Appendices and Endnotes

by William Dolby

  (ii) Emperor Perfection (Ch’eng-ti 成帝, reigned 86 BC - 74 BC) once sported by the pond with Chao Flying-swallow (Chao Fei-yen 趙飛燕). A note to Pan Ku’s 班固 (32 - 92) Han history (Han-shu 漢書, “Chao-ti chi”) says: “Ju Ch’un 如淳 [Three Kingdoms period] says: ‘It was called Liquid because it was made from the vital breath-energy of the mixed liquids of Heaven and Earth.’ Yen Shih-ku 彥師古 (581 - 645) says: ‘The Grand Liquid refers to the vastness of where its beneficial moisture reaches.’”

  (iii) During the T’ang dynasty there was a Grand-liquid Pond behind the Cool-embodying Palace-hall (Han-liang-tien 含凉殿) of Great-shining Palace (Ta-ming-kung 大明宮). In it, there was a Grand-liquid Pavilion (Ta-yeh-t’ing 大液亭). A poem by Yȕan Chen 元稹 (779 - 831) has the lines: “In the depth of the bud-pearls, of where few were aware, nets and ropes west overlooked. Grand Liquid Pond.”

  (iv) During the Ch’ing dynasty, there was a Grand-liquid Pond in Western Imperial Park (Hsi-yȕan 西苑) of Peking. In the Yȕan dynasty, it had been called Western-florescence Deep-pool (Hsi-hua-t’an 西華 渊), being formed by a gathering of water from Jade Spring (Yü-ch’uan 玉泉). It was over-arched by Gold-leviathan Jade-rainbow Bridge (Chin-ao Yü-tung Chi’ao 金鰲玉蝀橋). In the middle of the Pond there was a Ying-paradise Terrace (Ying-t’ai 瀛臺). North of the bridge was called the North Sea (Pei-hai 北海), south of the bridge was called the Middle Sea (Chung-hai 中海), and south of Ying-paradise Terrace was called the South Sea (Nan-hai 南海). Emperor High Progenitor (Kao-tsung 高宗, reigned 1736 - 1795) wrote an inscription for the Pond: “Grand Liquid’s Autumn Breeze” (T’ai-yeh Ch’iu-feng 太液秋風), and the Pond was included as one of the Eight Scenes of Yen-ching (Yen-ching Pa-ching 燕京八景).

  1207Wei-yang 未央, i.e. Wei-yang-kung 未央宮, Unfinished imperial-palace, name of a famous sumptuous palace built by Hsiao He 蕭何 (?BC - 193 BC), in the old city of Ch’ang-an 長安, north-west of present-day Ch’ang-an county in Shensi province, for the first emperor of the Han dynasty. Pan Ku 班固 (32 - 92), Han history (Han-shu 漢書), “Kao-ti chi”, says: “Hsiao He built Unfinished Palace, and when the emperor saw how magnificent it was, he was extremely angry. ‘You, Son of Heaven,’ said Hsiao He, ‘make all within the world’s Four Seas your family, and without magnificence you have no means of emphasising your awesome prestige, and moreover you wouldn’t have anything to let future ages try to improve upon.’” Again a Han palace is referred to instead of a T’ang one.

  1208wu-t’ung 梧桐, the Chinese parasol-tree (Firmiana platanifolia).

  1209Hsi-kung 西宮, Western Palace, also called Hsi-nei 西內, West Inside, i.e. T’ai-chi-kung 太極宮, Great-ultimate Palace, located in the old-palace city north of present-day Ch’ang-an county in Shensi province. The Sui dynasty built a Great-prospering Palace (Ta-hsing-kung 大興宮), which the T’ang dynasty called Great-ultimate Palace and West Inside. They called its main palace-hall Great-ultimate Palace-hall (T’ai-chi-tien 太極殿). Ch’eng Ta-ch’ang 程大昌 (1123 - 1195), Record of Yung (Yung-lu 雍錄), says: “Most of the T’ang dynasty emperors live in Great-shining Palace (Ta-ming-kung 大明宮), but when there chanced to occur great rituals or important government measures, they would return to reside in Great Ultimate, from which we can tell that Great Ultimate was more honoured than Great Shining.”

