Tune: “The Bodhisattva Foreigner”
Wei Chuang (836–910)
Recalling now the pleasures of the South,
When I was young in light spring tunic—
Astride my horse by the sloping bridge,
Red-sleeved ones beckoned from every storied house.
By gilt-hinged kingfisher screens,
Drunk, I’d enter the flower groves to spend the night.
Seeing such flower twigs now,
Though gray-haired, I swear I’d not go home.
Translated by John Timothy Wixted
Wei Chuang hailed from Tu-ling in Shensi. He was the great-great-grandson of the poet Wei Ying-wu (fl. 765–785). His parents, however, passed away when he was but a child, and he grew up in reduced circumstances. By 894, when he became a Presented Scholar, the T’ang dynasty was already in serious decline, so there was little hope of a meaningful career in officialdom. For this and for other personal reasons, his verses are filled with melancholy. Forty-eight of his lyrics are included in the Among the Flowers Collection, which shows that he was one of the more active literati practitioners of the new genre. He was also the author of the celebrated poem “Lament of the Lady of Ch’in,” an account of the sacking of Ch’ang-an by the rebel Huang Ch’ao. This long, dramatic piece, which was phenomenally popular shortly after its composition, was lost for over a thousand years and recovered only in this century among the Tun-huang manuscripts (see selections 86 and 214). While living in Szechwan, Wei purchased and lived in the former residence of the great poet Tu Fu (see selection 37).