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diff --git a/16500-h/16500-h.htm b/16500-h/16500-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db0e08d --- /dev/null +++ b/16500-h/16500-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4091 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of More Translations from the Chinese, by Arthur Waley. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h5 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; + } + h3,h4 { + text-align: left; + clear: both; + margin-left: 10%; + } + + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .toc {text-indent: 2.5em;} + .tocpg {text-align: right; text-indent: 0em; vertical-align: bottom;} + .tochd {font-variant: small-caps; text-indent: 0em;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .right {text-align: right;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i16 {display: block; margin-left: 16em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of More Translations from the Chinese, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: More Translations from the Chinese + +Author: Various + +Translator: Arthur Waley + +Release Date: August 10, 2005 [EBook #16500] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORE TRANSLATIONS FROM THE CHINESE *** + + + + +Produced by David Starner, Jonathan Niehof and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<p><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a><i>Translations by Arthur Waley</i></p> +<ol style="list-style-type: upper-roman"> +<li>A HUNDRED AND SEVENTY CHINESE POEMS</li> +<li>MORE TRANSLATIONS FROM THE CHINESE</li> +</ol> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></p> +<h1>MORE TRANSLATIONS +FROM THE CHINESE</h1> + +<h3 style="text-align:center; margin-left:0%;">BY</h3> + +<h2>ARTHUR WALEY</h2> + + +<p class="center">NEW YORK</p> + +<p class="center">ALFRED · A · KNOPF</p> + +<p class="center">MCMXIX</p> +<p class="smcap center"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a><br />COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY +ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc.</p> + +<p class="center" style="font-size: smaller">PRINTED BY THE VAIL-BALLOU CO., BINGHAMTON, N.Y. +ON WARREN’S INDIA TINT OLD STYLE PAPER<br /> +BOUND BY THE PLIMPTON PRESS, NORWOOD, MASS +</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> +<table class="toc" border="0" summary="Table of Contents" title="Table of Contents" cellspacing="5%"> +<tr><td></td><td class="tocpg" style="font-size: smaller;">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tochd"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tochd"><a href="#CHU_YUAN">Ch‘ü Yüan</a>:—</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_GREAT_SUMMONS">The Great Summons</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tochd"><a href="#WANG_WEI">Wang Wei</a>:—</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#PROSE_LETTER">Prose Letter</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tochd"><a href="#LI_PO">Li Po</a>:—</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#DRINKING_ALONE_BY_MOONLIGHT">Drinking Alone by Moonlight</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IN_THE_MOUNTAINS_ON_A_SUMMER_DAY">In the Mountains on a Summer Day</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WAKING_FROM_DRUNKENNESS_ON_A_SPRING">Waking from Drunkenness on a Spring Day</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SELF-ABANDONMENT">Self-Abandonment</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TO_TAN_CHIU">To Tan Ch‘iu</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CLEARING_AT_DAWN">Clearing at Dawn</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tochd"><a href="#PO_CHU-I">Po Chü-i</a>:—</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LIFE_OF_PO_CHU-I">Life of Po Chü-i</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#AFTER_PASSING_THE_EXAMINATION">After Passing the Examination</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ESCORTING_CANDIDATES_TO_THE_EXAMINATION_HALL">Escorting Candidates to the Examination Hall</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IN_EARLY_SUMMER_LODGING_IN_A_TEMPLE">In Early Summer Lodging in a Temple to Enjoy the Moonlight</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SICK_LEAVE">Sick Leave</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WATCHING_THE_REAPERS">Watching the Reapers</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#GOING_ALONE_TO_SPEND_A_NIGHT_AT_THE">Going Alone to Spend a Night at the Hsien-Yu Temple</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#PLANTING_BAMBOOS">Planting Bamboos</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a><a href="#TO_LI_CHIEN">To Li Chien</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#AT_THE_END_OF_SPRING">At the End of Spring</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_POEM_ON_THE_WALL">The Poem on the Wall</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHU_CHEN_VILLAGE">Chu Ch‘ēn Village</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#FISHING_IN_THE_WEI_RIVER">Fishing in the Wei River</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LAZY_MANS_SONG">Lazy Man’s Song</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ILLNESS_AND_IDLENESS">Illness and Idleness</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WINTER_NIGHT">Winter Night</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_CHRYSANTHEMUMS_IN_THE_EASTERN">The Chrysanthemums in the Eastern Garden</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#POEMS_IN_DEPRESSION_AT_WEI_VILLAGE">Poems in Depression, at Wei Village</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TO_HIS_BROTHER_HSING-CHIEN_WHO_WAS">To His Brother Hsing-Chien, Who was in Tung-Ch‘uan</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#STARTING_EARLY_FROM_THE_CHU-CHENG">Starting Early from the Ch‘u-Ch‘ēng Inn</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#RAIN">Rain</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_BEGINNING_OF_SUMMER">The Beginning of Summer</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#VISITING_THE_HSI-LIN_TEMPLE">Visiting the Hsi-Lin Temple</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#PROSE_LETTER_TO_YUAN_CHEN">Prose Letter to Yüan Chēn</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#HEARING_THE_EARLY_ORIOLE">Hearing the Early Oriole</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#DREAMING_THAT_I_WENT_WITH_LU_AND_YU">Dreaming that I Went with Lu and Yu to Visit Yüan Chēn</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_FIFTEENTH_VOLUME">The Fifteenth Volume</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#INVITATION_TO_HSIAO_CHU-SHIH1">Invitation to Hsiao Chü-Shih</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TO_LI_CHIEN_2">To Li Chien</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_SPRING_RIVER">The Spring River</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#AFTER_COLLECTING_THE_AUTUMN_TAXES">After Collecting the Autumn Taxes</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LODGING_WITH_THE_OLD_MAN_OF_THE">Lodging with the Old Man of the Stream</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TO_HIS_BROTHER_HSING-CHIEN">To His Brother Hsing-Chien</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_PINE-TREES_IN_THE_COURTYARD">The Pine-Trees in the Courtyard</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SLEEPING_ON_HORSEBACK">Sleeping on Horseback</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#PARTING_FROM_THE_WINTER_STOVE">Parting from the Winter Stove</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#GOOD-BYE_TO_THE_PEOPLE_OF_HANGCHOW">Good-Bye to the People of Hangchow</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WRITTEN_WHEN_GOVERNOR_OF_SOOCHOW">Written when Governor of Soochow</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a><a href="#GETTING_UP_EARLY_ON_A_SPRING_MORNING">Getting Up Early on a Spring Morning</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LOSING_A_SLAVE-GIRL">Losing a Slave-Girl</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_GRAND_HOUSES_AT_LO-YANG">The Grand Houses at Lo-Yang</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_CRANES">The Cranes</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ON_HIS_BALDNESS">On His Baldness</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THINKING_OF_THE_PAST">Thinking of the Past</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#A_MAD_POEM_ADDRESSED_TO_MY_NEPHEWS_AND_NIECES">A Mad Poem Addressed to My Nephews and Nieces</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#OLD_AGE">Old Age</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TO_A_TALKATIVE_GUEST">To a Talkative Guest</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TO_LIU_YU-HSI">To Liu Yü-Hsi</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#MY_SERVANT_WAKES_ME">My Servant Wakes Me</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SINCE_I_LAY_ILL">Since I Lay Ill</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SONG_OF_PAST_FEELINGS_With_Preface">Song of Past Feelings</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ILLNESS">Illness</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#RESIGNATION">Resignation</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tochd"><a href="#YUAN_CHEN">Yüan Chēn</a>:—</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_STORY_OF_TSUI_YING-YING">The Story of Ts‘ui Ying-Ying</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_PITCHER">The Pitcher</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tochd"><a href="#PO_HSING-CHIEN">Po Hsing-Chien</a>:—</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_STORY_OF_MISS_LI">The Story of Miss Li</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tochd"><a href="#WANG_CHIEN">Wang Chien</a>:—</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#HEARING_THAT_HIS_FRIEND_WAS_COMING_BACK_FROM_THE_WAR">Hearing that His Friend was Coming Back from the War</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THE_SOUTH">The South</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tochd"><a href="#OU-YANG_HSIU">Ou-Yang Hsiu</a>:—</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#AUTUMN">Autumn</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr> +<tr><td></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tochd"><a href="#APPENDIX">Appendix</a></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr> +</table> + + +<p><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a></p> +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2> + + +<p>This book is not intended to be representative of Chinese +literature as a whole. I have chosen and arranged chronologically +various pieces which interested me and which it +seemed possible to translate adequately.</p> + +<p>An account of the history and technique of Chinese poetry +will be found in the introduction to my last book.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> +Learned reviewers must not suppose that I have failed to appreciate +the poets whom I do not translate. Nor can they +complain that the more famous of these poets are inaccessible +to European readers; about a hundred of Li Po’s +poems have been translated, and thirty or forty of Tu Fu’s. +I have, as before, given half my space to Po Chü-i, of whose +poems I had selected for translation a much larger number +than I have succeeded in rendering. I will give literal versions +of two rejected ones:</p> + + +<h3>EVENING</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 835</i>]</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Water’s colour at-dusk still white;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Sunsets glow in-the-dark gradually nil.