  1210Nan-nei 南內, Southern Inside/Interior, name of a palace, south-east of present-day Hsien-ning county in Shensi province. It’s the same as the Thriving-celebration Palace (Hsing-ch’ing-kung 興慶宮), and was called Southern Interior because it was south of Erigeron-chenopodium Palace (P’eng-lai-kung 蓬萊宮, also known as Great-shining Palace), known as Eastern Interior. To start with, it was just a residence of Emperor Dark-progenitor before he’d acceded to the throne, but on becoming emperor he promoted it to the status of an imperial palace. Ch’eng Ta-ch’ang 程大昌 (1123 - 1195) says: “Thriving-celebration Palace was in the south-east corner of the capital city, and it was from there that the monarch conducted his government, which is why it’s also called Southern Interior.” He judges that, because of its relative inaccessibility to Great-shining Palace, it should really have just been considered a tour-palace.

  In the seventh lunar month in AD 756, i.e. sometime during the days 1 August to 29 August AD 756, the month after Dark-progenitor had fled for Szechwan, his crown-prince set himself up as emperor, the Emperor Solemn-progenitor, and “honoured” Dark-progenitor with the grand-sounding retirement title of Sublime August-emperor. The latter got back to Ch’ang-an sometime during the days 14th January to 12th February AD 758. He first lived in Southern Interior, then later moved to live in Sweet-dew Palace-hall (Kan-lu-tien 甘露殿) in Western Palace.

  1211Li-yȕan 梨園, Pear Orchard, the name of a location in the imperial palace and an organisation set up by Emperor Dark-progenitor (reigned 712 - 756) as his personal (i.e. non-governmental) institute for the housing and instruction of entertainers (ling-jen 伶人). It was situated in the area of the old T’ang imperial palace north-west of present-day Hsi-an in Shensi province. Liu Hsü 劉昫 (887 - 946) and others, Old T’ang dynasty history (Chiu T’ang-shu 舊唐書), “Li-yȕeh chih”, (AD 945), says: “Shining August-emperor (Ming-huang 明皇) [i.e. Dark-progenitor] was both a connoisseur of music and passionately fond of Taoist Songs (fa-ch’ü 法曲), and selected three hundred young gentlemen entertainers from the Seated Section (tso-pu-chi tzu-ti san-pai 左部伎子弟三百), and instructed them in the Pear Orchard, they being dubbed ‘the Emperor’s young Pear Orchard gentlemen’ (Huang-ti Li-Yȕan tzu-ti 皇帝梨園子弟, also found elsewhere as Li-yȕan ti-tzu 梨園弟子, and several hundred palace-ladies, who similarly were called ‘pupils of the Pear Orchard (Li-yȕan tzu-ti)’.” Later ages mistakenly regarded the Pear Orchard as having been principally for the instruction of play-actors, so “Pear Orchard” became a synonym for “the theatre”, and Dark-progenitor was deified as God of the Theatre. The Pear Orchard seems to have ceased to exist after Dark-progenitor’s reign. Its old site lies in present-day Ch’ang-an county in Shensi province.

  1212ch’ing-e 青娥, “green dainty charmer”, i.e. young lady, girl, maiden. Sometimes glossed as “palace lady”, but seemingly not so specific. Term used by Chiang Yen 江淹 (444 - 505).

  1213Chiao-fang 椒房, Pepper Room, name of a palace-hall in Unfinished Imperial-palace (Wei-yang-kung 未央宮) of the Han dynasty, where the empress lived. The walls of this room were plastered with a mixture of clay/ plaster and pepper, to make it warm and nice-smelling, or, according to another early explanation, to make the empress fertile so that she’d have a lot of children. Possibly both.

  1214Ying 螢, Luciola vitticollis, the firefly.

