⬅️宋词 Ci Poems
Lu You (1125-1210 AD) was a poet and historian of the Southern Song Dynasty. He was born in a literati-official family. In 1125, Lu You was born on a boat on Huai River while his father Lu Zai was recalled to the capital for the review of his duty. So Lu Zai named his new born son You (游) which means floating, drifting or wandering. Just two years after Lu You was born, in 1127 AD Kaifeng, the capital of Northern Song Dynasty, fell into Jurchens' hand during Jin-Song wars. Two emperors were captured by Jurchens and the remnant of imperial court fled to the southern China. Lu family also escaped to the south and finally settled in Dongyang, Zhejiang （浙江东阳）.
The fall of Kaifeng in 1127 was a watershed which divided Song Dynasty into two periods, Northern Song and Southern Song. Although the Southern Song continued for another 150 years, it was never able to recover the north China from Jurchens. The incident was called the Humiliation of Jing-Kang (靖康之耻). It had significant impact on many literati and officials of Song Dynasty, including Lu's. Lu You was raised patriotic and grew up with the determination to recover the lost land in the north. Patriotism ran through his poetry and his life. At age of 85, when he was dying, Lu You composed his last poem, The Last Word To My Son (示儿), telling his son not to forget to go to his grave and tell him on the day when his country is reunited again. But Lu You never had the chance to fulfill his great ambition. For most of the time, the imperial court of Southern Song Dynasty was dominated by the faction who favored the compromise with the Jurchen's Jin Dynasty. During his entire political career, Lu You was an outcast, never appointed to any important position. Even in the minor positions, from time to time he was dismissed. In 1190 AD, he was impeached again for his words that were said to be out of time. He spent most of his last twenty years living in seclusion at his hometown Shanyin (浙江山阴).
Patriotism is not the only theme of Lu You's poetry. Some of his poems of romance are also highly acclaimed, including the famous To The Tune Of Phoenix Hairpin which we will introduce soon. Lu You married Tang Wan (唐琬) at 20. The couple were very much in love. However, Lu You's mother did not like Tang Wan. She forced his son to divorce Tang Wan. Since the traditional etiquette required children to obey his parents. Lu You divorced Tang Wan reluctantly. After the divorce, both Lu and Tang remarried. 7 years after the divorce, on a spring day, Lu You had a tour in Shen Garden (沈园) and encountered Tang Wan and her husband unexpectedly. Tang Wan asked her husband to extend hospitality to Lu You, although herself not present. Right after the encounter, the heart broken Lu You wrote down a poem on the wall of Shen Garden. It was the famous To The Tune Of Phoenix Hairpin. Tang Wan, after reading this poem, wrote another one using the same Ci title as a response. Less than one year later, Tang Wan died. The love story is quite well-known in China. It is also adapted to a Yue opera and a movie in the 1980s.
About 9300 Lu You's poems survived. That puts him on the top of poets in terms of the amount of works left to the present day. Most of his poetry is in the form of regulated poem. Only more than 100 were composed in Ci form.
