Ruan Ji
Ruan Ji
Ruan Ji (210–263), courtesy name Sizong, was a Chinese musician, poet, and military officer who lived in the late Eastern Han dynasty and Three Kingdoms period. He was one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. The guqin melody Jiukuang is believed to have been composed by him. At one time an infantry colonel, he was also known as Ruan Bubing.
"Autumn is beginning, the weather is turning chill. Crickets move in to sing under my bed. A thousand things surge into my mind And grieve my heart. A thousand tales search for words; But to whom will they be told? The morning breeze flows under my sleeves, The moonlight thins, And the cock crows, As I turn my horses heads towards home."
"Inscribe on your heart Every inch of the time at sunset."
"There is a fair woman in the west, who is as bright as sunlight. She wears a dress of the finest silk and jewelry shines from her left, her right. Her face is a charm, so full of grace, lightly perfuming the breeze. Climbing upward, she keeps watch for her loved one, holding her sleeves, she faces the morning sun. She hovers, she drifts through the sky, waving her sleeves, she dances, flies like the wind, like a cloud, in [a] trance. Every so often, she glances at me, but for me this beauty is out of reach. Left alone, I lament my fate."