  1215ku-teng 孤燈, “solitary/lone/orphan lamp”, lamp of a solitary/lone person. Some modern comment finds it ridiculous that an emperor, even an ex-emperor, should be fiddling with his own lamp like some ordinary literatus in his study, but perhaps later ages developed rather too fixed notions of the T’ang dynasty.

  1216Hsing-he 星河, the Star River, i.e. the Milky Way, also knonw as雲, Cloud [Sky] River (Fellow)] (Yȕn-han雲漢), also called銀河Silver River (Yin-he 銀河), Heaven River (T’ien-han 天漢), Heaven River (T’ien-he 天河), and河, River (Fellow) (He-han 河漢). One note says: “The Spirit/Essence of the Yellow River (He-ching 河精) ascended and became the Heaven River.”

  1217yȕan-yang wa 鴛鴛瓦, “mandarin-duck’s tiles”, “mandarin-duck-and-drake pair tiles”, i.e. paired tiles. Ch’en Shou 陳壽 (233 - 297) tells us: “Emperor Civility (Wen-ti 文帝, Ts’ao P’I 曹丕, reigned 220 – 226) questioned Chou Hsȕan: ‘I dreamed that two tiles from the roof of my palace-hall fell to the ground and changed into a pair of mandarin-ducks, duck and drake.’.”

  His father Ts’ao Ts’ao 曹操 (155 - 220) Bronze-sparrow Tower/Terrace (T’ung-ch’ȕeh-t’a 銅雀臺) is said to have had “mandarin-duck tiles”, and Li Yü 李庾 (dates?), East Capital rhapsody (Tung-tu fu 東都
賦), describes such titles as “kingfisher scales”. In the present poem the fact of duck and drake paired, and of mandarin-ducks being the usual paired “love-birds” of Chinese tradition, make the tiles a painful reminder to Dark-progenitor of his lost partner in love.

  1218fei-ts’ui ch’in 翡翠, “big/large kingfisher-quilt/downy/coverlet/duvet, i.e. one embroidered with splendid paired kingfisher designs, of cock and hen kingfisher, thus: a quilt for lovers.

  1219yu-yu 悠悠, drearily endlessly, on and on, dragging out dismally, dismally long-drawn-out: a term found in Songs classic (Shih-ching 詩經).

  1220hun-p’o 魂魄, “animal-/nervous-souls and spiritual souls”, sometimes used simply to mean unitary soul/spirit. Tso Ch’iu-ming 左丘明 (6th - 5th century BC), (dub. attr.), Tso’s commentary (Tso-chuan左傳) says: “The first transformation that takes place in a human-being when he’s born is the acquisition of a p’o. Once he’s produced a p’o, its complementary ‘male-force’ development is the hun, and the more life-essence (ching 精) that one applies to things, the stronger become one’s hun and p’o.”

  An early commentary to this explains: “The spirit [vital force, ling 靈] belonging to one’s body is the po, and the spirit [divine force, shen 神] belonging to one’s breath-energy [ch’i 氣] is the hun. What we mean by ‘the spirit belonging to one’s body’ is one’s auditory, visual and mental cognition, the control of movements of one’s limbs, and the making of crying and calling sounds as soon as one’s first born, which are by the spirit that’s p’o. And what we mean by ‘the spirit belonging to one’s breath-energy’ is one’s gradual acquisition of knowledge through one’s vital force, mental force, inherent nature and cognition, this being the spirit of one’s breath-energy.”

  Elsewhere it adds: “The mental insight (shen-ming 神明) of one’s mind is what’s referred to as hun and p’o, and when one’s hun and p’o depart one, how can one survive any longer.” The gist is that the p’o is something like “nerves”, catering for fairly automatic functions, while the hun is what enables higher, mental and spiritual activities to take place, “the mind”, “the soul”. Folk religious or Taoistic tradition held that each individual possessed three hun and seven po, the latter dispersing into the ground on one’s death, and the former surviving as one’s spirit.

