Song of Lasting Regret lines 37-42, Bai Juyi
Wednesday, 20 May 2020 14:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lnhammerBut then six armies stopped. He couldn’t do a thing:
Face writhing, those moth eyebrows died before the horses—
Her flower hairpin fell down—no one picked it up,
Nor kingfisher tail, gold-sparrow pin, and jade hair-clasp.
The monarch covered up his face, unable to save her,
Then glanced back: blood and tears mingled and flowed together.
六军不发无奈何，
宛转蛾眉马前死。
花钿委地无人收，
翠翘金雀玉搔头。
君王掩面救不得，
回看血泪相和流。
Another installment. These lines take place at Mawei Hill (previously met in #306), near a pass between Shaanxi and Sichuan. In history, the imperial guards, angry at not being paid or fed, killed the Prime Minister, who was Yang Guifei’s cousin, plus several other members of their family, and then forced Xuanzong to have Yang Guifei killed—all on the pretext that the Yangs had caused the current troubles. She was not, however, cut down in front of the horses, but rather strangled in a nearby Buddhist temple. The elegant moth eyebrows stand in for Yang Guifei herself, and arguably should be treated here as an idiom for a beautiful woman. The writhing is understood as an expression of grievance/outrage—face is added to clarify. The kingfisher tail and gold-sparrow pin are kinds of hair ornaments.
---L.
Face writhing, those moth eyebrows died before the horses—
Her flower hairpin fell down—no one picked it up,
Nor kingfisher tail, gold-sparrow pin, and jade hair-clasp.
The monarch covered up his face, unable to save her,
Then glanced back: blood and tears mingled and flowed together.
六军不发无奈何，
宛转蛾眉马前死。
花钿委地无人收，
翠翘金雀玉搔头。
君王掩面救不得，
回看血泪相和流。
Another installment. These lines take place at Mawei Hill (previously met in #306), near a pass between Shaanxi and Sichuan. In history, the imperial guards, angry at not being paid or fed, killed the Prime Minister, who was Yang Guifei’s cousin, plus several other members of their family, and then forced Xuanzong to have Yang Guifei killed—all on the pretext that the Yangs had caused the current troubles. She was not, however, cut down in front of the horses, but rather strangled in a nearby Buddhist temple. The elegant moth eyebrows stand in for Yang Guifei herself, and arguably should be treated here as an idiom for a beautiful woman. The writhing is understood as an expression of grievance/outrage—face is added to clarify. The kingfisher tail and gold-sparrow pin are kinds of hair ornaments.
---L.