252 t He F i v e Dy na s t i e s anD t He s ong Dy na s t y
Wutong trees and
8 Third-watch rain are
Unaware of separation throes.
10 Leaf after leaf,
Sound by sound
12 Drips on the empty steps ’til dawn.
[QTWDC 2.210]更漏子 (gēng lòu zĭ)
jade burner incense 玉鑪香 (yù lú xiāng)
red wax tears 紅蠟淚 ▲ (hóng là lèi)
unbidden reflect painted hall autumn mood 偏照畫堂秋思 ▲ (piān zhào huà táng qiū sì)6
eyebrow black thin 眉翠薄 (méi cuì bó)
locks cloud spoiled 鬢雲殘 △ (bìn yún cán)
night long quilt pillow cold 夜長衾枕寒 △ (yè cháng qīn zhěn hán)
wu- tong tree 梧桐樹 ▲ (wú tóng shù)
third watch rain 三更雨 ▲ (sān gēng yŭ)
not know separation feelings just bitter 不道離情正苦 ▲ (bú dào lí qíng zhèng kŭ)
one leaf leaf 一葉葉 (yí yè yè)
one sound sound 一聲聲 △ (yì shēng shēng)
empty step drip until light 空階滴到明 △ (kòng jiē dī dào míng)
The neglect of makeup, the cold bedding and pillow, and the woman’s sleep-
lessness are clear markers of the abandonment convention. The context of the
“painted hall” suggests a high-class subject, and the presentation of small details
of her appearance in bed alone (her fading brows and tousled locks on a cold pil-
low) subtly suggest the presence of a male voyeur.
Several things immediately set this poem apart from the anonymous examples
from Dunhuang we have just looked at. Whereas both the male and female
speakers in the two poems were just that—speakers—this poem presents the aban-
doned woman’s emotional state through a depiction first of the interior scene in
the first stanza, and then of the exterior scene in the second. The only voice we
hear is that of the rain dripping onto or from the large leaves of the wutong tree, in
which nature seems to conspire to compound the woman’s grief. But from the very
beginning, elements of the woman’s surroundings are made to bear emotional
weight. The candle’s tears in line 2 are a typical example of the poetic device of
fusing emotion and scene (qing jing jiao rong). This practice of imbuing physical
elements of the scene with human emotion brings to mind the Western notion of
the “pathetic fallacy,” a term coined by John Ruskin in the nineteenth century for
a practice he deplored.
In lines 3 and 9, pian (unbidden) and zheng (just, exactly) are what are known as
“empty words” (xuzi), particles that lack concrete referents but that add instead to
the subjective and emotional quality of the lines. The use of empty words, or func-