Yuan Dynasty
黑漆弩
姚燧
【正宫】黑漆弩
吴子寿席上赋。丁亥中秋遐观堂对月，客有歌《黑漆弩》者，余嫌其与月不相涉，故改赋呈雪崖使君。
青冥风露乘鸾女，似怪我白发如许。
问姮娥不嫁空留，好在朱颜千古。
【么】笑停云老子人豪，过信少陵诗语。
更何消斫桂婆娑，早已有吴刚挥斧。
Translation
This piece was composed at Wu Zishou’s banquet. On the Mid-Autumn night of the Dinghai year, Yao Sui was facing the moon in Xiaguan Hall. A guest sang “Hei Qi Nu,” but the poet felt that the song had nothing to do with the moon, so he rewrote it and presented it to the gentleman Xueya. In the blue vastness of wind and dew, there seems to be a fairy riding a luan-bird. She appears to wonder why my hair has grown so white. I ask Chang’e: is it because she never married and remained alone in the moon palace that her rosy face has lasted through the ages? One may laugh at old Master Tingyun: great-hearted as he was, he trusted Du Fu’s poetic words too much. Why should anyone still need to cut the swaying cassia tree in the moon? Wu Gang has long since been swinging his axe.
Analysis
Yao Sui’s “Hei Qi Nu” is a Mid-Autumn moon piece. The preface explains that a guest sang the tune at a banquet, but Yao felt that the original words had no relation to the moon, so he rewrote it for the occasion. This gives the piece a distinct quality of literati improvisation, social performance, and playful rewriting. The first part begins with the clear sky, wind, dew, and an immortal woman riding a luan-bird. Yet the imagined celestial scene immediately turns back toward the poet’s own aging: the fairy seems to wonder at his white hair. The question to Chang’e is witty but also suggestive. Is eternal youth purchased by isolation from human love and marriage? Human life, by contrast, is bound to feeling, aging, and loss. The second part develops through allusion. The references to Tao Yuanming, Du Fu, the cassia tree in the moon, and Wu Gang create a learned but humorous texture. The poem does not merely describe moonlight; it uses the moon as a stage where myth, aging, literary memory, and banquet wit meet.
About the Author
Yao Sui was a Yuan-dynasty writer, official, and sanqu poet, courtesy name Duanfu and literary name Mu’an. A learned man of letters, he served in high cultural offices and was known for classical prose. His surviving sanqu are not numerous, but they often carry a literati tone of reflection, wine, aging, and emotional restraint. Compared with more theatrical or urban sanqu, Yao Sui’s songs are quieter, more meditative, and marked by late-life melancholy.