Jie Ji Shi — Two Quatrains, Author Unknown

This is a pair of short, unattributed quatrains preserved in the Chinese Wikisource transcription under its "Daoist Classics" (道教典籍) category. Neither the source packet nor the Wikisource article gives an author, a date, or a Daoist Canon volume number, and this Good Works Translation could not independently establish where in the Daozang, if at all, the poems belong; they are presented here exactly as found, with no firmer attribution offered than that.

The genre itself is plain from the title: jiè (戒), "to admonish" or "to warn," names a whole tradition of short Chinese moral verse aimed at a particular failing or a particular person — here, a courtesan (妓, jì). Two seven-character quatrains make one point twice. The first sets the legendary ugly woman Momu (嫫母) beside the legendary beauty Xishi (西施), proverbial opposites in Chinese lore, and observes that one and the same body holds both: today's flawless young face and tomorrow's white-haired, wrinkled old age are separated only by time. The second turns to a flower on the branch — sought after and broken off while it blooms, ignored the moment it falls — the standard classical figure for a courtesan's beauty, and for youth in general.

Translated for the Good Works Library directly from the classical Chinese printed in full below. A live web search for a prior English translation could not be completed at the time of preparation; the two standard bibliographies of Daoist texts in Western translation were checked and record no translation of this poem. We know of no published English translation of it, and make no claim to be the first.

Translation

I

Momu and Xishi share this same body;
how pitiable, that old age and youth lie a thousand springs apart.
In later years, hair white as a crane's, skin creased like a hen's;
today, a face like jade, a look like a flower.

II

Flowers bloom and flowers fall — two faces of sorrow and joy;
flowers and people, after all, are one and the same.
Blooming on the branch, it troubles the guest who would break it off;
fallen to the ground, who is there to look?

Colophon

This Good Works Translation was prepared for the Ethics and Response shelf of the Good Works Library. The English was translated independently from the classical Chinese text printed below. The two seven-character quatrains of the original are kept as two four-line stanzas, one clause of the source to a line.

Before the claim above was written, a translation-status check was performed: the standard bibliography of Daoist texts in English translation (Komjathy, Daoist Texts in Translation) and its 2023 update (the Purple Cloud survey of Daoist texts in Western languages) were both searched under the Chinese title, its romanization, and the names of its two legendary women, and record no translation of this poem. A live web search could not be completed at the time of preparation. We know of no published English translation of the Jie Ji Shi. We state this as the limit of our knowledge, not as a certainty, and make no claim to be first.

A note on the source and on one difficult phrase. The Wikisource transcription catalogues this poem only under its general "Daoist Classics" category, without author, date, or Daozang volume number; it has been translated as found, and its place, if any, in the Zhengtong Daozang proper could not be confirmed. In the second poem's third line, 妨 (fáng, "to hinder," "to trouble") is grammatically plain but its exact sense is not: it may mean that the flower's beauty is itself what makes plucking it a kind of trouble, or that its still being alive on the branch resists the guest's hand. The translation keeps the same openness with "troubles."

Prepared for the Good Work Library by the Tianmu Anglican Church with AI-assisted translation and editorial work.

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Source Text: 戒妓詩

Classical Chinese text as preserved in the Chinese Wikisource transcription, catalogued under the Daoist Classics (道教典籍) category. Presented complete for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.

一

嫫母西施共此身，可憐老少隔千春。

他年鶴發雞皮媼，今日玉顏花貌人。

二

花開花落兩悲歡，花與人還事一般。

開在枝間妨客折，落來地上請誰看？

Source Colophon

The Chinese text follows the Chinese Wikisource transcription of this poem (article 戒妓詩, revision of 12 July 2009), inspected from a witness copy captured on 8 August 2026. The Wikisource article catalogues the poem under its Daoist Classics (道教典籍) category but supplies no author, date, or Daoist Canon volume number, and this translation could not independently confirm the poem's place in the Zhengtong Daozang. Chinese Wikisource transcriptions are published under CC BY-SA 4.0 and the GFDL; the poem itself, whatever its precise date, is traditional and in the public domain. The wiki header and license templates have been removed; the text is otherwise complete and unaltered.

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