1 This refers to the expedition of Zhou King Mu to meet the Queen Mother of the West, who feasted him at
Alabaster
Pool in the Kunlun Mountains.
Du Fu - 5
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Unauthenticated Download Date | 10/1/17 7:36 AM Yuhua Palace 327 Imperial expeditions went not so far as Alabaster Pool,1 20 his traces are here in the aftermath of carved walls.
2 My travels belong to perilous times, I look up and gaze at this, sighing long.
Our divine king holds a winter hunt on Mount Taibai,3 24 I halt my horse and still scratch my head.
5.
23 Yuhua Palace4 The stream valley turns, the wind steady in the pines, a gray rat scuttles under ancient tiles.
I know not what royal palace this was, 4 edifice abandoned beneath the sheer cliff.
In shadowy chambers ghost-fires are green,5 mournful rivulets pour over broken roadways.
The myriad vents are the true ocarinas,6 8 autumn colors are at their most brisk and aloof.
Its fair women have become the brown earth, still more, their artifice of powder and mascara.
Waiting on the golden carriage back then, 12 of the former things there are only the stone horses.
Cares come, I smooth down the grass and sit, sing out loud, tears filling my open hands.
1 This refers to the expedition of Zhou King Mu to meet the Queen Mother of the West, who feasted him at Alabaster Pool in the Kunlun Mountains. 2 That is, the extravagance of Sui Yangdi can been seen in the ornament of the ruins, which serve as evidence of why the Sui fell. 3 The ? hunt? was a euphemism for an emperor in flight from his capital. Mount Taibai was close to Fengxiang, Suzong? s temporary capital. 4 Yuhua Palace had been constructed in 647 for Taizong as a summer palace to escape the heat of Chang? an. It was later made a temple, and was clearly abandoned by the time Du Fu saw it. 5 These are will-o-the-wisps. 6 The ? myriad vents,? wanlai ? ? , are those described in Zhuangzi, the holes on the earth whose sounds are the piping of Nature.
1 This refers to the expedition of Zhou King Mu to meet the Queen Mother of the West, who feasted him at Alabaster Pool in the Kunlun Mountains. 2 That is, the extravagance of Sui Yangdi can been seen in the ornament of the ruins, which serve as evidence of why the Sui fell. 3 The ? hunt? was a euphemism for an emperor in flight from his capital. Mount Taibai was close to Fengxiang, Suzong? s temporary capital. 4 Yuhua Palace had been constructed in 647 for Taizong as a summer palace to escape the heat of Chang? an. It was later made a temple, and was clearly abandoned by the time Du Fu saw it. 5 These are will-o-the-wisps. 6 The ? myriad vents,? wanlai ? ? , are those described in Zhuangzi, the holes on the earth whose sounds are the piping of Nature.
