It’s not the lord who prized the Palace Phoenix,
Nor the lady who envied the moth-brow fair.
’Twas the barbarian proud who sealed her fate,
And the painter unfair that caused despair.
The Tartar land was bleak where she was wed,
Unlike the Han Palace where she might have stayed.
Her heart was bored and wrapped in deep distress;
What could she say when she must go horsed and arrayed!
非君惜鸾殿，非妾妒蛾眉。
薄命由骄虏，无情是画师。
嫁来胡地恶，不并汉宫时。
心苦无聊赖，何堪上马辞。
Shen Quanqi stands out among Tang poets for his skill in blending themes of palace lament, frontier life, and historical allusion. His poem "Wang Zhaojun" draws on the story of Wang Zhaojun, a Han dynasty palace lady sent to marry a Xiongnu chieftain during Emperor Yuan’s reign, portraying the sorrow and misfortune of a woman exiled to a foreign land. Originally a beauty in the Han court, Wang Zhaojun was relegated to obscurity after the court painter Mao Yanshou—bribed to distort her portrait—depicted her unfavorably. Later, she was married to the Xiongnu as part of a political alliance, spending the rest of her life on the frontier, never to return to her homeland.
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