Yü Hsüan-chi (c. 844–c. 868)
Cloud-capped peaks fill the eyes
In the spring sunshine.
Their names are written in beautiful characters
And posted in order of merit.
How I hate this silk dress
That conceals a poet.
I lift my head and read their names
In powerless envy.
Translated by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung
Yü Hsüan-chi is the most celebrated woman poet of the T’ang period after Hsüeh T’ao (see selection 43). She had been a courtesan and the concubine of a government official, but later took up residence in a Taoist convent. She is said to have been executed for murdering a maid of hers who had become intimate with one of her gentlemen callers.
Exceedingly few women gained literacy in traditional China and, of those who did, virtually none of them took part in the vaunted civil service examinations. The ability to write passable poetry was considered to be a requisite for becoming a successful bureaucrat in old China. Yü Hsüan-chi was a poet, but her gender disqualified her from becoming an official.