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Windy lotus shakes [like] broken fan;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Wave-moon stirs [like] string [of] jewels.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Crickets chirping answer one another;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Mandarin-ducks sleep, not alone.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Little servant repeatedly announces night;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Returning steps still hesitate.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>IN EARLY SPRING ALONE CLIMBING THE T‘IEN-KUNG PAGODA</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 389</i>]</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>T‘ien-kung sun warm, pagoda door open;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Alone climbing, greet Spring, drink one cup.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Without limit excursion-people afar-off wonder at me;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>What cause most old most first arrived!</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>While many of the pieces in “170 Chinese Poems” aimed +at literary form in English, others did no more than give +the sense of the Chinese in almost as crude a way as the +two examples above. It was probably because of this inconsistency +that no reviewer treated the book as an experiment +in English unrhymed verse, though this was the aspect +of it which most interested the writer.</p> + +<p>In the present work I have aimed more consistently at +poetic form, but have included on account of their biographical +interest two or three rather unsuccessful versions +of late poems by Po Chü-i.</p> + +<p>For leave to reprint I am indebted to the editors of the +<i>English Review</i>, <i>Nation</i>, <i>New Statesman</i>, <i>Bulletin of School +of Oriental Studies</i>, and <i>Reconstruction</i>.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> “170 Chinese Poems,” New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1919.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a></p> +<h2><a name="CHU_YUAN" id="CHU_YUAN"></a>CH‘U YÜAN</h2> + +<h5>[<i>Fourth Century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span></i>]</h5> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a></p><p><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a></p> +<h3><a name="THE_GREAT_SUMMONS" id="THE_GREAT_SUMMONS"></a>[1] THE GREAT SUMMONS</h3> + + +<p><i>When Ch‘ü Yüan had been exiled from the Court for +nine years, he became so despondent that he feared his +soul would part from his body and he would die. It was +then that he made the poem called “The Great Summons,” +calling upon his soul not to leave him.</i></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Green Spring receiveth<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The vacant earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The white sun shineth;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Spring wind provoketh<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To burst and burgeon<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Each sprout and flower.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In those dark caves where Winter lurketh<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Hide not, my Soul!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back again! O, do not stray!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back again and go not east or west, or north or south!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For to the East a mighty water drowneth Earth’s other shore;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tossed on its waves and heaving with its tides<br /></span> +<span class="i6">The hornless Dragon of the Ocean rideth:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clouds gather low and fogs enfold the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i6">And gleaming ice drifts past.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul go not to the East,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the silent Valley of Sunrise!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O Soul go not to the South<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where mile on mile the earth is burnt away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And poisonous serpents slither through the flames;<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>Where on precipitous paths or in deep woods<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tigers and leopards prowl,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And water-scorpions wait;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the king-python rears his giant head.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul, go not to the South<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the three-footed tortoise spits disease!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O Soul go not to the West<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where level wastes of sand stretch on and on;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And demons rage, swine-headed, hairy-skinned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With bulging eyes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who in wild laughter gnash projecting fangs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul go not to the West<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where many perils wait!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O Soul go not to the North,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the Lame Dragon’s frozen peaks;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where trees and grasses dare not grow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where a river runs too wide to cross<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And too deep to plumb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the sky is white with snow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the cold cuts and kills.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul seek not to fill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The treacherous voids of the north!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back to idleness and peace.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In quietude enjoy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lands of Ching and Ch‘u.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There work your will and follow your desire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till sorrow is forgot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And carelessness shall bring you length of days.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back to joys beyond all telling!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"><p><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a></p> +<span class="i0">Where thirty cubits high at harvest-time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The corn is stacked;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where pies are cooked of millet and bearded-maize.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Guests watch the steaming bowls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sniff the pungency of peppered herbs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cunning cook adds slices of bird-flesh,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pigeon and yellow-heron and black-crane.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They taste the badger-stew.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back to feed on foods you love!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Next are brought<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fresh turtle, and sweet chicken cooked in cheese<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pressed by the men of Ch‘u.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And pickled sucking-pig<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And flesh of whelps floating in liver-sauce<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With salad of minced radishes in brine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All served with that hot spice of southernwood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The land of Wu supplies.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back to choose the meats you love!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Roasted daw, steamed widgeon and grilled quail—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On every fowl they fare.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Boiled perch and sparrow broth,—in each preserved<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The separate flavour that is most its own.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back to where such dainties wait!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The four strong liquors are warming at the fire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So that they grate not on the drinker’s throat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How fragrant rise their fumes, how cool their taste!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such drink is not for louts or serving-men!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wise distillers from the land of Wu<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blend unfermented spirit with white yeast<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>And brew the <i>li</i> of Ch‘u.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back and let your yearnings cease!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Reed-organs from the lands of T‘ai and Ch‘in<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Wei and Chēng<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gladden the feasters, and old songs are sung:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The “Rider’s Song” that once<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fu-hsi, the ancient monarch, made;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the harp-songs of Ch‘u.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then after prelude from the flutes of Chao<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ballad-singer’s voice rises alone.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back to the hollow mulberry-tree!<a name="FNanchor_1_2" id="FNanchor_1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_2" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Eight and eight the dancers sway,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Weaving their steps to the poet’s voice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who speaks his odes and rhapsodies;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They tap their bells and beat their chimes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rigidly, lest harp and flute<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should mar the measure.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then rival singers of the Four Domains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Compete in melody, till not a tune<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is left unsung that human voice could sing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back and listen to their songs!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then women enter whose red lips and dazzling teeth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seduce the eye;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But meek and virtuous, trained in every art;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fit sharers of play-time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So soft their flesh and delicate their bones.