Watching the sword dance of Madam Gongsun's disciples with preface

Watching the sword dance of Madam Gongsun's disciples with preface

# Sword Dance: A Preface and Poem

On the nineteenth day of the tenth month of the second year of the Dali era, I watched the young woman Li, the twelfth daughter of her family, from Linying, perform the sword dance at the residence of Yuan Chi, Vice-Governor of Kuifu. I was struck by the grandeur of her movements. When I asked who had taught her, she replied: "I was a disciple of the Elder Woman Gongsun." In the third year of the Kaiyuan era, I was still a small child, but I remember watching the Elder Woman Gongsun perform the sword dance *huntuo* at Yancheng. The rhythm of her movements, now rushing, now halting, surpassed all others of her time. Among the court musicians of the Gaotou and Yichun Pear Garden, whether palace performers or external ones who understood this art, in the beginning of the reign of the Divine and Martial Emperor, only the Elder Woman Gongsun alone possessed it. She was fair of face and splendid in her brocade robes—and I was already old then! Now, too, her disciple is no longer in the flower of youth. Yet having traced the lineage of her art, I knew that the two were of the same great wave. Stirred by these memories, I composed this poem, "Sword Dance." Zhang Xu of Wu, in earlier times, was skilled in cursive calligraphy. He had several times seen the Elder Woman Gongsun perform the sword dance *Xihe* at Yexian, and from that point onward his cursive script improved greatly—bold, sweeping, and deeply moved. From this, one may judge what the Elder Woman Gongsun was like!

Once there was a beauty of the Gongsun family,

Whose single sword dance shook the four quarters of the world.

The spectators, mountain-like in number, lost color and despaired;

Heaven and Earth itself seemed to sink and rise before her.

Blazing—like Hou Yi shooting down the nine suns;

Soaring—like the host of emperors riding dragons through the sky.

She came like thunder, gathering its wrath to a close;

She ended like river and sea, still and gleaming with green light.

The crimson lips and beaded sleeves are both long gone into silence,

But late in her disciple their fragrance lives on.

The beauty of Linying, now in Baidi,

Dances this piece with spirit luminous and bright.

When we spoke and questioned, there was much to tell;

Moved by the times and by the past, my grief grew deeper.

The Emperor's ladies of honor numbered eight thousand,

Yet the sword dance of Gongsun stood first from the beginning.

Fifty years passed like the turning of a hand;

The world was darkened by storm and dust, the royal house dimmed.

The Pear Garden disciples scattered like smoke;

The remnants of female music shine against a cold sun.

South of the Golden Millet Mound, the trees now span an arm's reach;

At Qujiang and Shitang, the grasses are desolate and bare.

The ivory feast, the urgent pipes—the music ends again;

Joy reaches its height, and sorrow comes—the moon rises in the east.

This old man does not know where he shall go,

His feet blistered in the wild hills, his grief turning to sickness.