Yuan Dynasty
驻马听
白朴
【双调】驻马听
吹
裂石穿云，玉管宜横清更洁。
霜天沙漠，鹧鸪风里欲偏斜。
凤凰台上暮云遮，梅花惊作黄昏雪。
人静也，一声吹落江楼月。
弹
雪调冰弦，十指纤纤温更柔。
林莺山溜，夜深风雨落弦头。
芦花岸上对兰舟，哀弦恰似愁人消瘦。
泪盈眸，江州司马别离后。
歌
白雪阳春，一曲西风几断肠。
花朝月夜，个中唯有杜韦娘。
前声起彻绕危梁，后声并至银河上。
韵悠扬，小楼一夜云来往。
舞
凤髻蟠空，袅娜腰肢温更柔。
轻移莲步，汉宫飞燕旧风流。
谩催鼍鼓品梁州，鹧鸪飞起春罗袖。
锦缠头，刘郎错认风前柳。
Translation
The flute seems able to split stone and pierce the clouds; the jade pipe, held sideways, sounds clear and pure. Under a frosty sky and across the desert, partridges seem about to tilt in the wind. Evening clouds cover the Phoenix Terrace, and the tune of “Plum Blossom” turns into dusk snow. When all is still, one note seems to blow down the moon above the riverside tower. The strings are tuned like snow and ice; ten slender fingers move with warmth and softness. The music is like orioles in the woods and streams in the mountains, like wind and rain falling on the strings deep at night. Facing an orchid boat on the reed-flower bank, the mournful strings resemble a sorrowful person growing thin. Tears fill the eyes, as if after the parting of the Exiled Sima of Jiangzhou. The song is refined like “White Snow” and “Spring Sun”; one tune in the west wind can nearly break the heart. On flower mornings and moonlit nights, only a singer like Du Weiniang truly understands its feeling. The first phrase rises and circles the high beams; the next seems to reach the Milky Way. The lingering sound is so graceful that clouds seem to drift around the small tower all night. The dancer’s phoenix coiffure rises high, her waist soft and graceful. With lotus-like steps she carries the old elegance of Zhao Feiyan of the Han palace. The crocodile-skin drum urges the rhythm of “Liangzhou,” and partridges seem to fly from her spring-silk sleeves. The audience rewards her with brocade, and one admirer mistakes her for a willow swaying in the wind.
Analysis
“Zhu Ma Ting” is a suite of short sanqu songs on music and dance. Its four sections describe flute, strings, singing, and dancing, but the work is not merely a record of performance. Bai Pu translates sound and movement into images of nature, myth, and literary memory. The flute “splits stone and pierces clouds”; the strings become orioles and mountain streams; the singing rises around beams and reaches the Milky Way; the dancer’s sleeves seem to release flying partridges. The first section, “Flute,” is cold, spacious, and elevated. Jade pipe, frosty sky, desert, evening clouds, and the riverside moon create an open acoustic world. The line about blowing down the moon turns sound into vision. The second section, “Strings,” moves toward sorrow. Its allusion to the Exiled Sima of Jiangzhou recalls Bai Juyi and the emotional world of pipa music. The third section, “Song,” emphasizes refinement and resonance, while the fourth, “Dance,” gives the suite its bodily grace, invoking Zhao Feiyan, drum rhythm, silk sleeves, and willow-like movement. The value of the work lies in its synesthetic imagination. Bai Pu does not simply say that music is beautiful; he lets music reshape landscape, memory, and human feeling.
About the Author
Bai Pu was a major Yuan-dynasty dramatist and sanqu poet, traditionally counted among the “Four Masters of Yuan Drama” together with Guan Hanqing, Ma Zhiyuan, and Zheng Guangzu. Living through the transition from Jin to Yuan, he often wrote about impermanence, loss, love, performance, and historical memory. His dramas “Wutong Rain” and “On the Wall and Horseback” are especially famous. His sanqu combines elegance, emotional delicacy, and vivid urban sensibility.