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back and let them ease your woe!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>Then enter other ladies with laughing lips<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sidelong glances under moth-eye brows;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose cheeks are fresh and red;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ladies both great of heart and long of limb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose beauty by sobriety is matched.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well-padded cheeks and ears with curving rim,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">High-arching eyebrows, as with compass drawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great hearts and loving gestures—all are there;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Small waists and necks as slender as the clasp<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of courtiers’ brooches.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back to those whose tenderness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drives angry thoughts away!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Last enter those<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose every action is contrived to please;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Black-painted eyebrows and white-powdered cheeks.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They reek with scent; with their long sleeves they brush<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The faces of the feasters whom they pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or pluck the coats of those who will not stay.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back to pleasures of the night!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A summer-house with spacious rooms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a high hall with beams stained red;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A little closet in the southern wing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reached by a private stair.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And round the house a covered way should run<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where horses might be trained.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sometimes riding, sometimes going afoot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You shall explore, O Soul, the parks of spring;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your jewelled axles gleaming in the sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yoke inlaid with gold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>Or amid orchises and sandal-trees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall walk in the dark woods.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back and live for these delights!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Peacocks shall fill your gardens; you shall rear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The roc and phœnix, and red jungle-fowl,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose cry at dawn assembles river storks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To join the play of cranes and ibises;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the wild-swan all day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pursues the glint of idle king-fishers.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back to watch the birds in flight!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He who has found such manifold delights<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall feel his cheeks aglow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the blood-spirit dancing through his limbs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stay with me, Soul, and share<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The span of days that happiness will bring;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See sons and grandsons serving at the Court<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ennobled and enriched.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back and bring prosperity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To house and stock!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The roads that lead to Ch‘u<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall teem with travellers as thick as clouds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A thousand miles away.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the Five Orders of Nobility<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall summon sages to assist the King<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with godlike discrimination choose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wise in council; by their aid to probe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hidden discontents of humble men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And help the lonely poor.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back and end what we began!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"><p><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a></p> +<span class="i0">Fields, villages and lanes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall throng with happy men;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good rule protect the people and make known<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The King’s benevolence to all the land;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stern discipline prepare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their natures for the soft caress of Art.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back to where the good are praised!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like the sun shining over the four seas<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall be the reputation of our King;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His deeds, matched only in Heaven, shall repair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wrongs endured by every tribe of men,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Northward to Yu and southward to Annam<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the Sheep’s Gut Mountain and the Eastern Seas.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back to where the wise are sought!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Behold the glorious virtues of our King<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Triumphant, terrible;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold with solemn faces in the Hall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Three Grand Ministers walk up and down,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">None chosen for the post save landed-lords<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or, in default, Knights of the Nine Degrees.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the first ray of dawn already is hung<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The shooting-target, where with bow in hand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And arrows under arm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each archer does obeisance to each,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Willing to yield his rights of precedence.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Soul come back to where men honour still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The name of the Three Kings.<a name="FNanchor_2_3" id="FNanchor_2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_3" class="fnanchor">[2]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_2" id="Footnote_1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_2"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The harp.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_3" id="Footnote_2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_3"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Yü, T‘ang and Wēn, the three just rulers of antiquity.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a></p> +<h2><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a><a name="WANG_WEI" id="WANG_WEI"></a>WANG WEI</h2> + +<h5>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 699-759</i>]</h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a></p> +<h3><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a><a name="PROSE_LETTER" id="PROSE_LETTER"></a>[2] PROSE LETTER</h3> + +<p><i>To the Bachelor-of-Arts P‘ei Ti</i></p> + + +<p>Of late during the sacrificial month, the weather has been +calm and clear, and I might easily have crossed the mountain. +But I knew that you were conning the classics and +did not dare disturb you. So I roamed about the mountain-side, +rested at the Kan-p‘ei Temple, dined with the +mountain priests, and, after dinner, came home again. Going +northwards, I crossed the Yüan-pa, over whose waters +the unclouded moon shone with dazzling rim. When night +was far advanced, I mounted Hua-tzü’s Hill and saw the +moonlight tossed up and thrown down by the jostling waves +of Wang River. On the wintry mountain distant lights +twinkled and vanished; in some deep lane beyond the forest +a dog barked at the cold, with a cry as fierce as a wolf’s. +The sound of villagers grinding their corn at night filled +the gaps between the slow chiming of a distant bell.</p> + +<p>Now I am sitting alone. I listen, but cannot hear my +grooms and servants move or speak. I think much of +old days: how hand in hand, composing poems as we +went, we walked down twisting paths to the banks of clear +streams.</p> + +<p>We must wait for Spring to come: till the grasses sprout +and the trees bloom. Then wandering together in the spring +hills we shall see the trout leap lightly from the stream, the +white gulls stretch their wings, the dew fall on the green +moss. And in the morning we shall hear the cry of curlews +in the barley-fields.</p> + +<p>It is not long to wait. Shall you be with me then? Did +I not know the natural subtlety of your intelligence, I would +<a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>not dare address to you so remote an invitation. You will +understand that a deep feeling dictates this course.</p> + +<p>Written without disrespect by Wang Wei, a dweller in the +mountains.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a><a name="LI_PO" id="LI_PO"></a>LI PO</h2> + +<h5>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 701-762</i>]</h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a></p> +<h3><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a><a name="DRINKING_ALONE_BY_MOONLIGHT" id="DRINKING_ALONE_BY_MOONLIGHT"></a>[3-5] DRINKING ALONE BY MOONLIGHT</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Three Poems</i>]</h4> + + +<h4>I</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I drink alone, for no friend is near.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For he, with my shadow, will make three men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I must make merry before the Spring is spent.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While we were sober, three shared the fun;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now we are drunk, each goes his way.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.<a name="FNanchor_1_4" id="FNanchor_1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_4" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4>II</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In the third month the town of Hsien-yang<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is thick-spread with a carpet of fallen flowers.