The Palace of Eternal Life

The Palace of Eternal Life

洪昇

Among the masterpieces of Chinese classical drama, The Palace of Eternal Life (Changsheng Dian) by Hong Sheng (1645–1704) stands as a lyrical summit of emotional depth and poetic grandeur. Written during the early Qing dynasty, it transforms the historical tragedy of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and his beloved consort Yang Guifei into a cosmic meditation on love, loss, and immortality. Drawing upon Bai Juyi’s celebrated poem The Song of Everlasting Sorrow and the Biography of the Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Chen Hong, Hong Sheng expanded a brief episode of history into a magnificent forty-scene drama that blends realism with transcendence, passion with moral reflection. At its heart, The Palace of Eternal Life explores the tension between earthly desire and heavenly order. The love between the emperor and Yang Guifei is depicted with exquisite tenderness, yet their happiness provokes the downfall of an empire. When rebellion forces the emperor to order Yang’s death at Mawei Slope, human affection confronts the demands of political destiny. But Hong Sheng refuses to leave the story in despair. Through divine intervention, Yang’s spirit is transported to the celestial realm, where the lovers are ultimately reunited beyond time and mortality. In this way, the play transforms personal tragedy into metaphysical reconciliation — a poetic vision of eternity that transcends the suffering of the world.

Stylistically, Hong Sheng’s drama epitomizes the mature chuanqi form: refined, musically sophisticated, and rich in allusion. Its verse passages, alternating between delicate lyricism and grand rhetoric, evoke the aesthetic ideals of late Ming and early Qing culture — a world still haunted by political collapse but consoled by art’s promise of permanence. The playwright’s command of language rivals that of Tang Xianzu, author of The Peony Pavilion, yet Hong’s tone is more restrained, his moral outlook more Confucian. He wrote not merely to lament passion’s ruin, but to reveal how true affection, purified by trial, becomes eternal. The Palace of Eternal Life is therefore more than a love story; it is a philosophical allegory of harmony between Heaven and humanity. Its enduring beauty lies in the balance it achieves between sensual imagery and spiritual vision, between historical narrative and cosmic imagination. For over three centuries, it has remained one of the most beloved works of the Chinese stage — performed, quoted, and cherished for its universal message: that love, when sincere and self-transcending, can conquer death itself. Through Hong Sheng’s masterful art, the sorrow of impermanence becomes the promise of eternity.

Preface to The Palace of Eternal Life Having read Bai Letian’s (Bai Juyi’s) Song of Everlasting Sorrow and the Yuan playwright’s Autumn Rain on the Phoenix Tree, I would often feel uneasy for several days afterward. The southern play Startled Swan also borders on the obscene. From ancient times, playwrights of romantic tales have won fame by their depictions of love; yet in recent works, most are entirely fictitious, filled with endless exchanges of sentimental verses—common enough, yet departing from classical propriety. Therefore, I have taken fragments from history, borrowing the story of the Tianbao reign, and woven them into this play. All indecent expressions found in historical records I have entirely deleted—not to conceal blemishes, but to follow the moral sincerity of poets and scholars. Nevertheless, joy taken to the extreme must lead to sorrow; this, too, serves as a warning to future generations.

Throughout all ages, whenever people have indulged in luxury and pursued sensual desires, ruin and regret have inevitably followed. The Lady Yang, though she overturned a nation with her beauty, perished in the end. If she had knowledge after death, how boundless her remorse would be! Were it not for the depth of her regret and resentment, how could one speak of her attaining immortality? Confucius, when editing the Book of Documents, included the “Oath of Qin,” praising its ruler for repenting after defeat—perhaps this is a similar case. Yet it is difficult for a play to end with pure elegance; I have therefore borrowed the Moon Palace to bring the work to completion. Indeed, the moment when one listens to music in the Palace of Cold Radiance (Guanghan) is also the day of one’s ascent to immortality. The lovers, reunited as twin stars, are born again in the heaven of Trāyastriṃśa; but in the end, all attachments of love return to emptiness. When, in the still night, one hears the distant bell, one may awaken from the dream at last.

[Tune: Nanlü – Prologue] [Manjianghong] (Secondary Male enters.) In love’s arena through all ages, Who has ever been true to the end? Yet if two hearts are sincerely bound, Their union shall endure forever. What matter if a thousand miles divide the South from the North? What of life and death, when two hearts are one? I laugh at the men and women of the world, Sorrowing over their missed and hindered fates— They only lack true feeling. Ah, the griefs of love’s realm! Those who have love but no destiny are countless indeed. Yet if one speaks in terms of life and death, Love’s bond ever draws souls together; Thus the trees by the Green Mound bear witness to it. Their constancy moves metal and stone, Stirs Heaven and Earth, Shines beneath the bright sun, And is inscribed in enduring history. Loyal ministers and filial sons alike— All spring from the power of feeling. The sages did not abolish the music of Zheng and Wei,

And we, their followers, seek meaning through musical transformation. Borrowing from The Outer Biography of Lady Yang Taizhen, I compose new songs— They speak only of feeling. The household prelude must trace every strand of emotion, And the whole should flow with unbroken breath. Modern playwrights have long forgotten this method; In this work, The Melody of Guangling is revived anew. [Tune: Zhonglü – Slow Verse] [Qinyuanchun] During the Tianbao reign of Emperor Xuanzong, His consort, Lady Yang Yuhuan, Was bound to him by a predestined love from a former life. (Emphasize the words “predestined love”—they prove the heavenly link that joins beginning and end.) From the bath at Huaqing, she first received imperial favor; At the Festival of the Seven Sisters, they vowed eternal devotion with fragrant incense. Her wondrous dance newly created, Her clear song not yet ended— When suddenly, the war drums of Fanyang thundered in revolt.

At Mawei Post, the six armies refused to march, And she, the adorned beauty, met her doom. The Emperor’s westward flight to Shu was filled with sorrow; In the realms below and above, they were forever sundered. Yet her wandering spirit repented and was admitted among the immortals; When the Emperor returned and reburied her, only the sachet remained. The Cowherd and the Weaving Maid bore witness to their love, And the Immortal Messenger carried the paired tokens— The gold hairpin and the jade box—to her once more. In the Moon Palace they met again; The story of the Rainbow Skirt Dance spread far and wide in verse and song. (Commentary by Xu: In the tune [Qinyuanchun], five sets of parallel couplets adhere perfectly to the musical mode.) Emperor Ming of Tang delighted in the Rainbow Skirt Banquet; Lady Yang’s soul was broken by the rebellion at Yuyang. The guest from the Hongdu Academy led a meeting in the Palace of Cold Radiance;

The Weaving Maid’s starry vow bore witness to the Palace of Eternal Life.