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”.
鱼玄机·《和友人次韵》
何事能销旅馆愁，红笺开处见银钩。
蓬山雨洒千峰小，嶰谷风吹万叶秋。
字字朝看轻碧玉，篇篇夜诵在衾裯。
欲将香匣收藏却，且惜时吟在手头。
Rhyming with a Friend
Yu Xuanji
What can melt away the melancholy of lodging at an inn?
When I open the red notepaper, I see the fine lines of your writing.
Rain sprinkles Penglai all other peaks grow small,
The wind blows in Xie Valley myriad leaves touched by autumn. 1
In the morning I read word after word, more precious than green jade,
And at night beneath my coverlets I recite page after page.
I’ll pack your poem away in a fragrant casket,
But for now I’ll take it in hand and chant it.
1. Penglai Mountain, beyond the eastern sea, was the abode of the immortals; the Xie Valley to the remote west was held to be the place of origin of musical pipes.
（Jennifer Carpenter 译）
Matching Rhymes with a Friend
Yu Xuanji
What can dispel the sadness
of a traveler’s inn?
Opening a crimson letter,
I find elegant writing within.
When rain washes over
The mystic mountains,
the thousand peaks seem small;
when wind blows through
the northern ravines,
myriad leaves sense fall.
Every word I read by day
makes emerald jade worth less;
each poem I recite by night
is done in my bed as I rest.
Reaching for a fragrant box
to put your letter away,
I take this precious time to sing
of receiving it today.
（Bannie Chow, Thomas Cleary 译）
