Qu P oe t ry : s ong P oe m s o F tHe y uan Dy na s t y 331
(Each one of that pair
4 Was the size of a bear!)
On the wings of romance, off they sped,
6 But paused a while at Yü-chang to pant—
These lovebirds the size of an elephant—
8 And bang their bellyskins in bed!
[QYSQ 1:47]3
【雙調】撥不斷 胖夫妻
([shuāng diào] bō bú duàn pàng fū qī)
one [measure] fat Shuang Master 一箇胖雙郎 △
(yí gè pàng shuāng láng)
accompany already^ [measure] fat^ Su Mistress^ 就了箇胖蘇娘 △
(jiù liăo gè pàng sū niáng)
two person [particle]^ then resemble bear mode kind^ 兩口兒便似熊模樣^ ▲^
(liăng kŏu-r biàn sì xióng mó yàng)
become complete already wind flow pant Yü- zhang 成就了風流喘豫章^ △^
(chéng jiù liăo fēng liú chuăn yù zhāng)
embroidered curtain inside^ one pair [measure] yuan- yang elephant^ 繡幃中一對兒鴛鴦象^ ▲^
(xiù wéi zhōng yí duì-r yuān yāng xiàng)
inter belly skin mutual bump^ 交肚皮廝撞^ ▲^
(jiāo dù pí sī zhuàng)
With its lines of irregular length, this song poem looks very much like a stanza
taken from a ci. Indeed, it “sounds” like a ci, too. The novel rhythmic effect result-
ing from the alternation of the long and short lines we have seen in the ci can also
be strongly felt in this sanqu. If we ignore the italicized syllables in the song, we
can extract the skeleton of its tune pattern:
│ ─ ─ ▲
│ ─ ─ ▲
(─) ─ (│) │ ─ ─ │ ▲
(│) │ ─ ─ │ │ ─ ▲
(─) ─ (│) │ ─ ─ │ ▲
│ ─ ─ │ (fourth tone) ▲ 4The tonal patterns of the three-, four-, and seven-character lines are no different
from those found in commonly used ci lines. Indeed, the types of seven-character
lines in this poem are exactly the same as typical seven-character ci lines, which
were actually “inherited” by the ci from the lüshi (regulated verse).5
This similarity, however, is not always the case. The second example, a poem by
Ma Zhiyuan (1250?–1323?), clearly illustrates this: