Madame Huarui

Madame Huarui
An illustration from a Chinese book named as 《百美新詠圖傳》
Chinese	花蕊夫人
Literal meaning	Lady Flower Bud
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Huāruǐ Fūrén Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Faa^1-jeoi^5 Fu^1-jan^4

Consort Xu (徐惠妃) (c. 940 – 976) was a concubine of Later Shu's emperor Meng Chang during imperial China's Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. More commonly known as Madame Huarui (花蕊夫人), she was also a notable poet.

When Emperor Taizu of Song defeated Meng Cheng, Madame Huarui was captured. Emperor Taizu had heard of her fame as a poet and asked her to compose a poem for him. Madame Huarui immediately sang (as translated by Anthony C. Yu):^[1][2]

君王城上竪降旗		The king on the rampart flies the white flag.
妾在深宮那得知		Deep within the palace how could I know?
十四萬人齊解甲		One hundred forty thousand all disarmed!
更無一箇是男兒		Among these was there not a single man?

References

1. Quan Tangshi, ch. 798.
2. Chang & Saussy, p. 85.

Sources

• (Chinese) Quan Tangshi (全唐詩) [Complete Tang Poems]. 1705.
• Chang, Kang-i Sun; Saussy, Haun, eds. (1999). Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-804-73231-0.
• Rexroth, Kenneth; Chung Ling (1972). The Orchid Boat: Women Poets of China. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.
• "Huarui Furen", Mountain Songs, last accessed June 8, 2007

External links

• Narrating the Death of the Shu State by Huarui Furen