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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=531655" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>On Seeing a Pupil of Kung-sun Dance the Chien-ch`i</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">On the nineteenth day of the tenth month of the second year of Ta-li (15 November 767), in the residence of<br> Yuan Ch`ih, Lieutenant-Governor of K`uei-chou, I saw Li Shih-er-niang of Lin-ying dance the chien-ch`i.<br> Impressed by the brilliance and thrust of her style, I asked her whom she had studied under. ``I am a pupil of<br> Kung-sun'', was the reply. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> I remember in the fifth year of K`ai-yuan (717) when I was still a little lad seeing Kung-sun dance the chien-ch`i<br> and the hun-t`o at Yen-ch`eng. For purity of technique and self-confident attack she was unrivalled in her day.<br> From the ``royal command performers'' and the ``insiders'' of the Spring Garden and Pear Garden schools in the<br> palace down to the ``official call'' dancers outside, there was no one during the early years of His Sagely Pacific<br> and Divinely Martial Majesty who understood this dance as she did. Where now is that lovely figure in its<br> gorgeous costume? Now even I am an old, white-haired man; and this pupil of hers is well past her prime. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Having found out about the pupil's antecedents, I now realized that what I had been watching was a faithful<br> reproduction of the great dancer's interpretation. The train of reflections set off by this discovery so moved me<br> that I felt inspired to compose a ballad on the chien-ch`i. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Some years ago, Chang Hsu, the great master of the ``grass writing'' style of calligraphy, having several times<br> seeen Kung-sun dance the West River chien-ch`i at Yeh-hsein, afterwards discovered, to his immense<br> gratification, that his calligraphy had greatly improved. This gives one some idea of the sort of person Kung-sun<br> was. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">In time past there was a lovely woman called Kung-sun, whose chien-ch`i astonished the whole world. Audiences numerous as<br>the hills watched awestruck as she danced, and, to their reeling senses, the world seemed to go on rising and falling, long after<br>she had finished dancing. Her flashing swoop was like the nine suns falling, transfixed by the Mighty Archer's arrows; her<br>soaring flight like the lords of the sky driving their dragon teams aloft; her advance like the thunder gathering up its dreadful<br>rage; her stoppings like seas and rivers locked in the cold glint of ice. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The crimson lips, the pearl-encrusted sleeves are now at rest. But in her latter years there had been a pupil to whom she<br>transmitted the fragrance of her art. And now in the city of the White Emperor the handsome woman from Lin-ying performs<br>this dance with superb spirit. Her answers to my questions have revealed that there was good reason to admire, my ensuing<br>reflections fill me with painful emotion. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of the eight thousand women who served our late Emperor, Kung-sun was from the first the leading performer of the<br>chien-ch`i. Fifty years have now gone by like a flick of the hand - fifty years in which rebellions and disorders darkened the<br>royal house. The pupils of the Pear Garden have vanished like the mist. And now here is this dancer, with the cold winter sun<br>shining on her fading features. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">South of the Hill of Golden Grain the boughs of the trees already interlace. On the rocky walls of Ch`u-t`ang the dead grasses<br>blow forlornly. At the glittering feast the shrill flutes have once more concluded. When pleasure is at its height, sorrow follows.<br>The moon rises in the east; and I depart, an old man who does not know where he is going, but whose feet, calloused from<br>much walking in the wild mountains, make him wearier and wearier of the pace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Tu+Fu">Tu Fu</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=531655" data-title="On Seeing a Pupil of Kung-sun Dance the Chien-ch`i de Tu Fu" data-description="On the nineteenth day of the tenth month of the second year of Ta-li (15 November 767), in the residence of
 Yuan Ch`ih, Lieutenant-Governor of K`uei-chou, I saw Li Shih-er-niang of Lin-ying dance the chien-ch`i.
 Impressed by the brilliance and t..."></div>
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