age of nine1262 being outstanding in his intelligence and mental astuteness. The emperor summoned him into the Tower, and Most-prized-empress Yang sat the boy on her knee, made his face up with powder and kohl, and gave him a cloth hat and a tally.
Most-prized-empress Yang ordered him to compose a poem aloud on Madam Wang’s carrying the pole on her head, and he straightway responded with:
At the front of the Tower, the Hundred Games acrobats vie in novelty,
But only the long pole is divinely wondrous classed;
Who says the slant-patterned silks and chiffon-silks are fluttered energetically!
I fear rather they’re too light, will instead stick to people fast.
The emperor, Most-prized-empress Yang and the other imperial wives all laughed merrily. Soon, his reputation became known outside the palace, and the emperor commanded that an ivory writing-tablet and a yellow-patterned robe be bestowed upon him.
On another occasion, the emperor gave a feast for the various princes, in Magnolia Palace-hall. At the time, the magnolia blossoms were in bloom, and the emperor was feeling unhappy. Inebriated, Most-prized-empress Yang danced to that same melody Rainbow skirt and feather jacket. The emperor was greatly delighted, at last realizing that “whirling snow and drifting breeze” can whirl Heaven and turn Earth round.
Emperor Dark-progenitor once dreamed of a group of ten or more immortal fairies, each holding a musical instrument in their hand, which they held up and played, their singing to the melody being clear, high and far-carrying, truly a music from the palaces of the immortals.
“This,” one immortal fairy told him, “is the divine immortals’ Scarlet clouds whirling. We’re now passing it on to you, Your Majesty, for it to be your Initial Standard Music.”
The emperor delightedly received knowledge of the music, and when he awoke, the reverberations of it were still with him. He ordered that it be rehearsed on a jade flute, and captured all its rhythms and other features of performance.
And he also obtained Dreaming of the dragon-king’s daughter with it, and further composed his Treading-the-waves melody.
When Emperor Dark-progenitor was in his Eastern Capital, he had a dream about a woman, whose looks were of extraordinarily gorgeous beauty, her hair combed into a joined-hearts chignon, and she wearing a loose-fitting dress with big sleeves. She bowed to him at the side of his bed.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I, your humble maidservant, am the dragon-king’s daughter in Your Majesty’s Wave-treading Pond,” she replied. “I’ve really done some fine deeds in guarding your palace, and, now that you, Your Majesty, are deeply versed in celestial-level music, I beg that I may present you with a melody with which to bring lustre on my clan and kind.”
In his dream, the emperor played the barbarian fiddle for it, and picking up the new and old music of the melody, composed his Treading-the-waves melody. The dragon-king’s daughter bowed twice, and departed. When he woke up, he remembered it all, and, assembling the palace musicians, himself in charge of the p’i-p’a lute, they rehearsed and went over it. In the company of his civil and military ministers, he had the new musical entertainment performed by the edge of the pond in his Treading-the-waves Palace. Waves and billows surged up in the middle of the pond, and then a goddess emerged from the heart of the pond, she being the woman he’d seen in his dream. Overjoyed, the emperor told his prime minister about it, and subsequently a temple was erected on the banks of the pond, and he commanded that sacrificial services to her be held every year in it.
When the two melodies were completed, he bestowed them upon his Conducive-to-spring Academy, the young gentlemen of his Pear Orchard entertainments conservatoire, and the various princes.
Presently, at the beginning of the Hsin-feng, the female entertainer Hsieh Southron was presented to the imperial court, she excelling at dancing. The emperor and Most-prized-empress Yang were most taken by her, accepted her without ado, and installed her in the Pure Origin Small Palace-hall, where the Prince of Ning played his jade flute, the emperor the Chieh drum, Most-prized-empress Yang the p’i-p’a lute, Ma Hsien-ch’i the fang-hsiang xylophone, Li Kui-nien the pi-lo shawm, Chang Yeh-hu the k’ung-hou harp, and He Huai-chih the clappers, from dawn till noon, the merriness and conviviality being quite exceptional.
