Thanking Wang Xuan, Xi Shi - PART C (end)

[lnhammer]

Appendix [3]
Xuan’s Poem
Back then the plan was clumsy, and the general laughed:
Why should defeating a realm depend upon a beauty?
But once that immortal flower entered the land of Wu,
From then on, the land of Yue no longer had a spring.

Xi Shi’s Poem
Rose-clouds arrive and go outside the crowded peaks,
The seagulls float and bob between the water’s waves.
Since when the troops of Yue together shook the earth,
That soul in dreams did not arrive at Mt. Huqiu.

〈附〉
轩诗
当时计拙笑将军，
何事安邦赖美人。
一自仙葩入吴国，
从兹越国更无春。

西施诗
云霞出没群峰外，
鸥鸟浮沈一水间。
一自越兵齐振地，
梦魂不到虎丘山。

Same Mt. Huqiu in Suzhou, Jiangsu as where the ghost wrote on the temple wall, but again, I’ve not read up on Xi Shi enough to know its import.

—L.

Comments

[sartorias]

Hoo, that's right blame the war on the woman, and not on some king's lust, and greed.

[lnhammer]

Eh, that’s a little sideways of Xuan’s point, and the general’s for that matter. The general doesn’t believe her espionage mission will work, while Xuan is engaged in overblown flattery: once Xi Shi left Yue on her mission, her home country no longer had a reason for spring to flourish. (I suspect the spring = wanton connotation is relevant there, which means right as he’s finally receptive to her come-ons, he reminds her of more serious matters.)

[sartorias]

Ah, I see your point, yes.