suí隋gōng宫

The Sui palace here means the travel palace Emperor Yang of Sui built at Jiangdu, today's Yangzhou in Jiangsu. Emperor Yang loved pleasure. Several times he sailed to Jiangdu on splendid dragon boats with huge crowds of followers. It cost a great deal of money and was very hard on the people. Some ministers wrote to warn him not to go, and he had them put to death. Soon the Sui dynasty fell, and he himself died at Jiangdu. Li Shangyin, living in the late Tang, used this old story as a warning to his own time. The year it was written is not known.

隋宫指隋炀帝在江都（今江苏扬州）修的行宫。隋炀帝很爱享乐，几次坐着豪华的龙船，带着大队人马去江都游玩，花费了大量钱财，百姓非常辛苦。有大臣上书劝他不要去，竟被他处死。最后隋朝很快灭亡，他自己也死在江都。李商隐生活在晚唐，借隋朝的旧事来提醒当时的人。写作年份不能确定。

Li Shangyin (about 813–858) was a great late Tang poet. He and Du Mu are called "the Little Li and Du". His poems are finely worded and full of hidden meaning. He wrote several poems about history that use the past to criticize the present, often taking the follies of earlier emperors to point at problems in his own court. He also wrote an eight-line poem with the same title.

李商隐（约813—约858），晚唐大诗人，和杜牧并称“小李杜”。他的诗词句精美，含义很深。他写过好几首借古讽今的咏史诗，常常拿前朝皇帝的荒唐事，来说当时朝廷的问题。他还写过一首七言律诗，也叫《隋宫》。

The poem does not scold Emperor Yang directly. It just lays out what happened and lets us think for ourselves. The first two lines show his willfulness. He goes wherever he likes, with no care for safety, and does not even look at his ministers' warnings. The last two lines paint a scene that is exaggerated yet true. Spring has come, and the whole country is busy cutting brocade. Not to clothe the people, but to make mud guards for the emperor's horses and sails for his boats. Such precious silk is used to block mud and catch the wind. The words "the whole country" show how much was spent and how the people suffered. Reading this, we understand why the Sui fell so quickly.

这首诗不直接骂隋炀帝，只是把事情摆出来，让人自己去想。前两句写他的任性：想去就去，不做防备；大臣劝他，他根本不看。后两句画出一个夸张又真实的场面：春天到了，全国的人都在忙着剪锦缎，不是给百姓做衣服，而是给皇帝的马做障泥、给龙船做帆。锦缎那么贵重，却被拿去挡泥土、迎风吹。一个“举国”，写出了花钱之多、百姓之苦。读到这里，我们就明白隋朝为什么那么快就灭亡了。