Xuanji had a number of admirers, for whom she wrote romantic poems. Li Ying was one of those admirers, who succeeded with flying colors in the capital civil service examination in 855, and was appointed as an official. Li Ying and Xuanji were quite close. And those poems she wrote for him were suggestively salacious. In classical Chinese poetry, the image of mandarin ducks is symbolic of inseparable lovers.

To Guoxiang

Yu Xuanji (844–871)

Drunk at dusk, at dawn, I am missing

you, and the spring comes again

in the midst of my missing.

A messenger journeying through the rain,

and the solitary one standing

by the window is suffering

the heart-breaking pain.

Lifting the pearl curtain brings

the view of the distant mountains;

sadness overwhelms me again

with the green, sweet-smelling grass.

Alas, ever since our parting

at the exquisite banquet,

how many times the quiet dust

has fallen from the roof beams?

Farewell

Yu Xuanji (844–871)

During those soft, tender nights unfolding

out to my heart’s content

in the towering boudoir, little did I think

my ethereal love would one day leave me.

Waking or dreaming, I care not

about where the drifting cloud

is really heading –

a fading light,

a fluttering moth.

Grateful Response to Court Secretary Li for His Sending over the Precious Mattress

Yu Xuanji (844–871)

Spreading out the new precious bamboo mattress

under me in the emerald tower,

at once I feel the jade-green water rippling,

in the depth of my heart …

Alas, like the dumped silk fan

of the deserted Han imperial concubine,

the mattress and the fan come to bemoan

with each other the common fate

in the autumn’s early arrival.

Court Secretary Li was none other than Li Ying. A central allusion of the poem is about Ban Jieshu (around 48 BC), an imperial concubine in the Western Han Dynasty, who wrote about the fate of a round fan in the autumn – in subtle comparison to her fate after she was deserted by the emperor. Ezra Pound wrote a short piece in imitation of it. And the mattress in Xuanji’s poem is an image in parallel: in the autumn’s early arrival, it too is cast aside. Xuanji sees the resemblance between the fan and the mattress once they are no longer important to the people who have used them.

To Li Ying on His Return from the Fishing Trip in the Summer

Yu Xuanji (844–871)

Staying in the same lane, we have hardly met

once through the year. Now

you’re sending an old acquaintance these cool lines,

the osmanthus buds newly gathered

from the sweet-scented tree.

The Way of the nature conquering

snow and ice, the heart of Zen

laughing at the splendor

of silk and satin. Treading high

into the Milky Way, we find

no trail connecting with

the mist-strewn waves

down beneath us.

A Visit to the South-Overlooking Tower in Chongzhen, and to the Post of the Newly Successful Candidates in the Civil Service Examination

Yu Xuanji (844–871)