Don't Climb Up On Me

Wang Jiang Nan
By Anonymous Tang Dynasty Poet

Don’t climb up on me,
If you climb, then you’ll be obsessed.
For I am the willow tree by the river Qu,
This person breaks, and that person climbs,
Love is just for the moment.

Note:
This poem was written about the prostitutes of Tang Dynasty.
Many scholars guessed the meaning is about a prostitute gave warning to her client, probably a young guy who really started to love her, and she feared that he would get hurt, so she wrote him this poem to bring the young guy back to reality.
In Chinese history, prostitution was a mandate policy that for the government to pleasure its traveling officials as benefit who serving their duty far away from their home under the emperor’s decision, and in public, there were many prostitution business that run by commons also, to benefit from commons. There were two types, feast maids and bed maids. The feast maids mostly served with their trained talents such as poetry, songs, instruments, dances… they served in the feast, of course they might serve more. And bed maids served by the bed. Most young girls were sold by their parents due to poverty or lustful greed, so from young age they started to live a slave life to be trained with literature and art and many other things for their master’s business, and only their master or government had right to grant them freedom. So they could not have a love life nor freedom as the pretty woman movie tells, until their old age or death arrive.

River Qu was an entertainment region near the capital.

From this poem that I can feel the affection of both lover, but the last line is a brutal truth that she has to tell from 3 aspects: her reality, his reality, and all her client’s. It is heartbroken moment to tell someone she loves, with a lie of her true feeling, but a brutal truth of reality. To her, love is never a moment thing, otherwise why she warns her lover?


Chinese

敦煌词。望江南

莫攀我，
攀我太心偏。
我是曲江临池柳，
这人折了那人攀。
恩爱一时间。