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who in Spring can bear to grieve alone?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who, sober, look on sights like these?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Riches and Poverty, long or short life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the Maker of Things are portioned and disposed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But a cup of wine levels life and death<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a thousand things obstinately hard to prove.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I am drunk, I lose Heaven and Earth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>Motionless—I cleave to my lonely bed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At last I forget that I exist at all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And at <i>that</i> moment my joy is great indeed.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4>III</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If High Heaven had no love for wine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There would not be a Wine Star in the sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If Earth herself had no love for wine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There would not be a city called Wine Springs.<a name="FNanchor_2_5" id="FNanchor_2_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_5" class="fnanchor">[2]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since Heaven and Earth both love wine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I can love wine, without shame before God.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clear wine was once called a Saint;<a name="FNanchor_3_6" id="FNanchor_3_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_6" class="fnanchor">[3]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thick wine was once called “a Sage.”<a href="#Footnote_3_6" class="fnanchor">[3]</a><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Of Saint and Sage I have long quaffed deep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What need for me to study spirits and <i>hsien</i>?<a name="FNanchor_4_7" id="FNanchor_4_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_7" class="fnanchor">[4]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the third cup I penetrate the Great Way;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A full gallon—Nature and I are one ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the things I feel when wine possesses my soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will never tell to those who are not drunk.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_4" id="Footnote_1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_4"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The Milky Way.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_5" id="Footnote_2_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_5"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Ch‘iu-ch‘üan, in Kansuh.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_6" id="Footnote_3_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_6"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> “History of Wei Dynasty” (Life of Hsü Mo): “A drunken +visitor said, ‘Clear wine I account a Saint: thick wine only a Sage.’”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_7" id="Footnote_4_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_7"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The lore of Rishi, Immortals.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a><a name="IN_THE_MOUNTAINS_ON_A_SUMMER_DAY" id="IN_THE_MOUNTAINS_ON_A_SUMMER_DAY"></a>[6] IN THE MOUNTAINS ON A SUMMER DAY</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Gently I stir a white feather fan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With open shirt sitting in a green wood.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A wind from the pine-trees trickles on my bare head.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a><a name="WAKING_FROM_DRUNKENNESS_ON_A_SPRING" id="WAKING_FROM_DRUNKENNESS_ON_A_SPRING"></a>[7] WAKING FROM DRUNKENNESS ON A SPRING +DAY</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Life in the World is but a big dream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will not spoil it by any labour or care.”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So saying, I was drunk all the day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lying helpless at the porch in front of my door.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I woke up, I blinked at the garden-lawn;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A lonely bird was singing amid the flowers.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I asked myself, had the day been wet or fine?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Spring wind was telling the mango-bird.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Moved by its song I soon began to sigh,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And as wine was there I filled my own cup.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wildly singing I waited for the moon to rise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When my song was over, all my senses had gone.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a><a name="SELF-ABANDONMENT" id="SELF-ABANDONMENT"></a>[8] SELF-ABANDONMENT</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I sat drinking and did not notice the dusk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till falling petals filled the folds of my dress.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drunken I rose and walked to the moonlit stream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The birds were gone, and men also few.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a><a name="TO_TAN_CHIU" id="TO_TAN_CHIU"></a>[9] TO TAN CH‘IU</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My friend is lodging high in the Eastern Range,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dearly loving the beauty of valleys and hills.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At green Spring he lies in the empty woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And is still asleep when the sun shines on high.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A pine-tree wind dusts his sleeves and coat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A pebbly stream cleans his heart and ears.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I envy you, who far from strife and talk<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are high-propped on a pillow of blue cloud.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a><a name="CLEARING_AT_DAWN" id="CLEARING_AT_DAWN"></a>[10] CLEARING AT DAWN</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The fields are chill; the sparse rain has stopped;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The colours of Spring teem on every side.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With leaping fish the blue pond is full;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With singing thrushes the green boughs droop.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flowers of the field have dabbled their powdered cheeks;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mountain grasses are bent level at the waist.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the bamboo stream the last fragment of cloud<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blown by the wind slowly scatters away.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a><a name="PO_CHU-I" id="PO_CHU-I"></a>PO CHU-I</h2> + +<h3><a name="LIFE_OF_PO_CHU-I" id="LIFE_OF_PO_CHU-I"></a>LIFE OF PO CHU-I</h3> + + +<p> +772 Born on 20th of 1st month.<br /> +800 Passes his examinations.<br /> +806 Receives a minor post at Chou-chih, near the capital.<br /> +807 Made Scholar of the Han Lin Academy.<br /> +811 Retires to Wei River, being in mourning for his mother.<br /> +814 Returns to Court.<br /> +815 Banished to Hsün-yang.<br /> +818 Removed to Chung-chou.<br /> +820 Reprieved and returns to Court.<br /> +822 Governor of Hangchow.<br /> +825 Governor of Soochow.<br /> +826 Retires owing to illness.<br /> +827 Returns to Ch‘ang-an.<br /> +829 Settles permanently at Lo-yang.<br /> +831 Governor of Ho-nan, the province of which Lo-yang was capital.<br /> +833 Retires owing to illness.<br /> +839 Has paralytic stroke in tenth month.<br /> +846 Dies in the eighth month.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a><a name="AFTER_PASSING_THE_EXAMINATION" id="AFTER_PASSING_THE_EXAMINATION"></a>[11] AFTER PASSING THE EXAMINATION</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 800</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For ten years I never left my books;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I went up ... and won unmerited praise.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My high place I do not much prize;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The joy of my parents will first make me proud.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fellow students, six or seven men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See me off as I leave the City gate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My covered couch is ready to drive away;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flutes and strings blend their parting tune.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hopes achieved dull the pains of parting;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fumes of wine shorten the long road....<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shod with wings is the horse of him who rides<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On a Spring day the road that leads to home.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a><a name="ESCORTING_CANDIDATES_TO_THE_EXAMINATION_HALL" id="ESCORTING_CANDIDATES_TO_THE_EXAMINATION_HALL"></a>[12] ESCORTING CANDIDATES TO THE EXAMINATION HALL</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 805</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At dawn I rode to escort the Doctors of Art;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the eastern quarter the sky was still grey.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I said to myself, “You have started far too soon,”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But horses and coaches already thronged the road.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">High and low the riders’ torches bobbed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Muffled or loud, the watchman’s drum beat.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Riders, when I see you prick<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To your early levee, pity fills my heart.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the sun rises and the hot dust flies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the creatures of earth resume their great strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You, with your striving, what shall you each seek?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Profit and fame, for that is all your care.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I, you courtiers, rise from my bed at noon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And live idly in the city of Ch‘ang-an.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spring is deep and my term of office spent;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Day by day my thoughts go back to the hills.