Writers › Writer / Poet
Yan Rui
Southern Song courtesan of Taizhou, jailed and beaten during Zhu Xi's case against Tang Zhongyou, whom Zhou Mi credits with the lyric beginning 'It is not that I love the dusty world'
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Zi Youfang
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Yan Rui, courtesy name Youfang, was a government courtesan at Taizhou whose story comes mainly from Zhou Mi's *Qidong yeyu*. Zhou says she was skilled at music, chess, painting and calligraphy, and that when the prefect Tang Zhongyou asked for a lyric on red and white peach blossoms she produced one on the spot. In 1182 Zhu Xi, inspecting eastern Zhejiang, impeached Tang and held her in prison for two months, beating her repeatedly to make her confess an affair with Tang, which she refused to do. After Zhu Xi moved to another post, the judicial commissioner Yue Lin, a son of Yue Fei, told her to state her case in verse; she spoke the lyric *Bu suanzi* and he released her from the registers. Zhou adds that a member of the imperial clan later took her as a concubine. Zhu Xi's own memorial, however, attributes the lyric to a relative of Tang's named Gao, so its authorship remains open.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; caught up in the Taizhou case of 1182