鱼玄机，女，晚唐诗人，长安（今陕西西安）人。初名鱼幼薇，字蕙兰。咸通（唐懿宗年号，860—874）中为补阙李亿妾，以李妻不能容，进长安咸宜观出家为女道士。与文学家温庭筠为忘年交，唱和甚多。后被京兆尹温璋以打死婢女之罪名处死。鱼玄机性聪慧，有才思，好读书，尤工诗。与李冶、薛涛、刘采春并称唐代四大女诗人。其诗作现存五十首，收于《全唐诗》。有《鱼玄机集》一卷。其事迹见《唐才子传》等书。
Yu Xuanji, female, was a poet of the late Tang Dynasty, born in Chang’an (now Xi’an, Shaanxi). My original name is Yu Youwei, and my courtesy name is Huilan. In Xiantong (Tang Yizong era name, 860-874), Li Yifei was appointed as a concubine to fill the vacancy. As Li’s wife could not tolerate her, she entered Xianyi Temple in Chang’an and became a female Taoist priest. As a lifelong friend of the literary figure Wen Tingyun, he sang many songs together. Later, he was executed by the Jingzhao Yin Wen Zhang on charges of killing a maid. Yu Xuanji is intelligent, talented, good at reading, and particularly skilled in poetry. She is known as one of the four great female poets of the Tang Dynasty, along with Li Ye, Xue Tao, and Liu Caichun. Fifty of his poems still exist and are included in the ‘Complete Tang Poems’. There is a volume called ‘Fish Mysteries Collection’. His deeds can be found in books such as “Biography of Tang Talented Scholars”.
Yu Xuanji’s “Fable” is a six character regulated poem that depicts the interweaving of spring night scenes and characters’ moods, showcasing the realization of the fleeting beauty of moments and the impermanence of life’s joys and sorrows.
鱼玄机·《寓言》
红桃处处春色，碧柳家家月明。
楼上新妆待夜，闺中独坐含情。
芙蓉月下鱼戏，螮蝀天边雀声。
人世悲欢一梦，如何得作双成。
An Allegory
Yu Xuanji
Red peaches everywhere don their spring colors,
Green willows by each house are bright with moonlight.
In the tower, freshly made-up, I await the night,
In my chamber I sit alone, burdened with emotions.
Fish sport beneath the lotus flowers,
Sparrows call out beside the distant rainbow.
In the mortal world sorrow and happiness are equally a dream,
So how can I become an immortal like Shuangcheng? （1）
（1）. Shuangcheng was a maidservant of the immortal Queen Mother of the West.
（Jennifer Carpenter 译）
An Allegory
Yu Xuanji
Rosy peaches everywhere
presenting the colors of spring,
on emerald willows at every house
the moonlight glow is agleam.
Freshly groomed she awaits upstairs
the coming of the night;
in the bedroom, sitting alone
she keeps her feeling inside.
Fishes frolic under the leaves
of the lotus flowers;
the twittering of sparrow calls
on the rainbow’d horizon.
Human life is but a dream,
a dream of joy and sorrow;
how can one be able to join
the company of immortals?
（Bannie Chow, Thomas Cleary 译）
