I ride in a decorated carriage,
My darling rides a blue-white horse.
Where should we tie the knot for our heart?
Under the Xiling pine and cypress. – Su Xiaoxiao, “Song of Xiling Lake”
Su Xiaoxiao was a Chinese courtesan who lived in Qiantang City (modern Hangzhou) during the Southern Qi Dynasty (479–502); short as that reign was her life was shorter still, as she was born about 482 and died only 19 years later, about 501. She was highly regarded both as a poetess and as a courtesan; the poem which forms the epigram (in Chinese each line is exactly five characters) is one of hers. But like the five women whose stories I told in my column of one year ago today, it is very likely that her name would have been forgotten had she not met an untimely death (though in Su Xiaxiao’s case it was due to a terminal disease rather than murder).
Very little is actually known about her, including her real name; “Su” was her family name (she is said to have had a sister named Su Pannu) and “Xiaoxiao” is actually the character for “small” written twice, thus forming an affectionate diminutive when used as a nickname. Her stage name in English would thus be most closely rendered as “Teeny-weeny Su”. She is said to have come from a family of the artisan class and to have attracted sufficient attention for her beauty and skill at verse to have become well-known throughout the region by her mid-teens. It was not uncommon for a popular courtesan in any country to be taken “off the market” by some nobleman recruiting her as his mistress (as we have seen in a number of the biographies I’ve published), but Su Xiaoxiao had not yet found a satisfactory arrangement when she was taken ill. This has no doubt helped to give rise to the popular romantic legend that she did not wish to settle down with a man unless she truly loved him. Given her poetry and the young age at which she died this may indeed have been true, but in any case many stories have grown from the fact.
One of these stories claims that she fell in love with a client who had professed his love for her and tried to get his family’s consent to honorably marry her, but they would not agree and he did not return to tell her. Another says that she fell in love with a poor scholar, to whom she lent money so he could travel to the capital for the Imperial Examinations (an anachronism since they were not established until a century later); when he did not return as promised, she pined away for love of him and neglected her health, thus developing the illness which killed her. Some versions of this tale say that his delay was caused by further testing through which he had won a very high position in the imperial service, but by the time he returned for her it was too late. Though the idea of a much-sought-after courtesan dying for love of a poor man is certainly very romantic, this seems unlikely given that she is known to have accepted her death philosophically and wrote that heaven had blessed her by calling attention to her work through her untimely death.
Su Xiaoxiao was a favorite subject of Tang dynasty poetry and Ming dynasty stories and art (some Ming vases are illustrated with a traditional depiction of a legend in which her ghost serves as a muse to a poet); she also appeared frequently in plays and is the heroine of a Chinese television show called Loving Courtesan Su Xiaoxiao. She was laid to rest in a tomb beside the Xiling Bridge at West Lake, and the site was visited by poets and artists for almost 1500 years until it was destroyed by the Red Guards during the violent anarchy of the Cultural Revolution. But once China began to embrace Western tourism the local government recognized that the tomb might prove a popular destination, so it was rebuilt in 2004 and enshrined in a pavilion with six posts on which poems were handwritten by famous calligraphers. The tomb itself was even the subject of a poem by the Tang dynasty poet Li He (790-816), who himself died young:
“The Tomb of Su Xiaoxiao” by Li He (translated by Tommy W. K. Tao)
dewdrops on the orchids
in the shadow
like weeping eyes
finding naught to which
to betroth your heart
a haze of wild flowers
unworthy of picking
the grass like a carpet
the pines like a canopy
the wind be your garment
the water be your jade
in a varnished carriage
waiting all night
cold emerald light of the candles
flickering in vain
under the trees of Xiling
the wind blows the falling rain
Beautiful history lesson.
A sad but lovely story from Chinese history.
Wow, Su Xiaoxiao was a teenage poetess talented enough to become famous! She must have had quite a gift.
A teenage courtesan is a victim of exploitation in many people’s eyes, but I can’t help thinking that for some, not all, teenage girls, sex with older men who offer financial compensation may be better than sex with teenage boys who offer only their youth.
We don’t know how old Teeny-weeny Su was when she started work, but I suspect it was about the same age as most lower-class girls married in the 6th century, roughly 13 or 14.
