First, let us make clear the parts that can be firmly established.
The most solid piece of material evidence for the palace incense of the Southern Tang is "the tent incense of Li, Lord of Jiangnan"—one liang of agarwood combined with ten goose pears; the juice is collected in a silver vessel and steamed three times; when the pear juice is dry, it is ready to use.This formula appears in the Song dynasty scholar Hong Chu's Xiangpu (Treatise on Incense), and was carried on by Zhou Jiazou of the Ming dynasty in Xiangcheng (Incense Compendium), where it is titled "The Tent Incense Method of Li, Last Lord of Jiangnan." As for the later-circulated "granted bathrobe" tradition, the details differ considerably among editions, so this article adopts only the credible common core: the Southern Tang court applied incense to sleeping tents, makeup, and clothing, and not merely in censers.
Key points
- The authentic source of tent incense is a Song dynasty incense treatise, not a novel. Nanbu Yanhua Ji · Tent Incense: "The tent incense method of Li, Lord of Jiangnan: steam agarwood with goose pears and use it."
- Hong Chu's Xiangpu records the proportions: "One liang of agarwood, finely filed, add ten goose pears, grind and extract the juice and hold it in a silver vessel, steam three times; when the pear juice is dry, use it."
- There are two hard pieces of evidence for incense in Li Yu's ci poetry: in Huanxisha, "golden censers are filled one after another with incense-beast" and in Yihuzhu, "agarwood and sandalwood lightly added a little."
- Tent incense belongs to the "steamed incense" method, with agarwood as the main material and goose pear juice as the auxiliary; the finished product is used in sleeping tents, so it is a sleeping incense rather than a guest incense.
- The "granted bathrobe" tradition appears only in later notebooks, and accounts differ as to the person involved (Empress Zhou the Elder or Empress Zhou the Younger), so no verbatim definitive version is given.
Hong Chu's Xiangpu of the Song dynasty, "The Tent Incense Method of Li, King of Jiangnan":
The above item uses one liang of agarwood, finely filed, add ten goose pears, grind and extract the juice and hold it in a silver vessel, steam three times; when the pear juice is dry, use it.
Nanbu Yanhua Ji · Tent Incenserecords it more briefly:
The tent incense method of Li, Lord of Jiangnan: steam agarwood with goose pears and use it.
Zhou Jiazou's Xiangcheng of the Ming dynastycarries this account under the entry "Goose Pear Incense," and calls it "goose pear incense."
Another version in the Chen family Xiangpu system has slightly more complex ingredients: it adds one qian of sandalwood powder and carves the goose pear into the shape of a small jar, fills it with the incense powder, replaces the pear top, and steams it again; after steaming, the pear skin is removed, the mixture is ground smooth, and it is stored for a long time.
The three versions differ in detail, but their framework is the same:agarwood as the main material, goose pear juice as the auxiliary, steamed, not burned directly over fire.
This is the most ingenious part of the whole formula.
Agarwood has a rich, mellow scent, but burned alone it carries a slight dryness and gives off fairly heavy smoke; inside a closed tent, burning incense is both choking and a fire risk.The juice of the goose pear (a pale-yellow, juicy pear of ancient times, different from today's ya pear) is fresh and sweet; steaming it together with agarwood is like using water vapor and fruity aroma to "tame" the dryness of the agarwood.
The finished product smells fresh, sweet, warm and smooth, with gentle smoke, and can be hung in a tent without lighting it—this is "steamed incense," not "burned incense". That is why it is called "tent incense"—it is for peaceful sleep.
The shopkeeper would like to say: this approach can absolutely be done today. Use agarwood powder as the base, combine it with a small amount of natural pear juice or fruit peel and steam-brew at low temperature, or simply slow-bake it in an electric incense burner at 90–110°C; the resulting scent moves toward "sweet without being cloying, clear without being thin." If you want to try it, you can refer toFamous Incense Formulas Through the AgesandIncense Blending and Agingfor the methods on those two pages.
Incense formulas are physical objects; lyrics are states of mind. Li Yu writes about incense in two key places.
The red sun has already climbed three zhang high,into the golden censer, one after another, incense beasts are added, and the red brocade carpet wrinkles with each step.
The beauty dances to the beat, her golden hairpin slipping; queasy from wine, she plucks a flower bud to sniff, while from distant halls the sound of flutes and drums drifts in.
—Li Yu, "Huan Xi Sha: The Red Sun Has Already Climbed Three Zhang High"
"Golden censer" means a metal incense burner; "incense beasts" are incense charcoal or incense cakes shaped like animals. This line describesan all-night banquet, still adding piece after piece of incense to the censer after dawn—here incense is the measure of time: however many beasts are added, that much time has passed. This is a true slice of Southern Tang court life, and also the foreshadowing of the later pain of a fallen kingdom.
