Writers › Writer / Poet
Nie Shengqiong
Northern Song courtesan-poet of Bianjing whose Zhegu tian to Li Zhiwen so moved his wife that she was allowed into his household.
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 Nie Shengqiong, the courtesan of Bianjing
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Nie Shengqiong was a courtesan and woman ci poet of Northern Song Bianjing whose dates are unknown; the Quan Song ci preserves only her Zhegu tian, 'Sent to Li Zhiwen'. She loved the ritual official Li Zhiwen, and when he left the capital she sang a farewell at Lotus Tower, ending that she could neither keep spring nor follow him. After he left she sent the lyric; he hid it in a chest, his wife found it, and moved by it she paid for her husband to take Nie as a concubine, and the two women lived in harmony. The story is in the Lü chuang xinhua.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; a Northern Song courtesan-poet of Bianjing