集灵台二首 二

Meaning

Zhang Hu portrays the Lady of Guo, elder sister of Yang Guifei, entering the palace at dawn on the strength of imperial favor. Her refusal of cosmetics and her lightly brushed brows before the emperor display both natural beauty and the arrogance of privilege. Without a word of condemnation, the poem satirizes the presumption of the Yang clan and the ruler's partiality, hiding sharp irony beneath a seemingly admiring surface.

虢国夫人承主恩，平明骑马入宫门。却嫌脂粉污颜色，淡扫蛾眉朝至尊。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] The Lady of Guo, sister of the favored Yang Guifei, enjoys the emperor's special grace; at daybreak she rides straight through the palace gate. Fearing that rouge and powder might dim her natural beauty, she faces the sovereign with only lightly penciled moth-eyebrows. [Structure] The poem advances in four compact beats: favor, entry, distaste for cosmetics, and audience. Each beat tightens the pressure of privilege until the closing image of composure before the throne. [Imagery] No landscape appears; the whole poem is a portrait in motion. The horse at dawn, the refusal of powder, and the faint brows form a single proud gesture, and the satire lives entirely in the gap between the impropriety of her entry and the solemnity of her audience. [Tone] Admiration on the surface, contempt beneath: the poet praises beauty while exposing arrogance, the classic 'satire through beauty' of Tang palace verse.

【白话串讲】 张祜写《集灵台二首其二》：“虢国夫人承主恩，平明骑马入宫门”——“却嫌脂粉污颜色，淡扫蛾眉朝至尊”——他写虢国夫人——淡扫蛾眉朝至尊。 【意象与手法】 首句“虢国夫人承主恩”写虢国承恩；次句“平明骑马入宫门”写骑马入宫；三句“却嫌脂粉污颜色”写嫌脂粉污色；末句“淡扫蛾眉朝至尊”写淡扫朝君。含蓄辛辣。 【情感与主旨】 张祜写集灵台之作，以虢国夫人平明骑马入宫、淡扫蛾眉朝至尊写恃宠的讽刺，是讽刺诗中的名篇。 【名句点睛】 常考“虢国夫人承主恩，平明骑马入宫门”写恃宠；“却嫌脂粉污颜色，淡扫蛾眉朝至尊”写淡扫朝君。

Allusions

Jiling Terrace: a Daoist altar within the Huaqing Palace (some sources place it in Chang'an), giving the second poem of the pair its scene. The Lady of Guo: third sister of Yang Guifei, briefly the most influential woman at court after the Yang siblings' rise in the Tianbao era. 'Moth-eyebrows' alludes to the Book of Songs, 'crested head and moth-eyebrows', a classical mark of feminine beauty. 'Supreme One' is the honorific for the emperor, chosen to stress the majesty she faces with casual composure. Notably, Du Fu's poem on the Lady of Guo contains a nearly identical couplet, evidence that the poet was reworking a famous court anecdote.

此诗用典于关键处见深意。「集灵台」，写集灵台——集灵台为祀神之所（在华清宫内），「集灵台二首」写集灵台之作。「虢国夫人」，写虢国夫人——虢国夫人为杨贵妃之姐（杨贵妃三姐），因随玄宗西幸，封虢国夫人，「虢国夫人承主恩」写虢国夫人承恩。「蛾眉」，用「蛾眉」之典——蛾眉本写女子细长而弯的眉毛，《诗经·卫风·硕人》「螓首蛾眉」正写蛾眉之美，「淡扫蛾眉朝至尊」写淡扫蛾眉朝见君王。「至尊」，写君王——「至尊」写至高无上的君王，「朝至尊」写朝见君王。值得注意的是，此诗写虢国夫人，其「却嫌脂粉污颜色，淡扫蛾眉朝至尊」与杜甫《虢国夫人》「却嫌脂粉涴颜色，淡扫蛾眉朝至尊」略同，均写虢国夫人以本色朝天子的矜持——那「淡扫蛾眉」之美，正是「以美写刺」的深意，表面的美艳之下，正是恃宠的讽刺。这些意象，或写集灵台、或写虢国夫人、或写蛾眉、或写至尊，皆围绕恃宠与讽刺这一核心，织成一张含蓄辛辣的情网，正是中唐宫词「以美写刺」的特点。

Commentary

Later critics place this quatrain among the finest examples of Tang satirical palace verse. Its method - praise that reads as blame - has been compared to the Spring and Autumn style of recording events so that judgment emerges of itself. Readers have long contrasted it with Wang Changling's poems of discarded palace ladies and with Li Bai's celebratory 'Pure Peace Melody': where Li Bai praises the Yang family's beauty, Zhang Hu turns the same beauty into a mirror of presumption. The couplet about lightly brushed brows before the Supreme One became a byword for the arrogance of favor, and the poem remains a standard classroom example of writing satire through beauty.

读此诗，最值得注意的是「却嫌脂粉污颜色，淡扫蛾眉朝至尊」所写出的「虢国夫人的矜持与恃宠的讽刺」。前两句写承恩入宫：虢国夫人承主恩——那是虢国夫人，承君王的恩宠；平明骑马入宫门——那是天刚明，骑马直入宫门。那「平明骑马入宫门」，最见恃宠之态：平明时分，骑马直入宫门，正是恩宠之殊、礼数之僭。而后两句「却嫌脂粉污颜色，淡扫蛾眉朝至尊」，是全诗的深意：那虢国夫人，却嫌脂粉污了颜色，淡扫蛾眉，朝见君王——「却嫌」二字，写矜持；「淡扫」二字，写本色。那虢国夫人以本色朝天子的矜持，正是恃宠的写照：正是因承主恩，才敢却嫌脂粉；正是因恃宠，才敢淡扫朝君。值得注意的是，那「淡扫蛾眉朝至尊」，表面是写美，实际是写刺——那「淡扫蛾眉」的矜持，正是「承主恩」的骄矜；那「朝至尊」的从容，正是恃宠的深意。张祜此诗，以虢国夫人写恃宠的讽刺，那矜持之美与恃宠之刺，含蓄而辛辣，正是宫词「以美写刺」的深衷。

Prosody

Line by line

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