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a><a name="IN_EARLY_SUMMER_LODGING_IN_A_TEMPLE" id="IN_EARLY_SUMMER_LODGING_IN_A_TEMPLE"></a>[13] IN EARLY SUMMER LODGING IN A TEMPLE +TO ENJOY THE MOONLIGHT</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 805</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In early summer, with two or three more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That were seeking fame in the city of Ch‘ang-an,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose low employ gave them less business<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than ever they had since first they left their homes,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With these I wandered deep into the shrine of Tao,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the joy we sought was promised in this place.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When we reached the gate, we sent our coaches back;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We entered the yard with only cap and stick.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still and clear, the first weeks of May,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When trees are green and bushes soft and wet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the wind has stolen the shadows of new leaves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And birds linger on the last boughs that bloom.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Towards evening when the sky grew clearer yet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the South-east was still clothed in red,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the western cloister we carried our jar of wine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While we waited for the moon, our cups moved slow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soon, how soon her golden ghost was born,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swiftly, as though she had waited for us to come.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The beams of her light shone in every place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On towers and halls dancing to and fro.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till day broke we sat in her clear light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laughing and singing, and yet never grew tired.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Ch‘ang-an, the place of profit and fame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such moods as this, how many men know?<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a><a name="SICK_LEAVE" id="SICK_LEAVE"></a>[14] SICK LEAVE</h3> + +<h4>[<i>While Secretary to the Deputy-Assistant-Magistrate of +Chou-chih, near Ch‘ang-an, in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 806</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Propped on pillows, not attending to business;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For two days I’ve lain behind locked doors.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I begin to think that those who hold office<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Get no rest, except by falling ill!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For restful thoughts one does not need space;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The room where I lie is ten foot square.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the western eaves, above the bamboo-twigs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From my couch I see the White Mountain rise.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the clouds that hover on its far-distant peak<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bring shame to a face that is buried in the World’s dust.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a><a name="WATCHING_THE_REAPERS" id="WATCHING_THE_REAPERS"></a>[15] WATCHING THE REAPERS</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 806</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tillers of the soil have few idle months;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the fifth month their toil is double-fold.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A south-wind visits the fields at night:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suddenly the hill is covered with yellow corn.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wives and daughters shoulder baskets of rice;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Youths and boys carry the flasks of wine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Following after they bring a wage of meat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the strong reapers toiling on the southern hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose feet are burned by the hot earth they tread,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose backs are scorched by flames of the shining sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tired they toil, caring nothing for the heat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grudging the shortness of the long summer day.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A poor woman follows at the reapers’ side<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With an infant child carried close at her breast.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With her right hand she gleans the fallen grain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On her left arm a broken basket hangs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And <i>I</i> to-day ... by virtue of what right<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have I never once tended field or tree?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My government-pay is three hundred tons;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the year’s end I have still grain in hand.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thinking of this, secretly I grew ashamed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all day the thought lingered in my head.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a><a name="GOING_ALONE_TO_SPEND_A_NIGHT_AT_THE" id="GOING_ALONE_TO_SPEND_A_NIGHT_AT_THE"></a>[16] GOING ALONE TO SPEND A NIGHT AT THE +HSIEN-YU TEMPLE</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 806</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The crane from the shore standing at the top of the steps;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The moon on the pool seen at the open door;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where these are, I made my lodging-place<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And for two nights could not turn away.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am glad I chanced on a place so lonely and still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With no companion to drag me early home.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now that I have tasted the joy of being alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will never again come with a friend at my side.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a><a name="PLANTING_BAMBOOS" id="PLANTING_BAMBOOS"></a>[17] PLANTING BAMBOOS</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 806</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Unrewarded, my will to serve the State;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At my closed door autumn grasses grow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What could I do to ease a rustic heart?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I planted bamboos, more than a hundred shoots.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I see their beauty, as they grow by the stream-side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I feel again as though I lived in the hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And many a time on public holidays<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round their railing I walk till night comes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do not say that their roots are still weak,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do not say that their shade is still small;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Already I feel that both in garden and house<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Day by day a fresher air moves.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But most I love, lying near the window-side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hear in their branches the sound of the autumn-wind.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a><a name="TO_LI_CHIEN" id="TO_LI_CHIEN"></a>[18] TO LI CHIEN</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Part of a Poem</i>]</h4> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 807</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Worldly matters again draw my steps;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worldly things again seduce my heart.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whenever for long I part from Li Chien<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gradually my thoughts grow narrow and covetous.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I remember how once I used to visit you;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I stopped my horse and tapped at the garden-gate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Often when I came you were still lying in bed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your little children were sent to let me in.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you, laughing, ran to the front-door<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With coat-tails flying and cap all awry.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the swept terrace, green patterns of moss;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the dusted bench, clean shadows of leaves.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To gaze at the hills we sat in the eastern lodge;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To wait for the moon we walked to the southern moor.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At your quiet gate only birds spoke;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In your distant street few drums were heard.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Opposite each other all day we talked,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And never once spoke of profit or fame.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since we parted hands, how long has passed?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thrice and again the full moon has shone.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For when we parted the last flowers were falling,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to-day I hear new cicadas sing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The scented year suddenly draws to its close,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet the sorrow of parting is still unsubdued.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a><a name="AT_THE_END_OF_SPRING" id="AT_THE_END_OF_SPRING"></a>[19] AT THE END OF SPRING</h3> + +<h4><i>To Yüan Chēn.</i><a name="FNanchor_1_8" id="FNanchor_1_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_8" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> [<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 810</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The flower of the pear-tree gathers and turns to fruit;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The swallows’ eggs have hatched into young birds.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the Seasons’ changes thus confront the mind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What comfort can the Doctrine of Tao give?