To create feudal lords

封侯印

Verse 244

It seems it is masculine to pursue high office
Not to go entirely against social ways
To retire after winning merit
To be leasurely and carefree in the clouds and mists in twilight
Taking off the purple gauze robe
It is the true direction of the male dao

The three characters are the last three in the first sentence. The middle one also features in the Yijing (I Ching): feudal lord or marquis. In the course of time its meaning became a bit wider. There was not so much demand anymore for feudal lords, but a similar effect was being elected for a high office - to become a 'marquis' in a more contemporary way.

封侯 refers to a famous poem by Wang Changling, a major Tang dynasty poet. His courtesy name was Shaobo. He was originally from Taiyuan in present-day Shanxi province, although other sources claim that he was actually from Jiangning near modern-day Nanjing.
See wikipedia

After passing the prestigious jinshi examination, he became a secretarial official and later held other imperial positions, including that of an official posting to Sishui, in what is currently Xingyang, in Henan province. Near the end of his life he was appointed as a minister of Jiangning county. He died in the An Lushan Rebellion.

Wang Changling

He is best known for his poems describing battles in the frontier regions of western China. He also wrote an homage to the Princess Pingyang, Lady Warrior of the early Tang Dynasty.

Wang Changling was one of the competitors in the famous wine shop competition along with Gao Shi and Wang Zhihuan.

Tsuki hyakushi, illustration by Yoshitoshi

In her quiet window

"The night is still and a hundred flowers are fragrant in the western palace.
She orders the screen to be rolled up,
regretting the passing of spring with the Yunhe across her lap.
She gazes at the moon,
the colors of the trees are hazy in the indistinct moonlight."

Yoshitoshi illustrated one of Wang Changling's poems:

100 Aspects of the Moon #54, 1887.

See Wikipedia

"The night is still and a hundred flowers are fragrant in the western palace. She orders the screen to be rolled up, regretting the passing of spring, with the Yunhe across her lap. She gazes at the moon, the colors of the trees are hazy in the indistinct moonlight."

A young wife encourages her new husband to join the Tang army and go off and fight the enemy at the border. The expectation is that he will return with honors. Most likely, the enemy were the Tibetans at the far west of the Chinese Empire or the Tartars to the north, but there were other enemies both foreign and internal with which the emperor had to deal with.

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