What is the yellow flower in Li Qingzhao's People are Thinner than Yellow Flowers?

The famous sentence that people are thinner than yellow flowers comes from the song dynasty poetess Li Qingzhao's "Drunk Flowers". Because it was popular for men to wear flowers in Song Dynasty, there were many flowers in Song Ci as words in poetry. People are thinner than yellow flowers. This is Li Qingzhao's description of missing her husband, using Fu Bixing's usual technique. There are many sayings about the yellow flower mentioned in the word in history, and it is believed that the yellow flower refers to chrysanthemum, which is more in line with the reality at that time.

The full text of this famous sentence in "Drunken Flowers" is as follows:

Fog filled the clouds, and the days were spent in sorrow. Kapoor was among the birds in the incense burner. The festival is also a double ninth festival, and the jade pillow gauze kitchen is half cold at night. Dongli drinks until dusk, and faint chrysanthemum fragrance overflows his sleeves. Mo Tao doesn't forget me, the curtain rolls west wind, and people are thinner than yellow flowers.

There are several reasons why the yellow flowers in Li Qingzhao's poem refer to chrysanthemums:

Judging from the season.

The creation purpose of this word is that Li Qingzhao wrote it to her husband Zhao Mingcheng during the Double Ninth Festival. The so-called Double Ninth Festival is an essential and elegant activity for ancient literati to enjoy chrysanthemums. Chrysanthemum, as the main flower in autumn, is naturally the spiritual sustenance for Li Qingzhao to express her feelings of missing her husband through noble chrysanthemums. Plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum are the four favorite plants of ancient literati, and Li Qingzhao will naturally regard chrysanthemum as an elegant flower.

Another name of chrysanthemum in ancient times

Chrysanthemum, also known as chrysanthemum, is called Ji Qiuyue in ancient times, and chrysanthemum has yellow flowers. Yellow flower is a popular saying about chrysanthemum in ancient times. The ancients were good at using interchangeable words or references, rather than describing them directly and losing interest.

Allusions in Li Qingzhao's Ci

In Li Qingzhao's "Drunk Flowers", there is a passage about drinking after dusk in Dongli. She quoted Tao Yuanming's poem Drinking. This paragraph "under the east fence of picking chrysanthemums, you can see Nanshan leisurely." It's a famous sentence chanting chrysanthemum. After dusk, under the hedge of picking chrysanthemums, I described Li Qingzhao's lonely mood. Ancient literati like to quote famous sentences in lyrics, and this hedge is the proof that yellow flowers are chrysanthemums.

On the night of the Double Ninth Festival, a person enjoys chrysanthemums, although it smells of chrysanthemums, but on the reunion day of the Double Ninth Festival, a person misses, but he can't see his lover. The west wind blows through the beautiful chrysanthemums. Although chrysanthemums are noble and beautiful, they will wither after the Double Ninth Festival. Associated with the lonely Li Qingzhao, she naturally compared herself to a chrysanthemum, which led to her thin body.

From the above three points, combined with the custom of appreciating and wearing flowers in Song Dynasty, chrysanthemum, as an elegant and noble flower, is the yellow flower in Li Qingzhao's "people are thinner than yellow flowers". There is no doubt that it means yellow flowers.