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It will teach me to watch the days and months fly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without grieving that Youth slips away;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If the Fleeting World is but a long dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It does not matter whether one is young or old.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But ever since the day that my friend left my side<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And has lived an exile in the City of Chiang-ling,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is one wish I cannot quite destroy:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That from time to time we may chance to meet again.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_8" id="Footnote_1_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_8"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Po Chü-i’s great friend. See Nos. 63 and 64.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a><a name="THE_POEM_ON_THE_WALL" id="THE_POEM_ON_THE_WALL"></a>[20] THE POEM ON THE WALL</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 810</i>]</h4> + +<h4>[<i>Yüan Chēn wrote that on his way to exile he had discovered +a poem inscribed by Po Chü-i, on the wall of +the Lo-k‘ou Inn.</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My clumsy poem on the inn-wall none cared to see.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With bird-droppings and moss’s growth the letters were blotched away.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There came a guest with heart so full, that though a page to the Throne,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He did not grudge with his broidered coat to wipe off the dust, and read.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a><a name="CHU_CHEN_VILLAGE" id="CHU_CHEN_VILLAGE"></a>[21] CHU CH‘ĒN VILLAGE</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 811</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In Hsü-chou, in the District of Ku-fēng<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There lies a village whose name is Chu-ch‘ēn—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A hundred miles away from the county-town,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amid fields of hemp and green of mulberry-trees.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Click, click goes the sound of the spinning-wheel;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mules and oxen pack the village-streets.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The girls go drawing the water from the brook;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The men go gathering fire-wood on the hill.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So far from the town Government affairs are few;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So deep in the hills, man’s ways are simple.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though they have wealth, they do not traffic with it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though they reach the age, they do not enter the Army.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each family keeps to its village trade;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grey-headed, they have never left the gates.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Alive, they are the people of Ch‘ēn Village;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dead, they become the dust of Ch‘ēn Village.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out in the fields old men and young<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gaze gladly, each in the other’s face.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the whole village there are only two clans;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Age after age Chus have married Ch‘ēns.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Near or distant, they have kinsmen in every house;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Young or old, they have friends wherever they go.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On white wine and roasted fowl they fare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At joyful meetings more than “once a week.”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While they are alive, they have no distant partings;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To choose a wife they go to a neighbour’s house.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When they are dead,—no distant burial;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round the village graves lie thick.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>They are not troubled either about life or death;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They have no anguish either of body or soul.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so it happens that they live to a ripe age<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And great-great-grandsons are often seen.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>I</i> was born in the Realms of Etiquette;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In early years, unprotected and poor.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alone, I learnt to distinguish between Evil and Good;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Untutored, I toiled at bitter tasks.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The World’s Law honours Learning and Fame;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scholars prize marriages and Caps.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With these fetters I gyved my own hands;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Truly I became a much-deceived man.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At ten years old I learnt to read books;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At fifteen, I knew how to write prose.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At twenty I was made a Bachelor of Arts;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At thirty I became a Censor at the Court.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above, the duty I owe to Prince and parents;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Below, the ties that bind me to wife and child.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The support of my family, the service of my country—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For these tasks my nature is not apt.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I reckon the time that I first left my home;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From then till now,—fifteen Springs!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My lonely boat has thrice sailed to Ch‘u;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Four times through Ch‘in my lean horse has passed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have walked in the morning with hunger in my face;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have lain at night with a soul that could not rest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">East and West I have wandered without pause,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hither and thither like a cloud astray in the sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the civil-war my old home was destroyed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of my flesh and blood many are scattered and lost.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">North of the River, and South of the River—<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>In both lands are the friends of all my life;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life-friends whom I never see at all,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose deaths I hear of only after the lapse of years.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sad at morning, I lie on my bed till dusk;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Weeping at night, I sit and wait for dawn.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fire of sorrow has burnt my heart’s core;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The frost of trouble has seized my hair’s roots.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In such anguish has my whole life passed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long I have envied the people of Ch‘ēn Village.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a><a name="FISHING_IN_THE_WEI_RIVER" id="FISHING_IN_THE_WEI_RIVER"></a>[22] FISHING IN THE WEI RIVER</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 811</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In waters still as a burnished mirror’s face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the depths of Wei, carp and grayling swim.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Idly I come with my bamboo fishing-rod<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hang my hook by the banks of Wei stream.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gentle wind blows on my fishing-gear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Softly shaking my ten feet of line.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though my body sits waiting for fish to come,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My heart has wandered to the Land of Nothingness.<a name="FNanchor_1_9" id="FNanchor_1_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_9" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long ago a white-headed man[2]<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Also fished at the same river’s side;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A hooker of men, not a hooker of fish,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At seventy years, he caught Wēn Wang.<a name="FNanchor_2_10" id="FNanchor_2_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_10" class="fnanchor">[2]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">But <i>I</i>, when I come to cast my hook in the stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have no thought either of fish or men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lacking the skill to capture either prey,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I can only bask in the autumn water’s light.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I tire of this, my fishing also stops;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I go to my home and drink my cup of wine.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_9" id="Footnote_1_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_9"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See “Chuang Tzŭ,” chap. i, end.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_10" id="Footnote_2_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_10"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The Sage T‘ai-kung sat still till he was seventy, apparently fishing, +but really waiting for a Prince who would employ him. At last Wēn +Wang, Prince of Chou, happened to come that way and at once made +him his counsellor.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a><a name="LAZY_MANS_SONG" id="LAZY_MANS_SONG"></a>[23] LAZY MAN’S SONG</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 811</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I have got patronage, but am too lazy to use it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have got land, but am too lazy to farm it.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My house leaks; I am too lazy to mend it.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My clothes are torn; I am too lazy to darn them.