Li Ye, courtesy name Jilan, was born in Wucheng, Zhejiang (now Wuxing, Zhejiang), and was a female Taoist priest in the middle Tang Dynasty. Together with Xue Tao, Yu Xuanji and Liu Caichun, she is known as the "Four Great Female Poets of the Tang Dynasty". She became famous at a young age and was known as the "poetry among women". Her life was bumpy and legendary.
When she was 6 years old, she could write poems and play music. So whenever Huzhou celebrities gathered, her father would always hold her in his arms to show off. On this day, the roses in the garden were blooming beautifully. She looked at the servant who was setting up the flower stand and blurted out two lines of poetry: "As time goes by, my mind is in chaos." It means that the flower stand has not been set up yet, and the roses The branches and leaves have grown wantonly. All the guests in the court clapped their hands and praised him, but his father frowned. "Fight off", "Marry off"! Wherever it is written about Qiangwei, it is clearly a young girl who is pregnant and looking forward to getting married! It is said that the father said at that time: "This girl is very smart and may be a delinquent woman." Later, in the name of self-cultivation, he sent the minor to Yuzhen Temple in Huzhou.
I doubt the authenticity of this story. Not to mention whether a child can write such a poem, a father can judge the character of his 6-year-old daughter and make a decision based on just one poem. Her actions throughout her life were so unnatural. It is probably a story made up by later generations based on Li Ye's adult behavior.
In any case, Li Ye became a young female Taoist priest. In the remote Yuzhen Temple, in the leisurely and lonely days, she slowly grew up. "The Biography of Talents of the Tang Dynasty" describes Li Ye as a young woman with "beautiful appearance and relaxed expression", which means that she has a gorgeous appearance and a chic temperament.
A Taoist robe cannot hide her beauty, and her status as a Taoist priest cannot sever the girl's yearning and pursuit of love.
When he was about 20 years old, Li Ye met his first love interest, the monk Jiaoran.
Jiaoran was a famous poet monk in the Tang Dynasty. His lay name is Xie, and he is the tenth grandson of Xie Lingyun. He became a monk at the age of 25. Before the Anshi Rebellion broke out, he returned to his hometown to escape the war. The temple he lived in was near the Taoist temple where Li Ye lived.
Li Ye admired Jiaoran's poetic talent greatly. Love sprouted in the girl's heart. Although one of them was a Taoist nun and the other a monk, Li Ye didn't care about this. She was enthusiastic and optimistic and never thought about what would happen to them. Gradually, the two became good friends, and then she began to confess:
Chi Su is like Can Xue, and they are married to two carps.
If you want to know what's going on in your heart, read the book in your belly.
The letter paper is as white as snow. I folded it into the shape of a pair of carps. Do you want to know what I am thinking? When I open Pisces, my thoughts are all in the letters in the fish’s belly.
Later, Li Ye received a poem, not a love poem, but a rejection poem, titled "Reply to Li Jilan":
The goddess came to test her, and the flower was Want to dye clothes.
The Zen mind could not afford it, and returned home holding the old flowers.
Although Jiaoran called her "the goddess of heaven", he still "cannot afford to be Zen". Li Ye, who had tasted love for the first time, did not show the pain of falling out of love. As if she had never been rejected, she was still busy writing poems, drinking, and meeting friends with her enthusiasm. Her social circle gradually expanded, and she began to travel around Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and met more people. Several of her lovers entered her life one after another.
The first is Yan Bojun.
Yan Bojun was the judge of Jiangzhou at the time. Before taking office, he went to visit his old friend Jiaoran and met Li Ye. The relationship between the two developed quickly. When Yan Bojun left Zhaoyin Temple and went to Jiangzhou, Li Ye wrote this poem:
Outside the flowing water of Changmen, a lonely boat goes west day by day.
Separation is everywhere, and the grass is luxuriant everywhere.
I dreamed of passing by Wuyuan, and you went to Yanxi.
When you come back and visit us again, don’t be like Ruan Lang.
