Listen to this article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。
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）
