Writers › Writer / Poet
Gu Xiong
Shu official and lyricist whose fifty-five songs in Among the Flowers rank third in number after Wen Tingyun and Sun Guangxian
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
Gu Xiong is known mainly from Wu Renchen's Qing-dynasty Spring and Autumn Annals of the Ten Kingdoms, which says he served as a minor palace attendant under Wang Jian of the Former Shu around 916 and was later promoted to prefect of Maozhou. After the Former Shu fell he took office under the Meng family's Later Shu and rose to the honorary rank of grand commandant. His song lyrics deal with love and longing in the women's quarters, and a line from his 'Suzhongqing', asking to exchange the beloved's heart for his own so she might know how deep his longing runs, is often quoted. Zhao Chongzuo's Among the Flowers includes fifty-five of his lyrics, more than any poet but Wen Tingyun and Sun Guangxian, under tunes such as 'Heyebei' and 'Hezhuan'.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; Former and Later Shu periods