Presented to Her Older Sister, Husband, and Sister-in-Law, Wei Huang

The wife of Lucheng County Magistrate Zhou Hun, Wei Huang, was beautiful in form and features and by nature frequently shrewd and intelligent. She regularly spent time with her [TN: his?] older brother’s wife and older sister, and (they agreed that) whoever died first would report to the others by Netherworld means. In 759, she passed away. Over a month later, she suddenly arrived at her home, speaking as a spirit in the air, telling her family, “It’s time to report to you, and because of this I have come.” Then she attached herself to a servant girl for spirit-speaking, as well as composed five-character poems, giving several to her older sister, her sister-in-law, and husband.

Presented to Her Older Sister
Through every good and bad, there is a parting—
But ostentation also isn’t true.
It cuts my gut, beneath the earth in the Springs,
A secret sorrow that is hard to explain.
It’s cold, so cold, the wind among the poplars:
At sundown I’ll endure making you worry.

Presented to Her Husband: Two Poems
(Title: Wei Huang Visits from the Yellow Springs)

1.
We cannot stay nearby each other long—
Hibiscus blossoms die young in the spring.
Where I once traveled, now’s forever past:
The Netherworld I still regard as home.

2.
If I had known that parting slices a person’s heart,
I’d’ve regretted our ever deeper love and affection.
In Yellow Springs, the lonesome ones passed long ago
And yet the white sun on the curtain seeks me again.

Presented to Her Sister-in-Law
(Preface: A poem left amid mutual distrust for her dear sister-in-law.)
Our bare hearts were exhausted, getting to know each other:
Wary and then worried—it only set distrust.
Official records can explain the phases of life.
Though peachwood seals on doors are holy, what was the use?

作者：韦璜
〈潞城县令周混妻韦璜，容色妍丽，性多黠惠，恒与其嫂、姊期，先死以幽冥事相报。乾元中卒。月馀，忽至其家，空中灵语，谓家人曰：“本期相报，故以是来。”后复附婢灵语，又制五言诗，与姊、嫂、夫数首。〉

赠姊
修短各有分，
浮华亦非真。
断肠泉壤下，
幽忧难具陈。
凄凄白杨风，
日暮堪愁人。

赠夫二首
〈题云：泉台客韦璜。〉

[其一]
不得长相守，
青春夭蕣华。
旧游今永已，
泉路却为家。

[首二]
早知离别切人心，
悔作从来恩爱深。
黄泉冥寞虽长逝，
白日屏帷还重寻。

赠嫂
〈序云：阿嫂相疑留诗。〉
赤心用尽为相知，
虑后防前只定疑。
案牍可申生节目，
桃符虽圣欲何为。

Wait wait wait, an explicit year? —so why’s this not in the other chapter? Surely not because woman, given there is an actual female ghost there. Is it a genre thing? Or maybe I don’t really understand how these are organized after all. As Pepé Le Pew says, Le sigh.

Memo to self: in these ghost poems, 泉 “spring” is almost always short for the Yellow Springs. Yes, sometimes it’s possible to read it as a terrestrial spring or stream, but if you can read it either way, go with the Yellow Springs.

I’m unclear whether the relationships refer to her birth family or those through her husband—I think the former, given the array of terms for in-laws. The “spirit-speaking” is a sort of possession, like the shamanistic sort we’ve seen before: using a living person’s mouth to speak, instead of being just a disembodied spirit. Talismans made from peachwood, blessed at temples, were hung above the main door of a house to ward off bad fortune—but she died anyway. It’s striking how the poems to the three recipients are different in tone and content, reflecting her relationships with them.

---L.