When the Emperor sought guidance from wise men, from exiles,
He found no calmer w i sdom than that of young Chia
And assigned him the foremost council-seat at midnight,
Yet asked him about gods, instead of about people.
Original Poem:
「贾生」
李商隐
宣室求贤访逐臣，贾生才调更无伦。
可怜夜半虚前席，不问苍生问鬼神。
Interpretation:
This is a historical poem. The poet takes the historical fact that Emperor Wen and Jia Yi had a heart-to-heart talk in the middle of the night to let out a long sigh on behalf of all the aspiring and talented intellectuals in the world who could not do their best for the gods and goddesses of the earth and the gods of the earth.
Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty, who had just finished his sacrificial rites, consulted the courtier who had just returned from exile in Changsha in the main room of the former palace of Weiyang Palace, and was very eager to find a talented person.
Then, through the mouth of Emperor Wen, he praised Jia Yi’s talent, “Jia Yi’s talent is even more unparalleled in style”, Emperor Wen’s praise from the side of Jia Yi’s suave, talented and learned. It seems that Jia Yi was deeply appreciated by Emperor Wen, and we should be happy for Jia Yi that he met a wise ruler and had the space to show his ambition. One or two two sentences layer padding, strongly rendering the emperor of Han Wen Di’s open-mindedness, thirst for wisdom, can be described as a ruler and ministers meet with the event.
From the third sentence onwards, but the brush is steeply down, listening to the original is not for the country for the people, but to ask the ghosts and gods of the original! A talented man’s eloquence is not used in the gods and goddesses, not for the country to plan for the people’s welfare, but to answer some boring and unnecessary questions, is really sad, pitiful, lamentable. The emperor’s concern is not for the people but for the gods; the emperor’s quest for wisdom is only to satisfy his own pastime.
The emperor in the poem is not confined to Emperor Han Wendi; the Jia Yi in the poem is even shaking with the poet’s own shadow. “While satirising the master of the time, the poem also contains the poet’s own deep feelings of unfulfilled talent”. The whole poem has ups and downs. The poet’s sarcasm is very sharp, but it is implicit but not explicit.
Poem translator:
Kiang Kanghu
About the poet:
Li Shangyin (李商隐), 813-858 AD, was a great poet of the late Tang Dynasty. His poems were on a par with those of Du Mu, and he was known as “Little Li Du”. Li Shangyin was a native of Qinyang, Jiaozuo City, Henan Province. When he was a teenager, he lost his father at the age of nine, and was called “Zheshui East and West, half a century of wandering”.