"Don't learn from Ruan Langmi", it is said that a man named Ruan Zhao in the Eastern Han Dynasty went to the mountains to collect medicine and met a fairy, so he abandoned everything in the mortal world and stayed in the fairyland. Li Ye was afraid of being tormented by lovesickness, so he could only plead with Yan Bojun in his poem, don't be like Ruan Zhao and be dazzled by the flowers and plants outside, and "come back and visit again" as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, this relationship did not last long. After Yan Bojun left Jiangsu, he never went to Huzhou or looked for Li Ye again throughout his life. From the poems left by Jiao Ran, we know that Yan Bojun showed mercy everywhere and finally married the daughter of a wealthy family.
Then there is Zhu Fang.
Zhu Fang was from Xiangzhou. He fell in love with Li Ye when he took refuge in Danyang, Jiangsu Province during the Anshi Rebellion. However, the same ending awaited Li Ye. After Zhu Fang left Danyang, he married another woman from a wealthy family. The emotions in Li Ye's heart can only be expressed in poems, such as this song "Lovesickness":
The depth of the sea in humanity is not even half as deep as lovesickness.
The sea water still has an end, and the longing for love is endless.
Carrying the piano up to a high building, the building is full of moonlight.
Playing the love song, my strings suddenly broke.
"Scholars value official marriage." Men with some education all want to marry well-established women. It is basically impossible for a commoner woman to marry a scholar. Even if she becomes a concubine, she will often be unavoidable. Abandoned destiny.
Too many betrayals made Li Ye understand why there is no need to fall in love bitterly. There are other joys in life. She lived out her true temperament in her interactions with those famous literati.
Lu Yu, Liu Changqing, Fang Mingfu, Han Kuizhi, Uncle Xiao, Cui Huan, etc. are all her good friends. "The Biography of Talented Scholars of the Tang Dynasty" records such a story: "I also met with the sages at Kaiyuan Temple in Wucheng. I learned that Liu Changqing in the river was seriously ill. He said: 'The mountain air is getting better day and night.' Liu responded and said: 'All the birds "Xin Youtuo. 'Everyone laughed, both commentators are beautiful."
Liu Changqing has a hernia, which is a male disease. Li Ye openly used Tao Yuanming's poem to make a dirty joke and asked him. Is the hernia (synonymous with "mountain gas") healed? The wonderful thing is that instead of being embarrassed, Liu Changqing responded with Tao Yuanming's poem without changing his expression, which made everyone here laugh heartily.
In ancient times, no other woman except Li Ye ever told such a dirty joke. Of course, interacting with men in this way is looked down upon. They said that female Taoist priests like Li Ye were prostitutes wearing Taoist robes.
After experiencing a series of emotional twists and turns, although Li Ye behaved very freely, the scars in his heart were still difficult to heal. Her song "Eight Arrivals" has been passed down through the ages:
From near to far, from east to west, from deep to shallow clear streams.
The highest to the bright sun and the moon, the closest relatives to the distant couple.
?
The nearest is the farthest, the deepest is the shallowest, and the closest is the farthest. If you think about it carefully, why not? How much pain have you experienced before you can understand the relationship between husband and wife so thoroughly?
Li Ye's poetry and beauty were equally well-known to both the court and the public, and Emperor Dezong of the Tang Dynasty issued an order to summon her. The emperor originally thought that she should be a beautiful and passionate girl, but after meeting him, he found that although she was beautiful, she was no longer young, so he had to let her out of the palace. Later, he also called Li Ye a "handsome woman" - a beautiful old lady.
After coming out of the palace, Li Ye did not return to Huzhou and stayed in Chang'an temporarily. Unexpectedly, he encountered a catastrophe. In the fourth year of Jianzhong (783), the Jingyuan army that was about to go to the front mutinied when it passed through Chang'an. Zhu Si, an unemployed old general from Hebei, proclaimed himself emperor, and Tang Dezong escaped from Chang'an. Because of the remarkable title of the poem, after Zhu Si caught Li Ye, he asked her to write a poem to praise her. Li Ye was forced to compose a poem and present it.
After Zhu Si's defeat, Dezong returned to the court, and all the officials who had assumed Zhu Si's pseudo-office were executed. Li Ye was not spared, and was beaten to death with sticks ordered by Dezong.
The beautiful poet who was famous for her pornographic jokes ended her life like this.