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have got wine, but am too lazy to drink;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So it’s just the same as if my cellar were empty.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have got a harp, but am too lazy to play;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So it’s just the same as if it had no strings.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My wife tells me there is no more bread in the house;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I want to bake, but am too lazy to grind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My friends and relatives write me long letters;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I should like to read them, but they’re such a bother to open.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have always been told that Chi Shu-yeh<a name="FNanchor_1_11" id="FNanchor_1_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_11" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Passed his whole life in absolute idleness.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But he played the harp and sometimes transmuted metals,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So even <i>he</i> was not so lazy as I.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_11" id="Footnote_1_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_11"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Also known as Chi K‘ang. A famous Quietist.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a><a name="ILLNESS_AND_IDLENESS" id="ILLNESS_AND_IDLENESS"></a>[24] ILLNESS AND IDLENESS</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Circa <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 812</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Illness and idleness give me much leisure.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What do I do with my leisure, when it comes?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I cannot bring myself to discard inkstone and brush;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now and then I make a new poem.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the poem is made, it is slight and flavourless,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A thing of derision to almost every one.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Superior people will be pained at the flatness of the metre;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Common people will hate the plainness of the words.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sing it to myself, then stop and think about it ...<br /></span> +</div> +<hr style="width: 45%" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Prefects of Soochow and P‘ēng-tsē<a name="FNanchor_1_12" id="FNanchor_1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_12" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would perhaps have praised it, but they died long ago.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Who else would care to hear it?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No one to-day except Yüan Chēn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And <i>he</i> is banished to the City of Chiang-ling,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For three years an usher in the Penal Court.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Parted from me by three thousand leagues<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He will never know even that the poem was made.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_12" id="Footnote_1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_12"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Wei Ying-wu, eighth century <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, and T‘ao Ch‘ien, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 365-427.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a><a name="WINTER_NIGHT" id="WINTER_NIGHT"></a>[25] WINTER NIGHT</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Written during his retirement in 812</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My house is poor; those that I love have left me;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My body sick; I cannot join the feast.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is not a living soul before my eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I lie alone locked in my cottage room.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My broken lamp burns with a feeble flame;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My tattered curtains are crooked and do not meet.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">“Tsek, tsek” on the door-step and window-sill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Again I hear the new snow fall.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I grow older, gradually I sleep less;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I wake at midnight and sit up straight in bed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If I had not learned the “art of sitting and forgetting,”<a name="FNanchor_1_13" id="FNanchor_1_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_13" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">How could I bear this utter loneliness?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stiff and stark my body cleaves to the earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unimpeded my soul yields to Change.<a name="FNanchor_2_14" id="FNanchor_2_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_14" class="fnanchor">[2]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">So has it been for four hateful years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through one thousand and three hundred nights!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_13" id="Footnote_1_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_13"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Yen Hui told Confucius that he had acquired the “art of sitting +and forgetting.” Asked what that meant, Yen Hui replied, “I have +learnt to discard my body and obliterate my intelligence; to abandon +matter and be impervious to sense-perception. By this method I +become one with the All-Pervading.”—<i>Chuang Tzŭ</i>, chap. vi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_14" id="Footnote_2_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_14"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> “Change” is the principle of endless mutation which governs the +Universe.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a><a name="THE_CHRYSANTHEMUMS_IN_THE_EASTERN" id="THE_CHRYSANTHEMUMS_IN_THE_EASTERN"></a>[26] THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS IN THE EASTERN +GARDEN</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 812</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The days of my youth left me long ago;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And now in their turn dwindle my years of prime.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With what thoughts of sadness and loneliness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I walk again in this cold, deserted place!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the midst of the garden long I stand alone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sunshine, faint; the wind and dew chill.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The autumn lettuce is tangled and turned to seed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fair trees are blighted and withered away.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All that is left are a few chrysanthemum-flowers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That have newly opened beneath the wattled fence.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I had brought wine and meant to fill my cup,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the sight of these made me stay my hand.<br /></span> +<span class="i6">I remember, when I was young,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How easily my mood changed from sad to gay.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If I saw wine, no matter at what season,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before I drank it, my heart was already glad.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">But now that age comes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A moment of joy is harder and harder to get.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And always I fear that when I am quite old<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The strongest liquor will leave me comfortless.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Therefore I ask you, late chrysanthemum-flower<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At this sad season why do you bloom alone?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though well I know that it was not for my sake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taught by you, for a while I will open my face.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a><a name="POEMS_IN_DEPRESSION_AT_WEI_VILLAGE" id="POEMS_IN_DEPRESSION_AT_WEI_VILLAGE"></a>[27] POEMS IN DEPRESSION, AT WEI VILLAGE</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 812</i>]</h4> + + +<h4>[1]</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I hug my pillow and do not speak a word;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In my empty room no sound stirs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who knows that, all day a-bed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am not ill and am not even asleep?<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4>[2]</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Turned to jade are the boy’s rosy cheeks;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To his sick temples the frost of winter clings....<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do not wonder that my body sinks to decay;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though my limbs are old, my heart is older yet.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a><a name="TO_HIS_BROTHER_HSING-CHIEN_WHO_WAS" id="TO_HIS_BROTHER_HSING-CHIEN_WHO_WAS"></a>[28] TO HIS BROTHER HSING-CHIEN, WHO WAS +SERVING IN TUNG-CH‘UAN</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 815</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sullen, sullen, my brows are ever knit;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silent, silent, my lips will not move.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is not indeed that I choose to sorrow thus;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If I lift my eyes, who would share my joy?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Last Spring <i>you</i> were called to the West<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To carry arms in the lands of Pa and Shu;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And this Spring <i>I</i> was banished to the South<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To nurse my sickness on the River’s oozy banks.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You are parted from me by six thousand leagues;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In another world, under another sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of ten letters, nine do not reach;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What can I do to open my sad face?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thirsty men often dream of drink;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hungry men often dream of food.