Liu and His Wife Ruan
刘 阮 妻
芙 蓉 脂 肉 绿 云 鬟
罨 画 楼 台 青 黛 山。
千 树 桃 花 万 年 药
不 知 何 事 忆 人 间？
Liu Ruan Qi
Fu rong zhi rou lu yun huan
Yan hua lou tai qing dai shan.
Qian shu tao hua wan nian yao
Bu zhi he shi yi ren jian?
Liu and His Wife Ruan
This lovely lady Ruan wore layers of make-up, skin naturally like a lotus, hair of green clouds in two buns
Within the shadows of these green mountains, painted buildings and terraces.
Thousand trees of peach blossoms, ten thousand years of medicinal plants
How can these people leave the mountains to go back into the world?
Notes:
In ancient Chinese folklore, Liu and Ruan are man and wife. While on a mountain gathering medicinal herbs to make traditional Chinese cures, they met a goddess. Here the two remained for what seemed to them, half a year.
But in time measured by immortals, they were gone for much longer. When they got home, the Han Dynasty had disappeared, to be replaced by the Qin. Seven generations had passed them by. None of their descendants knew who they were. Liu and Ruan tried to go back into the mountains to find this immortal. Sounds somewhat similar to the story Peach Blossom Springhead, a poem repeated throughout the centuries.