  According to Chang Chȕn-fang 張君房 (fl. ca. AD 1001), “Man has three hun, the first called Embryo Light, being a breath-energy of a mixture of the Grand Purity atmosphere and the male force of existence; the second called Bright Spirit, being a transformation of female-force breath energy; and the third called Dim Essence, being a mixture including female-essence breath-energy”. He furthers declares that the seven p’o are called respectively Corpse Dog, Crouching Arrow, Sparrow Female-force, Swallowing Thief, Wrong Poison, Removing Filth and Stink Lung, and that they are the unclean demons in the body. His views may be a late version, and not directly pertinent here! The two terms are used as a compound here, referring to Most-prized-empress Yang’s soul.

  1221ju-meng 入夢, to enter a dream, i.e. to come into Dark-progenitor’s dreams. It has been a frequent Chinese tradition that supernatural beings or immortals, or living loved ones, or others at a physical distance from one, could contact one by appearing to one in one’s dreams.

  1222fang-shih 方 士, magician, wizard, Taoist adept, “necromancer”.

  1223Lin-ch’iung 臨邛, name of a mountain and county in present-day Ch’iung-lai county in Szechwan province. Is elsewhere associated with another famous pair of lovers, Cho Wen-chȕn eloping there to Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju during the Han dynasty.

  1224Hung-tu 鴻都, Swan-goose/Vast/Splendid Capital. Said to have been the name of a library. Fa Yeh范瞱 (398-445) in his Later Han History (Hou Han-shu 後漢書), “Ju-lin chuan” says: “The various libraries of records and literary writing from Royal Learning-retreat/National University (Pi-yung 辟雍) to East Vista (Tung-kuan東觀), Orchid Terrace (Lan-t`ai蘭臺), Stone Building (Shih-shih 石室), Brightness-proclaiming (Hsüan-ming宣明), and Hung-tu, they strove to scatter and spilt them all up.” The same work, “Ling-tivchi”, also says: “In the first year of the Light-harmony regin-period [ i.e. AD178], the Hung-tu School students [Hung-tu Hsüeh-sheng鴻都學生] were first established. A note to this says, “Hung-tu was the name of a gate, within which a school was set up. At the time, the various students in it were all ones who’d been recommended and summoned there by ordrer of the prefectural and provincial authorities and the Three Dukes, and who were able at letter-writing and literary rhapsodies, and skilled at writing Bir Seal-script, a thousand of them being examined. Like the Royal-Learning-retreat, Hung-tu was both a college and a library. It was the place where the Stone Classics were set up. In this poem, the name seems to be simply a euphemism for “imperial capital”.

  1225chan-chuan 展轉, “to half-turn and turn”, i.e. to toss and turn, to turn about (unable to sleep because something is troubling one). A term found in Ch’u elegies (Ch’u-tz’u 楚辭).

  1226p’ai-k’ung 排空, to squeeze through/push aside the void/air/sky. One text has yȕn 雲, “clouds”, instead of k’ung.

  1227Pi-lo 碧落, Jade-green Gathering-place/ Assembly-place/Settlement in the Buddhist Paramita sutra, it says: “In the Number One Heaven of the Eastern Regions, everywhere is pervaded by jade-green cloud-wisps, which is why it is called Jade-green Gathering-place.” Referring to this specific Heaven, it came to also be used in the general sense of “Heaven”.

  1228Huang-ch’ȕan 黃泉: “Yellow/Ochre/Yellowy Brown Springs”, i.e. underneath the soil/ground where people are buried, i.e. the abode, resting-place of the dead, afterlife. A term used in Ts’o’s commentary (Tso-chuan 左傳). Similar terms found are ch’ȕan-lu 泉路, “road to the Springs”, used by Chao Ku 趙翼 (fl. ca. 810 - 856), and ch’ȕan-hsia 泉, “down in the Springs”, found in Liu Hsü 劉昫 (887 - 946) and others, Old T’ang dynasty history (Chiu T’ang-shu舊 唐 書) (AD 945).

