Li Bai's "Inscription for the Chaste Woman of Laishui"

The record

Juan 8, "Literature", of the Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, in its "Inscriptions" division, carries Li Bai's "Inscription for the Chaste Woman of Laishui", signed "Hanlin Academician". The text opens with the reason for raising a shrine and cutting the inscription:

皇唐葉有六聖，再造八極，鏡照萬方，幽明咸熙。

Translated: The august Tang has had six sages, who refashioned the eight quarters and mirrored the ten thousand regions, so that the seen and the unseen alike are brightened.

Only short passages are quoted here; the whole inscription is not reproduced, and as public-domain material it sits in the source layer.

Zhenyinu and her story

The inscription names her home and family at the outset:

貞義女者，溧陽黃山里史氏之女也。

Translated: The chaste and righteous woman was a daughter of the Shi family of Huangshanli in Liyang.

She was therefore a woman of Liyang, not of Lishui. The text says that at thirty she would not take a husband, that she was pure and filial to her mother, and that she supported herself by washing silk. Of the encounter with Wu Zixu it says:

逼迫於昭關，匍匐於瀨渚，舍車而徒，告窮此女。目色以臆，授之壺漿，全人自沉，形與口滅，卓絕千古，聲凌浮雲。

Translated: Hard pressed at Zhaoguan, crawling by the Laishui shore, leaving his carriage and going on foot, Wu Zixu told his plight to this woman. Reading his eyes and guessing his meaning, she gave him a bowl of liquid; to keep him whole she drowned herself, body and voice extinguished, surpassing the ages, her fame rising above the clouds.

The closing lines of the inscription include "投金瀨沚，報德稱美。明明千秋，如月在水":

Translated: He threw gold into the islet on the Laishui to repay her kindness and praise her goodness; bright for a thousand autumns, like the moon in the water.

Those who cut the inscription

The end of the inscription names the local officials through whom it was carved:

邑宰（榮）［滎］陽鄭公，名晏……有若主簿扶風竇嘉賓、縣尉廣平宋陟、丹陽李濟、南朝陳然、清河張昭，皆有卿才霸略，同事相協，緬紀英淑，勒銘道周。

Translated: The magistrate, Lord Zheng of Xingyang, named Yan ... and such men as the assistant registrar Dou Jiabin of Fufeng and the assistant magistrates Song Zhi of Guangping, Li Ji of Danyang, Chen Ran of Nanchao and Zhang Zhao of Qinghe, all with the talents of ministers and the plans of lords, worked in harmony to record her virtue and worth and to cut the inscription by the roadside.

Six men in all are named with the magistrate. The text runs office and native place together; this entry reproduces them as the source lists them without re-parsing the offices.

The limits of this library's record

Zhenyinu and the story of the gold thrown into the Laishui belong to Liyang, not to Lishui. This library records the inscription only because juan 8, "Literature", of the Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer carries its full text, as material recorded in an old gazetteer's Literature section; it must not be used to say that Zhenyinu was a person of Lishui, nor that the Laishui episode took place in Lishui.

As to the relation between the names Laishui and Lishui: two further items in this library bear on the old gazetteers' argument that Lai (Laishui) underlies the name Lishui. First, the Zuo Zhuan for Duke Zhao's fourth year has only "then he extinguished Lai"; the standard histories contain no statement that Lai was the Laishui of Lishui, so "Lai is Laishui" is an old-gazetteer argument (see src:chunqiu-zuozhuan). Second, Hu Anlian's study of the location of Lai notes four competing Han-and-later placements and calls the variants irreconcilable (see src:huanlian-laiguo). The name link is therefore at most one lead in place-name history, and rests on an old-gazetteer argument and on academic disagreement, not on any standard history. It is not evidence for attaching Zhenyinu or the gold-throwing to Lishui, and no such claim is made here.

Wording and variants

A summary earlier in the same source card wrote the village as Huangshili, while the verbatim transcription of 2026-10-04 reads Huangshanli; the two differ, and the verbatim transcription is followed here, the summary being in error.

Uncertainties

First, how the inscription's story of Zhenyinu and Wu Zixu compares with the account of Wu Zixu in the Wu Yue Chunqiu and other works has not been checked.

Second, Zhenyinu appears in no standard history; the home place given, Huangshanli in Liyang, comes from a literary inscription, and this library holds no Liyang gazetteer by which to check it.

Third, the relation between the place names Laishui and Lishui is used only as a lead in place-name history, and rests on an old-gazetteer argument (src:chunqiu-zuozhuan) and on academic disagreement (src:huanlian-laiguo); it is not grounds for assigning Zhenyinu or the episode to Lishui.

Fourth, the source is a web transcription (a traditional-character page at shicihui), not a collated edition, unchecked against the printed page; lacunae and editorial brackets are reproduced without being supplied.

Fifth, whether 南朝 in the list of names is a place of origin or a misprint has not been determined.