A PAST OF WORDS NOT OF STONE

Abstract

The late-Tang poet Du Mu’s “Rhapsody on the Epang Palace,” completed in 825, served to immortalise for all time the image of the extraordinary palace said to have been planned (if perhaps never built) by the First Emperor of the Qin in his capital of Xianyang. Inspired by the “Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality” exhibition recently hosted by the National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, this paper presents the first published English-language translation of this poem. A brief introduction explores what we know about the palace from the historical sources, and discusses something of its afterlife over the course of the succeeding two millennia. Show more