The other passage is even more interesting:
Her morning makeup just finished,she lightly dabs on a little agarwood and sandalwood. She shows the tip of her clove-like tongue to others; a clear song briefly parts her cherry lips.
— Li Yu, "A斛 of Pearls"
"Chen and Tan" refers to lip balm (mouth rouge) made with agarwood and sandalwood as ingredients; "clove bud" is a metaphor for the tip of the tongue, and "cherry broken" is a metaphor for opening the mouth to sing.Here the incense is no longer in the burner; it is on the lips.This line shows that the Southern Tang upper class turned incense into cosmetics, extending its use from space to the body.
The three words "granted bath clothes" in the title need to be clarified.
The Southern Tang court did have accounts of using incense in bathing and perfuming clothes with incense, involving favors bestowed among empresses, consorts, and palace women; the details are much embellished in later notebooks and novels.But the attribution of persons (whether it belongs to Empress Zhou the Elder, Ehuang, or Empress Zhou the Younger) and the plot details differ greatly among editions, and some elements even come from modern novels(for example, stories like "Tianshui Bi" and "Beiyuan makeup" clearly show traces of later attachment). For such records we take only the parts that can be commonly trusted:
These three points corroborate each other with that bed-curtain incense formula in the incense manuals. As for exactly who received the grant and what was granted on which day, the documents are insufficient, and your host dares not invent it.This site's attitude toward ancient texts has always been this: quote the original classics when possible; when only notebooks can be cited, note the source and discrepancies, and do not pretend to offer a verbatim definitive edition.
The story of bed-curtain incense has a coda.
In the eighth year of Kaibao (975), the Southern Tang fell. The next year Li Yu was captured and taken into Song territory, and in the third year of Taiping Xingguo (978) he died in Bianjing.The palace incense formulas flowed into the common world with scattered palace women and musicians, and so Song-dynasty incense manuals included this "Jiangnan Lord Li's Bed-Curtain Incense."
The "Jiangnan Bed-Curtain Incense" in that set by Huang Tingjian which prompted the exchange of poems between Su and Huang is precisely a relic of this line. In his "Random Replies in Six-Syllable Lines to Two Poems on Someone's Gift of Jiangnan Bed-Curtain Incense," he wrote, "A hundred refinings of fragrant spiral, sinking grade; the precious fumigation has recently come from Jiangnan"—The phrase "recently from Jiangnan" refers precisely to a formula from the old territory of the Southern Tang.
So one thread of线索 runs like this:
Southern Tang court (Li Yu) → after the fall of the state, the incense formula spread among the people → recorded in Song dynasty incense manuals → during the Yuanyou era, Huang Tingjian obtained one piece and sent a poem to Su Shi → Su Shi replied with "nose contemplation" → Japanese kōdō reveres "The Ten Virtues of Incense" as its standard
The bed-curtain incense of a fallen ruler ultimately became a philosophical keyword in Chinese incense culture(香学).This matter alone is enough to write a ci poem about.
For the complete lineage of the incense formula, this siteAnnotated translation of Xiang Cheng, Volume 26One page has the original text and collation notes, which can be read side by side.
Three suggestions, in order.
Incense friends who already have agarwood powder and want to try steaming or electric heating are welcome to bring their material to the shop for a free test burn and free authenticity check; if it is inconvenient to go out, call 400-809-1913, and the shopkeeper will give a temperature and dosage reference based on your material.
The records in the incense manual system only title it "the bed-curtain incense method of Li, Lord of Jiangnan (Li Wang)," attributing it to Li Yu, the last ruler of the Southern Tang, and do not name it as being made for a particular consort. Later notes and novels (including modern works) assign the story to Empress Zhou the Elder or Empress Zhou the Younger, with differing accounts and obvious literary embellishment; they should not be taken as historical fact.
The goose pear was an ancient pear that was pale yellow, juicy, and shaped like a goose egg; it is not the same as today's duck pear. Some incense-making practitioners believe that substituting duck pear produces a very different fragrance—duck pear has a different structure of water and sugar content, and the sweetness produced by steaming is more "raw." If you want to reproduce it, try a small batch first; do not make a large amount at once.
The key lies in the word "steam." In the ancient method, goose pear juice and agarwood were steamed together, then stored after steaming; the finished product has a soft scent and can release fragrance in the bed-curtain without needing open flame—this is precisely why it could be used in sleeping curtains. If people today use an electric incense heater for low-temperature slow heating, it is in principle closest to the ancient method and also the safest.
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