Performers › Musicians
Li Shishi
Courtesan of Bianjing in the Northern Song, listed among singers in the Dongjing menghua lu, whose meeting with Huizong is told only in Song notes
On a flat rock above a waterfall, a seven-string zither and a bamboo flute lie on a spread of blue-green cloth; beyond, a waterfall pours into a churning teal pool among misty peaks, with pine branches arching at the top left.
Also known as Shishi
Li Shishi was a courtesan of Bianjing at the end of the Northern Song. Chapter 5 of the Dongjing menghua lu, describing the entertainers of the capital from the Chongning and Daguan years on, lists her among the xiaochang singers of the capital's entertainment quarters. According to Zhang Duanyi's Guier ji, Emperor Huizong visited her house while Zhou Bangyan hid under the bed, a story that cannot be verified. According to Song notes and the later Li Shishi waizhuan, her property was confiscated in the Jingkang years, and accounts of her later life differ between Hunan, Jiangzhe and other places. The tale of her craftsman family and early loss of her father comes from the Li Shishi waizhuan, and episodes in novels such as the Shuihu zhuan are fiction.
Life and times
Dates Active at the end of the Northern Song, from the Chongning and Daguan years to the Jingkang years