Ye Shaoweng

Ye Shaoweng (Chinese: 葉紹翁; Wade–Giles: Yeh Shao-weng; fl. 1200–1250) was a Southern Song dynasty Chinese poet from Longquan, in modern Lishui, Zhejiang province.^[1] He belonged to the Jianghu (Rivers and Lakes) School of poets, known for its unadorned style of poetry.^[1] He was an academician serving in the imperial archives in the capital Hangzhou,^[1] and authored a history on the reigns of the first four emperors of the Southern Song entitled Sicao Jianwen Lu (四朝見聞錄), covering the period of 1127–1224. He was a friend of the Neo-Confucian scholar Zhen Dexiu.^[2] Little else is known about his life.^[1]

Ye Shaoweng's most famous poem is Youyuan Buzhi (Visiting a Private Garden without Success):

遊園不值       Visiting a Private Garden without Success

應憐屐齒印蒼苔   It must be because he hates clogs on his moss

十扣柴扉久不開   I knock ten times still his gate stayed closed

春色滿園關不住   but spring can't be kept locked in a garden

一支紅杏出牆來   a branch of red blossoms reached past the wall^[1]

The last couplet is often reused in later works, its meaning recast as a sexual innuendo.^[3] The African-American author Richard Wright wrote two haikus which bear close resemblance to Ye's poem.^[4]

• Davis, A.R. (1990). A Book of Chinese Verse. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 978-962-209-228-0.
• Hakutani, Yoshinobu, ed. (2011). Cross-Cultural Visions in African American Literature: West Meets East. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-11912-3.
• Lowry, Kathryn A. (2005). The Tapestry of Popular Songs in 16th- and 17th Century China: Reading, Imitation, And Desire. BRILL. ISBN 90-04-14586-9.
• Red Pine (2012). Poems of the Masters: China's Classic Anthology of T'ang and Sung Dynasty Verse. Copper Canyon Press. ISBN 978-1-61932-088-8.