  1229mang-mang 茫茫, to be vast. Used in this sense by Tso Ssu (AD? - ca. AD 306). Lu Chi (261 - 303) uses it, in describing Heaven, with a connotation of “blurred”, “unclear”, possibly the meaning here.

  1230Hsü-wu 虛無, Emptiness and Non-existence/Absence, Empty Non-existence/Absence, Seeming Fantasy, a term used by Ssu-ma Ch’ien to describe the doctrines of Lao-tzu, and Sir Huai South (Huai-nan Tzu) says: “Empty Absence is where the Principles Underlying Existence reside.”

  1231P’iao-miao 縹緲, Remote Faintness/Unclarity, a term used by Mu Hua (fl. ca. AD 290) in his Sea rhapsody, in description of immortals, and meaning the same when written, “to be unclear to the sight”, as used by Wang Yen-shou (ca. 124 - ca. 148).

  1232wu-yȕn 五雲, five-coloured/multi-coloured clouds, clouds of every hue, which were viewed as an auspicious sign of good fortune. Chang Chȕn-fang (fl. ca. AD 1001) says: “In Yȕan-chou there’s a palace up in the sky, amid five-coloured clouds.”

  1233ch’o-yȕeh 綽約, (to be) of lissom supple body. The ch’o is also found written 婥 and 淖, explained as “to be slow/ supple”. Chuang Chou 莊周 (368 BC - 286 BC), Sir Chuang (Chuang-tzu 莊子), says: “There are immortals dwelling on Miao-ku-she Mountains. Their skin is like ice and snow, and they are as supple and lissom as virgins.” Clearly Pai Chü-yi has that passage in mind during this stanza.

  1234T’ai-chen 太真, Grand-truth. Grand-transcendental. Most-prized-empress Yang’s Taoistic cognomen (hao). Liu Hsü 劉昫 (887 - 946) and others, Old T’ang dynasty history (Chiu T’ang-shu 舊 唐 書) (AD 945), says: “At that time, Most-prized-empress Yang used to wear the robes of a Taoist adept, and had the cognomen Grand-truth.”

  1235yü-chiung 玉扄, “jade external door-bar/door-bolt” = jade door = palace door

  1236Chin-ch’ȕeh 金 闕, Gold Gate-watchtowers. Taoist writings say that up in Heaven there’s a White Jade Capital with Gold Gate-watchtowers, and that the Emperor of Heaven, the supreme god, lives in that Capital. Ke Hung (ca. 350 - ca. 430) says: “In a thousand y
ears’ time I shall summon you up to the Grand Supreme Gold Gate-watchtowers, and feast you at court in the Jade Capital.” Liu Hsü 劉昫 (887 - 946) and others, Old T’ang dynasty history (Chiu T’ang-shu 舊唐書) (AD 945), says: “On the day jen-shen of the second lunar month of the thirteenth year [AD 755] of the Heaven Treasure period, there was a court presentation in the Grand Purity palace, when Dark-progenitor’s title of Dark Origin Emperor was embellished to that of Great Sage Progenitor High Superior Great Way Gold-watchtower Dark Origin Celestial Imperator Great Emperor.” The inclusion of “Gold Watch-tower” in the title refers to his dwelling in Heaven.

  The term could also be used as a synonym for “emperor’s palace”, as in Ts’en Shen (fl. ca AD 760): “At the dawn bells of the Gold Gate-watchtowers ten thousand doors open, and on the jade staircase the ‘immortal insignia cortege’ escorts the thousand mandarins.” In this present poem, the term conveys the notion of a palace of the immortals, not specifically one in the White Jade Capital.

  1237Hsiao-yü 小玉, Little/Young Jade. In another poem, Pai Chü-yi has the lines: “The Wu enchantress Little Jade flew off and turned into mist, The Yȕeh charmeuse Hsi-shih is changed into soil.” A note to this says: “Little Jade was the name of King Fu-ch’ai of Wu.” But in the present poem, Pai seems to just use the name as one for an immortal maidservant to Most-prized-empress Yang. A modern note says it was the name of an immortal girl/ angel of ancient times.