231. At an Imperial Lodge | Yuan Zhen
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
寥落古行宫，宫花寂寞红。
English translation
The old imperial lodge stands deserted; palace flowers bloom red in loneliness.
Deserted first describes the neglected grounds, while loneliness is then transferred to the flowers. They still bloom in season, though the courtly life around them has passed away.
Original Chinese text
白头宫女在，闲坐说玄宗。
English translation
White-haired palace women still remain, sitting idly and speaking of Emperor Xuanzong.
They have lived on from Xuanzong's reign into old age. What sounds like history was once their youth, and sitting idly suggests the long emptiness that followed it.
赏析 · Commentary
红花与白发放在一起 · Red Flowers Beside White Hair
宫花每年重新开放，宫女的头发却一年年变白。诗没有明写今昔盛衰，只把两种颜色放在相邻两句。花的红不是热闹，反而衬出无人观赏；人的白发也不是抽象的年老，而是从玄宗时代一直等到此刻的时间。
The palace flowers renew their red each year, while the women's hair has gradually turned white. The poem does not lecture on rise and decline; it places the two colors in neighboring lines. Red no longer means festivity but exposes the absence of viewers, while white hair measures the years from Xuanzong's reign to the present.
二十个字里的宫廷余生 · A Court Afterlife in Twenty Characters
诗只写行宫、花、宫女和一段谈话，没有重述开元天宝的历史。真正刺人的地方在“在”字：旧宫还在，宫女也还在，却都失去了原来的用途。她们闲谈玄宗，可能是回忆，也可能只是日复一日唯一熟悉的话题。
The poem gives only a lodge, flowers, palace women, and their conversation; it does not retell the history of the High Tang court. The painful word is remain: the building remains and the women remain, but neither has its former purpose. Speaking of Xuanzong may be memory, or simply the one familiar subject left to repeat.