Number 1 Scholar - Opening Poem - Marrying A Faggot

  
Copyright © 2011 - Jeff Loh. All rights reserved

Poem of Lun Mun Chui

I submit to bad luck that my life is incomplete,

Everyone is laughing at the idiot me.

No destiny, no beauty would want me,

A sky ladder to the Three Legged Toad Palace1 there is.

The ocean is wide enough for dragons to transform,
Mountains are high enough to listen for songs of Phoenixes,
O when one day when the osmanthus2 reaches Heaven,
Even Chang-O3 will be destined for Ruan and Ji4.

Notes:

The meaning of the poem is quite clear, I am ugly and no one wants a nobody but one day when I became powerful, even the most beautiful girl will marry a faggot! See Note 4.

1. It is believed that the three legged toad of great fortune resides on the moon.

2.  Osmanthus is euphemism for achieving success in the imperial exams.

3. Chang-O (嫦娥) was the beautiful wife of Hou I (后羿) the divine archer who shot down 9 of the 10 suns (in the form of crows) that appeared simultaneously in the sky to prevent the earth from burning up. In gratitude the people made him king. Later at Mt. Kung Lun he met the Queen Mother of the Western Paradise (西王母) who gave him pills of immortality. There are two versions of what happened next. One version is that he became a tyrant and Chang-O stole the pills to prevent him from becoming an immortal and the other is that Chang-O was curious and stole the pills for herself. Whatever the case is she was discovered and downed the pills. She became lighter and fled away to the moon while Hou I shot arrows at her in one version; or in another version, she was filled with much remorse for her action and lived in the Great Cold Palace (廣寒宫) in the moon with a rabbit pounding elixir under an osmanthus (桂) tree.

4. Ruan and Ji are 2 of the seven members known collectively as the Seven Sages or Seven Intellects of the Bamboo forest. They forsook their lives as officials to get away from the officialdom of corruption. Xi Kang (嵇康) was especially close to Ruan Ji (阮籍); their relationship was described as "stronger than metal and fragrant as orchids". The wife of Shan Tao(山濤 , another member of the group) was said to be impressed by the prowess of Ruan Ji and Xi Kang that she spied on them during sex - Homosexuality and Civilization by Louis Crompton

Thursday, April 07, 2011


Original text

倫文敍詩

運蹇時乖命不齊,

人人笑我蠢東西,

眼前紅粉無緣份,

天上蟾宮有步梯

海闊任由龍變化,

山高空聽鳳凰啼,

他朝丹桂高攀日,

自有嫦娥配阮稽