Written 816 CE by
白居易 (Bái Jūyì) during his exile to
江州 (modern Jiujiang). On a moonlit night by the Yangtze he hears a pipa player — once a celebrated Chang'an courtesan, now married to a tea merchant. Her music stirs his own grief at being demoted, producing the poem's most-quoted line:
同是天涯沦落人,
相逢何必曾相识 — 'we who share the same drift to the ends of the earth — what need have we to have met before?'
