Atlas plate · Tang dynasty
Everlasting Sorrow
The court flees. At Mawei the army will not move while she lives.
From one shore toward the other. A path of relation, not a lineage.
From
Chang’an
Between
rebellion, the imperial guard, a demand for a death
Toward
Mawei
Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.
- From
- Chang’an, the Tang capital
- Toward
- Mawei, where Yang Yuhuan is killed
- Between
- a flight that lasts less than a love
- Distance
- about 50 km of road and panic
- Obstacle
- rebellion, the imperial guard, a demand for a death
- Beloved
- Yang Yuhuan
- Time apart
- the rest of an emperor’s life, which the poem makes into everlasting sorrow
- Boundary crossed
- the palace for the road of exile
- What stands between them
- an army, and a poem that is already elegy