|
Please don't be alarmed at the birds flying around in here.
They are swallows, such graceful birds, don't you think?
My name, Feiyan, means "Flying Swallow".
There once was a real Feiyan, whose story I present to you below.
In my utter ignorance of Chinese surnames when I created this personna,
I was hoping that Zhao was another spelling of Zhou.
Wrong.
But I came to the Orient to learn, and learn I have done.
Zhao Feiyan was the consort of Emperor Cheng, who ruled from 33 to 7 BC, during the Western Han dynasty.
Originally called Yizhu, Feiyan and her sister Hede were of humble birth, their parents being servants to the emperor's household. The two sisters may have been twins, or Hede may have been a younger sister. One old tale tells that when Feiyan was born, her parents were so poverty stricken that they abandoned her to the elements, but when they saw that she had somehow managed to survive for three days, they reconsidered and brought her back into the household, and later gave her in service to the household of Princess Yang'a, the emperor's sister.
A slightly different version has the girls' father as an itinterant music teacher who died early, leaving his wife and daughters vagrants. They then journeyed to Chang'an where they were taken in by a servant in the household of Princess Yang'a, where their musical upbringing and talents brought them to the attention of the princess herself.
However the sisters arrived at court, it wasn't long before they caught the eye of the emperor Cheng himself. He took both sisters as concubines, but Feiyan was his favorite. While both sisters were great beauties, Feiyan possessed such grace as she matured that when she danced, she was compared to a "flying swallow", which is how she became known as Feiyan.
Feiyan's specialty dance was the Jubu, a dance performed on a specially made crystal plate held up over the heads of the spectators. She was also quite talented artistically, and had an excellent memory for poetry, which she was able to recite at great length. Feiyan was also a talented musician, able to pluck exquisite melodies from the qin, a stringed instrument.
Cheng already had a wife, the Empress Zu, whom he soon deposed in favor of his new paramours. Both women were given the title of Jieyu, or Beautiful Companion, which meant that they were concubines of the second rank. Later, Feiyan, the emperor's favorite, was elevated to empress and Hede was titled Zhaoyi, concubine of the first rank. Some versions of their story tell that Cheng grew tired of Feiyan and subsequently favored Hede, though he did not depose Feiyan as his empress.
Cheng previously had two sons by others of his concubines, which either he had killed in order to safeguard the position of his two new ladies, or one or both of the girls arranged to have the boys murdered. Other concubines were closely monitored and any sign of a pregnancy, which might have weakened the girls' position, was rumoured to have been quietly dealt with by the two women. There was a nursery rhyme of the time alluding to this which included the line "The swallow pecks at the Emperor's offspring", though Hede is most often accused of the murders.
For ten years, the two sisters lived in spendor, but neither of them were able to produce a male heir for their emperor. When Cheng died suddenly in 7 BC, perhaps from a stroke, or from his dissipated lifestyle, or perhaps, as was rumoured at the time, from an overdose of aphrodisiacs administered by one or both of the sisters, Cheng's twenty year old nephew, Prince Xin, took the throne, styling himself as Emperor Ai.
There are several versions of what happened next. Both girls may have immediately committed suicide, or both girls were made favorite concubines of the new emperor, which is unlikely, due to the power struggles inherent in any succession and the evidence that the emperor was a homosexual. Or, perhaps in grief, or more likely, fearing retribution, only Hede committed suicide, and Feiyan, uninvolved in the murders of the heirs and the court gossip, was named Empress Dowager, but lost her influence at court.
After ruling for only six years, Ai died of unspecified causes and Ai's grandmother, the Grand Empress Dowager Fu, took control of the kingdom, demoting and banishing Feiyan's family and demoting Feiyan to a lesser title, before demoting her further to a commoner. Feiyan committed suicide six years after Ai's death, perhaps forced into the act, or perhaps realizing that her life had so irrevocably changed that her days were numbered. She was only thirty-two when she died, which seems young to us these days, but back then that constituted a pretty full life.
One cannot judge the choices of a woman at this historical distance. While these women were vilified by many in their own time, Feiyan and Hede used their skills and beauty to take advantage of the oportunities that came their way, and used their brains and connections to further their positions, or perhaps, simply to stay alive. I expect that all of us have done the same, one way or another. I have outlived my namesake by almost double her years, and I am proud to bear the name of a survivor of sorts from an ancient time.
Sources:
Paludan, Ann. A Chronicle of the Chinese Emperors. Thames and Hudson, 1998.
Zhao Feiyan
All-China Women's Federation
Qin Shi
wiki-Empress Zhao Feiyan
wiki-Consort Zhao Hede
wiki- Emperor Cheng of Han
|
78 Articles
Tsuba, Oct 11, 2010 - 23:57
|
Current Amount in My Cashbox:
159,337 strti.
Role Play Summary
Recent Role Play Posts
23:17 Jan 1, 2012
23:11 Jan 1, 2012
23:02 Jan 1, 2012
|
