Yü Chien-wu (487–550)
Peach blossoms are red, willow catkins white,
Shimmering in the sun and swaying in the wind;
Their shape emerges beyond the vermilion walls,
4 Their fragrance goes back to the blue hall.
Mirrored in the water, parasitic bamboos,
Lying across the hill, a half-dead paulownia tree;
The list of awardees announced, I realize the great bounty;
8 Grasping my writing tablet, I am chagrined by my paltry talent.
Translated by Victor H. Mair and Tsu-Lin Mei
One of the foremost exponents of the so-called palace-style poetry, which focused on courtly themes in the broadest sense, including the lives, emotions, and manners of the inhabitants of the women’s apartments. He was the father of the poet Yü Hsin, the author of the famous “Rhapsody of Lament for the South,” a history in rhymeprose of the Liang dynasty and its fall.