Thinking of Lady Yang at Midnight
Anon.
The two poems which follow are both written around, the person of Lady Yang or Yang Kwi-Pi (Exalted Princess Yang). She was one of the famous and fatal women of history who has dazzled succeeding ages. The Lady Yang was a concubine of the eighteenth son of Emperor Hyun-jong of the Tangs. When the Emperor’s chief mistress died he took the Lady Yang from his son and made her his leading princess. For eleven years all China was mesmerized by her charm. Her family battened on the Emperor’s adoration. The country groaned under taxes which were imposed to provide the wild luxuries of her brilliant court. Finally a revolt broke out. The Emperor fled from the capital, taking Lady Yang with him, but when they reached the Horse Pass the soldiers of the Imperial Escort rebelled and demanded the favorite’s immediate execution. Hyun-jong was forced to give her up and, in agony of spirit, he saw her led out to die. A eunuch dragged her to a wayside shrine where he throttled her with a rope. Her body was wrapped in purple hangings from the Imperial coach and thrown into a hole by the wayside.
It is probable that the legends woven around her have exaggerated her charms, for here and there one catches glimpses of very unpleasing facts. Waley states that “she was fat, wore false side-locks and an outrageous yellow skirt, was obstinate, capricious and overbearing.”
It is an undoubted fact, nevertheless, that her story influenced the art of both China and of Korea to a very wide extent. Poets have written of her. Pictures have been painted, both of the Lady Yang herself and also of China’s greatest actors impersonating her in plays featuring her tragedy. Korea came under her spell almost as completely as did her own country.
Thinking of Lady Yang at Midnight
Watching alone by the ancient city wall,
Thinking of one who was too beautiful,
What did I see? What did I hear?
Moonlight, quivering over empty courtyards,
A voice calling out of the midnight shadows.
One name, her name, echoes across the silence.
Light feet, her feet, in shoes of peacock feathers,
Dance through the empty halls. Will they never rest?
Thinking of joys that ended and sorrows which never end
I find my white robe spangled with tears for her.