How Song Ci gives us an insight into the loves and lives of the people of the Song Dynasty.
Why we love the Song dynasty exploring the history and charm of one of China's most fascinating dynasties.
Episode 22 Song Tzu from the heart in this podcast, we're going to be looking at what the Tzi writers of the Song dynasty were singing about in their Tse, and how these tzi give us an amazing insight into the lives and loves of the people.
I'm Bob Jones, and in this why we love the Song dynasty podcast, I'm throwing the spotlight on what was to become one of China's most iconic dynasties in the country's long and colourful history.
I saw you for the first time at the banquet in Dongxi wearing a skirt of thin silk embroidered with double butterflies.
Your beautiful face is only painted with a touch of powder, just like a wild flower with a faint aroma.
You are beautiful in every aspect and everyone praises your thin waist.
Maybe you came from the depths of the mountains last night since there are floating white clouds on your clothes a Song Tzu piece sung to the tune of tsei chui bien and written by Chang hsien lets take a moment to consider the difference between poems and Sung tzu in the Tang and Sung period.
We mentioned before that the Tang dynasty is famous for poems which we call Tang poems.
The literati in the Sung dynasty also wrote a lot of poems, but Sung poems are not valued as much as Song tzu.
So whats the difference between the Tang and Song poems and Song Tzu?
In each poem there are usually either four or eight lines and each line has either five or seven characters.
So Tang and Tsung poems look very neat and they follow a fixed pattern of tones.
If you read them youll find the last words or even lines are rhymed.
However t look and sound very different.
The lyrics of each tsu follow a certain pattern and fit into a tune, and in each tsu there are also longer or shorter sentences.
Some tsu pieces are quite long, some are short.
These all depend on the tune that the writer wants to use.
Such tunes were usually passed on from earlier times.
Some tsir writerizers were good at both lyrics and music and were able to create new tunes themselves.
Zhang Kui was one such writer.