Tag: tang dynasty

The Late Spring (暮春即事) by Yu Xuanji (魚玄機)

深巷窮門少侶儔，
阮郎唯有夢中留。
香飄羅綺誰家席？
風送歌聲何處樓？
街近鼓鼙喧曉睡，
庭閑鵲語亂春愁。
安能追逐人間事，
萬里身同不繫舟。

阮郎唯有夢中留。
香飄羅綺誰家席？
風送歌聲何處樓？
街近鼓鼙喧曉睡，
庭閑鵲語亂春愁。
安能追逐人間事，
萬里身同不繫舟。

Lovers seldom come to this deep alley,
Their spirits have to linger on in dreams.

Whose fragrance of damask is this?
From which tower does this breeze blow the song?

Sounds of drums in the street,
Disturb my morning sleep.
Magpies chirping in the courtyard,
Confuse my spring sorrows.

How can I care
For things of this world?
Ten thousand miles, my life,
Like a boat unmoored.

The Late Spring (暮春即事) by Yu Xuanji (魚玄機). Tang dynasty.

Concubine, nun, and courtesan Yu Xuanji was a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty distinguished for her direct, autobiographical poetic style. Yu lived a short life abounding with scandal and strife; she had an affair with renowned lyricist Wen Tingyun (温庭筠), lived promiscuously, and allegedly beat her maid to death, for which she was executed. Stories of Yu’s sexual adventures have lead some to credit her as the first well-known openly bisexual woman in China.

Yu’s work was published in a collection entitled Fragments of a Northern Dreamland, which has since been lost. The forty-nine surviving poems were published in a “freak anthology” in the Song dynasty alongside poems attributed to foreigners and ghosts. Yu’s vivid and deeply emotional poetry is reminiscent of the post-Romantic cult of personal expression popular in western poetry.

(via sinethetamagazine)

Today in History – The Death Of Empress Wu

todayinhistory:

December 16th 705: Empress Wu Zetian dies

On
this day in 705, Wu Zetian, the only sovereign empress of China, died
aged 81. Born during the Tang dynasty, she entered the court of Emperor
Taizong as a concubine when she was 14 years old. After Taizong’s death,
the new emperor Gaozong defied custom and chose the well-educated Wu to
remain as his favourite concubine. She rose to become Gaozong’s empress
in 655, after eliminating the current empress by allegedly killing her
own child and framing the empress. The new empress quickly silenced the
elder statesmen who opposed her position on the grounds that she did not
hail from the established aristocracy, with critics exiled and, often,
executed. Emperor Gaozong was a sickly man, and frequently entrusted
affairs of state to Wu, who managed imperial business essentially
single-handedly. Wu was a capable leader, known for her sound
management, her decisiveness, and her ruthlessness; these attributes won
her the respect, and fear, of the Chinese imperial court. Her greatest
accomplishments included agricultural and education reform,
stabilisation of the imperial bureaucracy, and imperial expansion. Upon
Gaozong’s death in 683, his son by Wu ascended to the throne, but,
concerned by the machinations of his ambitious wife, Wu had him exiled
and installed her other son as emperor. In 690, when she was 65 years
old, the empress claimed the throne for herself, and ruled as a
sovereign empress for 15 years. The question of succession led Wu to
designate her exiled son as heir, rather than choosing a member of her
own family, thus ensuring the continuation of the Tang dynasty. In 705,
senior officials conspired to compel the aging Wu to yield power to her
son. She accepted their demands and retired from the throne, dying in
December of that year. Despite decades of condemnation as a vicious
usurper, the achievements of Empress Wu Zetian, who defied the gender
conventions of her day, are increasingly being acknowledged.

falnfenix:

mszombi:

changan-moon:

Traditional Chinese hanfu in Tang dynasty style | 齐胸襦裙qí xiōng rú qún (Chest-high ruqun) | Photo by 霜序映画

Oooh, I’ve never seen a plus size woman in hanfu, she looks beautiful!

hey @scareferencedesk

Maybe not modern hanfu, but being “plus size” was a major awesome thing in the Tang Dynasty.

A modern look at the 2 panel split skirt

what is that high chest skirt that is split? Is okay if you reference more?

Anonymous

fouryearsofshades:

Of course!

Most modern chest-high shirt were made with two piece of rectangular fabric, sewn together on the side, but leaving some portion on the top separate. The design was inspired by andon bakama but the vents are not visible when worn as the top of the skirt should be overlapping. 

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The dressing process:

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Historically, some skirts did have very visible splits. Hence, the outer chest-high skirt was mere decorative, unlike today’s skirt, which is the actual layer that functions to cover up the torso properly. They were mostly from late Tang. 

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One of the cons of using this modern cutting for chest-high skirt is that it is possible to made the front piece longer than the back piece so that the length of the skirt is just right for the both the front and the back of the body. This is a modern concern, as seen above, those ladies doesn’t seem to care that their skirt was touching the ground.

Hope this answer your question! Do contact me if you have any more problem.

Tang stuff – one of my current research bits is the wrap vs. split skirt.

xiao3la4jiao1:

 Reconstructions of various Tang dynasty hairstyles, found on baidu (link) but true source unknown.

This is from:

Hair Fashions of Tang Dynasty Women, by He, Jian’guo.何建國.

You can see the Library of Congress record here: https://lccn.loc.gov/88123343

But you can’t check it out from them right now, because I have their copy sitting on my desk. c.c

Clothing of the Tang Dynasty

Clothing of the Tang Dynasty

Tomorrow at Winter Collegium in Meridies’s fair An Dun Theine, I’ll be teaching my first garb class.

Because no, hobby horses, while they are worn, don’t really count as garb.

I’m excited. And nervous. And excited. But if the sudden swell of people on Facebook garb-related groups who are interested in Tang Dynasty stuff is any indication, I’m hoping for the best.

Handout and presentation are done – now is the time of relaxing and trying to think about other things so I can sleep tonight.

Clothing of the Tang Dynasty – Class Tomorrow!

Tomorrow at Winter Collegium in Meridies’s fair An Dun Theine, I’ll be teaching my first garb class.

Because no, hobby horses, while they are worn, don’t really count as garb.

I’m excited. And nervous. And excited. But if the sudden swell of people on Facebook garb-related groups who are interested in Tang Dynasty stuff is any indication, I’m hoping for the best.

Handout and presentation are done – now is the time of relaxing and trying to think about other things so I can sleep tonight.

The everyday mind: that is the way.
Buried in vines and rock-bound caves,
Here it’s wild, here I am free,
Idling with the white clouds, my friends.
Tracks here never reach the world;
No-mind, so what can shift my thought?
I sit the night through on a bed of stone,
While the moon climbs Cold Mountain.
-Verse 23, Words from Cold Mountain, Han-Shan, 9th century

(This isn’t necessarily the verse in the painting – it’s just a verse I like.)

From Wikipedia: 

Hanshan (Chinese: 寒山; pinyin: Hánshān; literally: “Cold Mountain”, fl. 9th century) was a legendary figure associated with a collection of poems from the Chinese Tang Dynasty in the Taoist and Chan tradition. No one knows who he was, or when he lived and died.

You can read Words from Cold Mountain translated into English here: [Poetry in Translation]

There is also a graphic novel. 😀 [Find it in a library near you!][Painting: Hanshan and Shide (寒山拾得圖) Yintuoluo (因陀羅, late Yuan dynasty), Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368)]