At the time, only Most-prized-empress Yang’s younger sister, the Queen of the State of Ch’in, was sitting there, sedately upright, watching them.
“I1263,” said the emperor in jest when the melody was over, “am a census-registered musician. Today, by good fortune, I’ve been able to serve your ladyship. I beseech some tip from you!”
“Well, a sister-in-law of the Son of Heaven of the Great T’ang dynasty certainly doesn’t lack money to spend, does she!” replied the Queen of the State of Ch’in. And she proceeded to spend three million pence on fitting out an orchestra. All the musical instruments were such as not possessed by any others in society, and, the moment they were performed on, fresh breezes wafted gently, and the musical notes emerged from beyond Heaven. Most-prized-empress Yang’s p’i-p’a lute was of Lhasa sandalwood, presented to the court by the Eunuch Escort Pai Chi-chen on his return from a mission to the Szechwan region, Shu. Its wood was as warmly smooth as jade, as shiny as a mirror, and it had gold thread and red patterns, clustered together to form a pair of phoenixes. Its strings had been sent in tribute from the country of Mo-he-ni-lo in the year AD 498, being of water-rinsed silkworm silk, as sparkling as stringed pearls rustling. The scarlet-jade flute had been obtained from the goddess of the moon. An Lu-shan had donated three hundred kinds of pipe, all made of mei-wang[?]. The various imperial princes, the Commandery Princesses, and Most-prized-empress Yang’s sisters all took Most-prized-empress Yang as their teacher, becoming her p’i-p’a lute pupils. When each melody had been played through, there was extensive giving of presents.
“You’re poor,” asked Most-prized-empress Yang of Hsieh Southron that day, “and have nothing you can present to your teacher, so let me give you something instead!”
She ordered a maidservant, Hung T’ao-niang, “Maid Red-peach”, to fetch a red-grain-jade arm-bangle, and gave it to Hsieh Southron.
Most-prized-empress Yang was skilled at playing the music of the chimestone and fu-po hide chaff-filled drum, it tinkling out high and clear, being mostly freshly composed music, and none even of the female entertainers of the Grand Constancy Pear Orchard could attain to her skill. The emperor ordered the extraction of some greeny-blue Lan-t’ien
jade, and had it carved it into a chimestone. He had just constructed a wooden instrument-frame, with tassels and such, decorated it with gold inlays, emeralds and pearls, and cast two lions of gold to serve as its heels, and gave it an abundance of gorgeous many-coloured silk and satin adornments, there being none in those times to match it.
Previously, during the Opening-origin reign-period, tree-peonies (mu shao-yao), the same as what we now call mu-tan were planted in the forbidden precincts of the imperial palace. (‘Records of flowers and trees during the Opening-origin and Heaven Treasure reign-periods’ says: In the forbidden precincts of the imperial palace, they call mu-shao-yao mu-tan.”) Several tubers were found that had produced red, purple, pink and pure white flowers, and the Emperor ordered that they be transplanted to the east of Celebration Pond in front of Eaglewood Pavilion.
Presently, when the first, profuse blossoming of the flowers had taken place, the Emperor rode Shining-the-night-white there, his imperial wives coming by foot-carriages in attendance upon him, and commanded a selection of outstanding students of the Pear Orchard to appear, producing experts in sixteen kinds of music. Li Kui-nien, foremost of the age for singing, took a sandalwood clapper in his hand, ushered all the musicians forward, and was about to commence the singing, when the Emperor spoke:
“Since we are now enjoying such splendid flowers and facing the imperial wives,” he said, “surely we can’t use old lyrics!”
So, he at once ordered Kui-nien to take in his hand a Gold-flowered Letter, and convey the imperial command to the Plume-forest Academician Li Pai that he was immediately to submit three lyrics in the Clear and Even Keys.1264
Appendices and Endnotes Page 3