"''Pipa xing''" (), variously translated as "Song of the Pipa" or "Ballad of the Lute", is a

Tang Dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...

poem composed in 816 by the Chinese poet

Bai Juyi Bai Juyi (also Bo Juyi or Po Chü-i; ; 772–846), courtesy name Letian (樂天), was a renowned Chinese poet and Tang dynasty government official. Many of his poems concern his career or observations made about everyday life, including as g ...

, one of the greatest poets in Chinese history. The poem contains a description of a pipa performance during a chance encounter with a performer near the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest list of rivers of Asia, river in Asia, the list of rivers by length, third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in th ...

.琵琶行
The "Pipa Song" by Bai Juyi

Background and description

During the reign of

Emperor Xianzong Emperor Xianzong of Tang (4 March to 1 April 778''Old Book of Tang'', vol. 14. – 14 February 820; r. 805 – 820), personal name Li Chun, né Li Chun (), was an emperor of the Chinese Tang Dynasty. He was the eldest son of Emperor Shunzon ...

, Bai Juyi was exiled from court and appointed the

sima Sima or SIMA may refer to: People * Sima (Chinese surname) * Sima (given name), a Persian feminine name in use in Iran and Turkey * Sima (surname) Places * Sima, Comoros, on the island of Anjouan, near Madagascar * Sima de los Huesos, a c ...

in the distant town of Xun Yang. Traveling up the Yangtze River, he encountered a singer and pipa player who had also once lived in

Chang'an Chang'an (; ) is the traditional name of Xi'an. The site had been settled since Neolithic times, during which the Yangshao culture was established in Banpo, in the city's suburbs. Furthermore, in the northern vicinity of modern Xi'an, Qin S ...

. She was forced to leave the capital when her beauty and fame faded and married a merchant, but she had lost none of her skill, and she played for him. "Pipa xing" ("Pipa Song") describes the encounter and her performance. The poem has a total of 616

characters Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

(not including the 138-character preface), and is known for the skilled artistry with which it describes sound. A well-known line of the poem is "Both of us, fallen from grace, wandering at the edge of the world, need not be old acquaintances to meet by chance." Ming dynasty calligrapher

Chen Hongshou Chen Hongshou (1598–1652), formerly romanized as Ch'en Hung-shou, was a Chinese painter of the late Ming dynasty. Life Chen was born in Zhuji, Zhejiang province in 1598, during the Ming dynasty. His courtesy name was Zhanghou (章侯), and hi ...

called the poem "very emotional and very expressive," adding that it made its hearers long for death in sympathy with its characters.

Poem

The poem includes a preface, describing how Bai came to write the poem. The poem include a description of performance: :

Impact on Chinese culture

The poem has inspired a number of paintings on the meeting between the poet and the pipa player, an example is the painting by Guo Xu (pictured right). The quickly plucked notes of the pipa are compared to the sound of large and small pearls falling onto a jade plate. The

Oriental Pearl Tower The Oriental Pearl Radio & Television Tower () is a TV tower in Shanghai. Its location at the tip of Lujiazui in the Pudong New Area by the side of Huangpu River, opposite The Bund, makes it a distinct landmark in the area. Its principal desi ...

, the most famous sight of the city of

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

, bases its architecture, view and name on the poem. Eleven spheres of varying sizes are built into its structure, so that, viewed from

the Bund The Bund or Waitan (, Shanghainese romanization: ''Nga3thae1'', , ) is a waterfront area and a protected historical district in central Shanghai. The area centers on a section of Zhongshan Road (East Zhongshan Road No.1) within the former Shan ...

, the building evokes the image of pearls, large and small, falling from heaven onto a jade plate represented by the surface of the Huangpu River, recalling the music of the pipa.

References

External links

{{Wikisource, Gems of Chinese Literature/Pŏ Chü-yi-The Lute-Girl’s Lament, "The Lute-Girl’s Lament" English Translation by Herbert Giles Tang dynasty poetry Chinese poems