I find it very difficult to judge the quality of Chinese poetry, because it loses so much in translation. As I understand it, the words are not only expected to rhyme and have meter, but the characters as written ought to have a pleasing visual effect alongside one another. That having been said, I have noticed that the Li He poem at the end of the column has really grown on me, so I suspect it’s an excellent translation.
“she is known to have accepted her death philosophically and wrote that heaven had blessed her by calling attention to her work through her untimely death.”
reminds me of the story about the music business exec who when told that Elvis had died said “Wow. GREAT career move!”
With a male-female ratio approaching 125-100 in some birth year cohorts, China had better embrace any traditions it has of honoring courtesans. It’s going to need them.
http://www.economist.com/node/15636231
It’s striking how few languages have ever had real range in their poetic diction and choice of subject. Ancient Greek and Latin; the Romance languages; and English above all — these few exploded past the relatively sentimentalized patter of love and nature poetry, and I believe that’s why these tongues have found for themselves the richest and most delicious, complex cooked cultures.
What?
Asien Poetry is, I am sure, just as deep and meaningfull as any european stuff. In fact, Asia was far ahead of us in many ways (medicine, hygiene, literacy, arts, culture) up until the renaissance or industrial revolution.
We are not the “richest, and most delicious, complex cooked cultures”
In fact I dare say, your opinion is full of shit.
And I’m glad you dare say it. 😉
My point was less about who’s “ahead” and more about the situation with English today: it dominates, dilutes and displaces other languages.
I think this is because the imaginative uses of English and the Romance languages were so open to *all* concepts.
Just don’t see science-fiction, for example, originating in, say, Persian, although there is extraordinary love poetry in that language.
English “dominates, dilutes and displaces other languages” because English has been spread around the globe by the two biggest super powers of the last 300 years, Britain and America. It has nothing to do with English poetry or the alleged superiority of the English language; it’s simply because people had to learn English in order to deal with those in power.
You’re right, but there are two other reasons: Because of american technology leadership a great deal of technical data is in English, and (most importantly) English is a highly analytic language, thus making it easier to learn (though very difficult to spell) than almost any other major language. English is very “low-entry”, meaning that even a poor speaker can generally make himself understood in English, whereas a poor speaker of some languages (especially those which rely on intonations) is essentially incomprehensible. English is thus extremely useful as a lingua franca on a number of levels.
Marla,
Yes, I’ve heard that theory. 😉 But I don’t buy it.
It’s interesting to consider the continued relevance of a “dead” language like the ancient Greek.
It’s still here because of the poetry. Poetry is more abstract than you think it is; and, yes, some languages are superior to others.
That said, I understand “power” is a big concept these days.
Thank you. I hadn’t heard of her. I’ve read a lot of Chinese poetry in translation and studied Chinese culture but her line about water being like jade escapes me. Jade is a very hard and semi-precious stone. That doesn’t match. Jade blends the yin and the yang, but I don’t think she’s saying that either.
That line was from the poem by Le He, not Su Xiaoxiao. Given the context, it appears to me that he’s comparing the water near the tomb (West Lake) to a jade ornament or household decorations, dark green in the faint evening light of moon, stars and candles.
Xiao is also part of the word for Miss. And the word for Mrs. is tai tai or big big. So Xiao Xiao might have been playing on that to make a name like Missy. The point of the name might have been not that she was short but that she was young and unmarried.
maybe you know if she wrote more poems?
Yes, but very few Chinese poems are translated into English.
maybe you know a site where i could read her poems in chinese
thank you
sorry maybe i ask you too much i just that i search everywhere for her poems
If I remember correctly, only a few have survived to the present day. I’m afraid I don’t know where you can read them in Chinese; I am completely ignorant of the language myself, so Chinese web resources are closed to me. Perhaps an expert in Chines poetry at a university might be able to provide some guidance?
ok anyway thank you
[…] courtesan and poet who lived during the Southern Qi Dynasty and was well-regarded for both her beauty and intellect. Though she shared her body with the common man, she was best known for her poetry. She died at the […]
[…] courtesan and poet who lived during the Southern Qi Dynasty and was well-regarded for both her beauty and intellect. Though she shared her body with the common man, she was best known for her poetry. She died at the […]
[…] The Honest Courtesan – Su Xiaoxiao […]