AN IMPERIAL CONCUBINE GETS TIPSY

(Guifei Zui Jiu)

When you visit Xi'an, your schedule will most probably include a tour to the nearby Lintong with its hot springs where, you will be told, the famous Yang Guifei used to take her baths.

Yang Guifei (719 - 756 A. D.) was one of those rare women in history like Helen of Troy whose beauty led to wars and nationwide troubles.

She was named Yang Taizhen, more often called Yuhuan (Jade - Bracelet), and still more popularly known as Guifei, the last being her official title, i.e., Imperial Concubine of the Highest Rank.

As a child, she received an excellent musical training. AT the age of fifteen, she was taken into the harem of the eighteenth prince of the Tang Emperor Xuan Zong (also known as Ming Huang). Three years later she somehow found herself in the palace of the emperor, who immediately made her his favourite. In the year745 A. D., the title of Guifei was bestowed on her.

In a long narrative poem by the Tang poet Bai Juyi on her life and tragic end, she is said to "pale all the beauties of the six palace courts as she turns back with her smile of a hundred fascinations". In fact, she was so much in the imperial grace that all her three sisters were given ranks in the nobility and Yang Guozhong, a first cousin of hers, rose to be Prime Minister in spite of his incompetence in all fields except corruption and intrigue. As a result, administration of the country deteriorated, giving rise to chaos.

In 755 A. D., An Lushan, a local military governor, staged a revolt ostensibly against Yang Guozhong (and the romancers say, to get Yang Guifei). The imperial household had to flee Xi'an under military escort. When the party arrived at the Village of Mawei (west of present - day Xingping County in Shaanxi Province), the soldiers refused to go on. Blaming the Yangs for all the sufferings of the people, they insisted on settling accounts. Yang Guozhong was lynched by the discontented troops, and Yang Guifei also had to be hanged before the soldiers were pacified.

After the country was once more under control, the emperor abdicated and spent his remaining years reminiscing of his favourite concubine.

Many works of art in various forms - poems, romances, plays, paintings, sculptures, etc. - have been created with Yang Guifei as the subject. Some simply portray her beauty, with others picture scenes from her life, for instance, Guifei Takes a Bath (Guifei Chu Yu), The Palace of Perpetual Youth (Chang Sheng Dian) which depicts an oath - taking love scene between the emperor and his favourite concubine, Tang Ming Huang Visits the Moon Palace (You Yue Gong) in search of his departed Guifei, etc. There is also a play on her whole life entitled "The Unofficial Biography of Taizhen" (Taizhen Wai Zhuan).

Mei Lanfang, a celebrated impersonator of women's roles in Peking Opera, used to present the lyrical one - act play The Drunken Beauty or An Imperial Concubine Gets Tipsy (Guifei Zui Jiu). The story is very simple: it relates that even the special favourtie now and them may have a lonesome evening when the emperor spends the night with one of the other empresses or concubines. It is on one such evening that Guifei, waiting in vain for a visit from the emperor, takes herself one cup too many and sings to the moon, the flowers and the birds of her disappointment, her jealousy and the fickleness of human sentiments. This theme is widely used in other forms of art.