International studio (80.1925)

mueRHACionAL

t'ang dancer, unglazed terra-cotta Collection oj A. W. Babr

under the weight of her expensive living. So blind
was Ming Huang that he did not see what every-
one else in the palace saw—her love for his own
favorite, a Tartar, An Lu-shan, a traitor who
afterward marched on the capital under the pre-
text that he was sending the Emperor a "present"
of three thousand Tartar horses with two grooms
each.

The Emperor and Yang Kuei-fei fled with a
lew members of the imperial household and took
refuge in a deserted inn. The soldiers saw their
opportunity and demanded the life of the hated
lavorite as the price of their loyalty. The unhappy

Emperor pleaded for her without success. Some
accounts say that she strangled herself. Waley,
in his Introduction to the Study oj Chinese Painting,
will not even allow her this. He also insists that
she was fat and "wore an outrageous yellow skirt"
and credits her taking off to a palace eunuch who
strangled her and threw her body into a hole by
the roadside. The tide turned in the Emperor's
favor, but his son was placed on the throne instead
of himself and he had plenty of leisure to weep for
his beloved, which he is said to have done regu-
larly twice a day before her portrait. Whatever
the facts in the case, Yang Kuei-fei figures as few

three hundred eight

January 1925