天地阴阳交欢大乐赋

《天地阴阳交欢大乐赋》，是中国文学史上一部罕见的以赋的形式详尽描写男女性爱的文学作品，由唐代文学家白行简编撰。该作品涉及房中术内容。

版本

现存版本之一原处敦煌鸣沙山石窟之中，并于19世纪末被考古学家兼汉学家伯希和发现后带回巴黎，现藏巴黎法国国立图书馆，编号为敦煌写卷P2539号。端方曾花费大量资金为其拍摄制作副本。

1907年，叶德辉校订《天地阴阳交欢大乐赋》，列为《双梅影暗丛书》第五种，并于1914年刻印成书。

1913年，考古学家罗振玉曾出版柯罗板版本。

沈雁冰（即茅盾）在《中国文学内的性欲描写》一文中疑其为托名之伪作，但无法找到确切证据。

1951年，荷兰大使馆参赞高罗佩将之重新校订，收入《秘戏图考》卷二《秘书十种》。高罗佩将“大乐赋”中15段逐段解释，他对全文的评语为：“这篇文章文风优美，提供许多关于唐代的生活习惯的材料。”；同一年，《秘戏图考》（英文标题：Erotic Color Prints of the Ming Period, with An Essay on Chinese Sex Life from the Han to the Ch'ing Dynasty, B.C 206-A.D 1644）在日本东京出板。

"Tiandi yinyang jiaohuan dalefu" (Chinese: 天地陰陽交歡大樂賦; pinyin: Tiāndì yīnyáng jiāohuān dàlèfù) is a Chinese rhymed prose poem (fu) on sexual intercourse attributed to Tang poet Bai Xingjian (776–826). Although it is considered a lost work, fragments of the poem were discovered as part of the Dunhuang manuscripts by Paul Pelliot in 1908 and first published by Ye Dehui in 1914.

Poetic structure and contents

The poem is an example of fu, translated into English as "songs" or "description", which were often intended to be recited, rather than sung. Specifically, it is a sufu (俗賦) or "vulgar fu", the likes of which were inspired by the oral traditions of Buddhism and Taoism during the Tang dynasty. The poet writes in the preamble: "Although it takes the form of obscene talk, the idea of the song will proclaim the delightful part of human life. As joy granted to human beings, there is nothing greater than this."

The rest of the extant poem comprises 240 lines and describes fourteen forms of sexual intercourse, including coitus reservatus. It promotes heterosexual sex as the "ultimate human pleasure", while also affirming homosexual behaviour. According to Robert van Gulik, the line "they read the Canon of the Plain Girl and look at the erotic pictures ..." is evidence that illustrated sex manuals existed from the Tang dynasty at least.

Publication history

The poem is attributed to poet Bai Xingjian, who was active during the Tang dynasty. It is now considered a lost literary work; Ping Yao speculates that it "must have astounded post-Tang readers so much that the text disappeared after the Tang." It remained in obscurity for centuries, until fragments of the poem were discovered as part of the Dunhuang manuscripts by Paul Pelliot in 1908 and first published by Ye Dehui in 1914.