Lord Li's Lyrical Poems, #5

Evening makeup is ever so fresh,

when the lipstick gives her a rosy kiss.

Slightly shown is the clovelike little tongue,

as the cherry pops open,

with a spell of sweet, ripe song.


Wine stained the sleeve a crimson hue,

Grapes left the cup a mellow fume.

Chewing a scarlet puff of thread,

the languorous beauty has been leaning there for a while,

yet she suddenly spat out the pulp to her Tanlang,

with such a naughty smile.



Another love poem for his charming wife: Empress Zhou.

Among the millions of poems for beautiful women in Chinese literature, this one probably picked a most unique angle —— instead of describing her eyes, her face, her body or her dress, Lord Li’s pen simply followed the beauty’s mouth —— not a word more about anything else.

This poem is a great example of his rhetorical talent: for example, he described the tip of the beauty’s tongue as a slightly shown clove. This analogy not only left the reader a flirtatious image in such a graceful way, but also unnoticeably transcended your visual appreciation to smell —— you are not only seeing her alluring lips now, you are also smelling the aroma of fresh cloves, as the scent comes out with her sweet words.

Yet the most impressing thing is, the poet managed to capture a moving sense of beauty from the lady’s lips ——

Instead of putting her lipstick on, the lipstick gives her a rosy kiss;

Instead of opening her mouth and sing a song, her mouth, like a ripe cherry, burst open with a spell of song;

And the wine dyed her sleeve crimson, and the grape lent her cup fume… It is those details that had brought movements and life to the poem.

While a mediocre poet does his best to adorn the reality, a genius poet creates his reality. He touches scenes that would’ve appeared so lame in our eyes with a magic wand, and turn them into living beauty.

The last scene is so charming —— the beauty, languidly leaning against her bed, suddenly spat out the chewed up thread in her mouth towards her lover, referred to as Tanlang.

Tanlang is the nickname of a famous poet and calligrapher in Chinese history. Legend says that the young poet was so handsome, that when he went out hunting, thousands of young ladies in the entire city would gather around following his horse, tossing cherries and other fruits towards his carriage in hope to get one glance from him. (…the 2000 years ago version of Beatlemania, I guess…)

Another talented poet decided to be the copy cat, and rode around the city dressed like he was going for hunting as well. Unfortunately, this dude was an ugly fellow, and merely attracted a bunch of laughing kids throwing eggs and rocks to his head…(^_^)

From then on, the word “Tanlang” has been used by girls to address their lovers, or dreamlovers. Lord Li here used “Tanlang” to refer to himself. He did not use this reference just once either. In fact, this very reference appeared a few more times in his latter works. As we know, narcissistism exists among most artists.

—— “yet she suddenly spat out the pulp to her Tanlang, with such a naughty smile.”

This last line captured all the cuteness of the young Empress when she was tipsy and naughty, as while as lending you a vivid glimpse of their ten-year long sweet, lovie-dovie marriage.


(The painting above was done to depict the night life of one of Lord Li's ministers: Han Xizai. After Han had repeatedly missed early-morning audiences with the emperor, Lord Li was curious about what he was up to and sent some court painters to "spy" on him. Thus came the famous painting: Night Revels of Han Xizai, stored now in the Forbidden Palace Museum in Beijing.)