Writers › Writer / Poet
Ouyang Jiong
Shu minister and lyricist who wrote the preface to the Among the Flowers anthology in 940 and ended his career in the Song court
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.
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Ouyang Jiong came from Huayang in Yizhou and served the Former Shu as a secretariat drafter; when that state fell he followed its last ruler Wang Yan to Luoyang, received a minor post at Qinzhou from the Later Tang, and returned to Chengdu after Meng Zhixiang took Shu. Under the Later Shu he rose through the Hanlin Academy to chief minister, and in 940 he wrote the preface to Zhao Chongzuo's Among the Flowers (Huajian ji), which also includes seventeen of his own lyrics. After the Later Shu surrendered to the Song in 965 he went to Kaifeng with Meng Chang and served as an attendant and Hanlin academician; Emperor Taizu, told that he played the flute well, once called him to a side hall to perform. He died in 971 at seventy-six, and the History of Song appends his biography to its account of the Meng house of Western Shu.
Life and times
- 896 CEBorn
Tang
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
Song - 971 CEDied
Works
Literature · Lyrics12- Song of the Southland · The Painted Boat Rests Its OarsFive Dynasties and Ten KingdomsOuyang Jiong's lyric of the far south: a boatman meets a girl who points to her home
- Song of the Southland · Tender Grass Like MistFive Dynasties and Ten KingdomsOuyang Jiong's lyric of a southern river pavilion at dusk, green with spring
- Song of the Southland · Whose Home at the Cave MouthFive Dynasties and Ten KingdomsOuyang Jiong's lyric of southern girls setting off together to play by the water in spring
- Song of the Southland · Sixteen, with Flower OrnamentsFive Dynasties and Ten KingdomsOuyang Jiong's lyric of a southern girl of sixteen in finery, hailing travellers by the river
- Song of the Southland · The Road into the Deep SouthFive Dynasties and Ten KingdomsOuyang Jiong's lyric of women gathering red beans after rain in the far south
+7 more
- Song of the Southland · Sleeves of Mermaid SilkFive Dynasties and Ten KingdomsOuyang Jiong's lyric of southern women gathering scents, sipping reed wine and watching sunset
- Song of the Southland · Kingfishers and HeronsFive Dynasties and Ten KingdomsOuyang Jiong's lyric of an autumn sandbar, rain-dark reeds and fishing boats seeking shelter
- Silk-Washing Stream · Falling Catkins, Fading Orioles, MiddayFive Dynasties and Ten KingdomsOuyang Jiong's short ci of a drowsy woman at the end of spring whose heart is somewhere else
- Silk-Washing Stream · A Sky-Blue Gauze Robe Sweeping the GroundFive Dynasties and Ten KingdomsOuyang Jiong's portrait of a beauty in a new sky-blue robe, playing a pipe and picking flowers
- Silk-Washing Stream · Now We Meet, Speak No More of TearsFive Dynasties and Ten KingdomsOuyang Jiong's frankly sensual short ci of lovers reunited for a night after the wine
- Hailing the Bright Court · First Meeting among the FlowersFive Dynasties and Ten KingdomsOuyang Jiong's mid-length ci of a first meeting among the flowers and envy of paired swallows
- Hailing the Bright Court · Red Beans Tossed in SecretFive Dynasties and Ten KingdomsOuyang Jiong's mid-length ci of red beans tossed in secret and a woman wasting away for love