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since Spring came, where do my dreams lodge?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere my eyes are closed, I have travelled to Tung-ch‘uan.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a><a name="STARTING_EARLY_FROM_THE_CHU-CHENG" id="STARTING_EARLY_FROM_THE_CHU-CHENG"></a>[29] STARTING EARLY FROM THE CH‘U-CH‘ĒNG +INN</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 815</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Washed by the rain, dust and grime are laid;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Skirting the river, the road’s course is flat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The moon has risen on the last remnants of night;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The travellers’ speed profits by the early cold.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the great silence I whisper a faint song;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the black darkness are bred sombre thoughts.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the lotus-banks hovers a dewy breeze;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the rice-furrows trickles a singing stream.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the noise of our bells a sleeping dog stirs;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the sight of our torches a roosting bird wakes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dawn glimmers through the shapes of misty trees ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For ten miles, till day at last breaks.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a><a name="RAIN" id="RAIN"></a>[30] RAIN</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 815</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Since I lived a stranger in the City of Hsün-yang<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hour by hour bitter rain has poured.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On few days has the dark sky cleared;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In listless sleep I have spent much time.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lake has widened till it almost joins the sky;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The clouds sink till they touch the water’s face.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond my hedge I hear the boatmen’s talk;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the street-end I hear the fisher’s song.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Misty birds are lost in yellow air;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Windy sails kick the white waves.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In front of my gate the horse and carriage-way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a single night has turned into a river-bed.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a><a name="THE_BEGINNING_OF_SUMMER" id="THE_BEGINNING_OF_SUMMER"></a>[31] THE BEGINNING OF SUMMER</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 815</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At the rise of summer a hundred beasts and trees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Join in gladness that the Season bids them thrive.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stags and does frolic in the deep woods;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Snakes and insects are pleased by the rank grass.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wingèd birds love the thick leaves;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scaly fish enjoy the fresh weeds.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But to one place Summer forgot to come;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I alone am left like a withered straw ...<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Banished to the world’s end;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flesh and bone all in distant ways.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From my native-place no tidings come;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rebel troops flood the land with war.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sullen grief, in the end, what will it bring?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am only wearing my own heart away.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better far to let both body and mind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blindly yield to the fate that Heaven made.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hsün-yang abounds in good wine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will fill my cup and never let it be dry.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On Pēn River fish are cheap as mud;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Early and late I will eat them, boiled and fried.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With morning rice at the temple under the hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And evening wine at the island in the lake ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why should my thoughts turn to my native land?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For in this place one could well end one’s age.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a><a name="VISITING_THE_HSI-LIN_TEMPLE" id="VISITING_THE_HSI-LIN_TEMPLE"></a>[32] VISITING THE HSI-LIN TEMPLE</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Written during his exile</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I dismount from my horse at the Hsi-lin Temple;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I throw the porter my slender riding-whip.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the morning I work at a Government office-desk;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the evening I become a dweller in the Sacred Hills.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the second month to the north of Kuang-lu<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ice breaks and the snow begins to melt.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the southern plantation the tea-plant thrusts its sprouts;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the northern sluice the veins of the spring ooze.<br /></span> +</div> +<hr style="width: 45%" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This year there is war in An-hui,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In every place soldiers are rushing to arms.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men of learning have been summoned to the Council Board;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men of action are marching to the battle-line.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only I, who have no talents at all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Am left in the mountains to play with the pebbles of the stream.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a><a name="PROSE_LETTER_TO_YUAN_CHEN" id="PROSE_LETTER_TO_YUAN_CHEN"></a>[33] PROSE LETTER TO YÜAN CHĒN</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 818</i>]</h4> + + +<p>Night of the tenth day of the fourth month. Lo-t‘ien<a name="FNanchor_1_15" id="FNanchor_1_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_15" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> says: +O Wei-chih,<a name="FNanchor_2_16" id="FNanchor_2_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_16" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Wei-chih, it is three years since I saw your +face and almost two years since I had a letter from you. Is +man’s life so long that he can afford such partings? Much +less should hearts joined by glue be set in bodies remote +as Hu and Yüeh.<a name="FNanchor_3_17" id="FNanchor_3_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_17" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> In promotion we could not be together; +and in failure we cannot forget each other. Snatched and +wrenched apart, separately each of us grows grey. O +Wei-chih, what is to be done? But this is the work of +Heaven and there is no use in speaking of it.</p> + +<p>When I first arrived at Hsün-yang, Hsiung Ju-tēng<a name="FNanchor_4_18" id="FNanchor_4_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_18" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +came with the letter which you had written the year before, +when you were so ill. First you told me of the progress +of your illness, next of your feelings while you were ill +and last you spoke of all our meetings and partings, and +of the occasion of your own difficulties and dangers. You +had no time to write more, but sent a bundle of your +writings with a note attached, which said, “Later on I will +send a message by Po Min-chung.<a name="FNanchor_5_19" id="FNanchor_5_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_19" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Ask him for news +and that will do instead of a letter.” Alas! Is it thus +that Wei-chih treats me? But again, I read the poem you +wrote when you heard I had been banished:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><p><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a></p> +<span class="i0"><i>The lamp had almost spent its light: shadows filled the room,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The night I heard that Lo-t‘ien was banished to Kiu-kiang.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And I that had lain sick to death sat up suddenly in bed;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>A dark wind blowing rain entered at the cold window.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>If even strangers’ hearts are touched by these lines, +much more must mine be; so that to this day I cannot recite +them without pain. Of this matter I will say no more, +but tell you briefly what has passed of late.</p> + +<p>It is more than three years since I came to Kiu-kiang. +All this time my body has been strong and my heart much +at peace. There has been no sickness in my household, +even among the servants. Last summer my elder brother +arrived from Hsü-chou, leading by the hand six or seven +little brothers and sisters, orphans of various households. +So that I have under my eyes all those who at present demand +my care. They share with me cold and heat, hunger +and satiety. This is my first consolation.</p> + +<p>The climate of the River Province is somewhat cool, so +that fevers and epidemics are rare. And while snakes and +mosquitoes are few, the fish in the Pēn are remarkably fat, +the River wine is exceedingly good, and indeed for the most +part the food is like that of the North Country. Although +the mouths within my doors are many and the salary of a +Sub-Prefect is small, by a thrifty application of my means, +I am yet able to provide for my household without seeking +any man’s assistance to clothe their backs or fill their bellies. +This is my second consolation.</p> + +<p>In the autumn of last year I visited Lu Shan<a name="FNanchor_6_20" id="FNanchor_6_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_20" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> for the +first time. Reaching a point between the Eastern Forest +and Western Forest Temples, beneath the Incense-Burner +Peak, I was enamoured by the unequalled prospect of +<a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>cloud-girt waters and spray-clad rocks. Unable to leave +this place, I built a cottage here. Before it stand ten tall +pines and a thousand tapering bamboos. With green +creepers I fenced my garden; with white stones I made +bridge and path. Flowing waters encircle my home; flying +spray falls between the eaves. Red pomegranate and +white lotus cluster on the steps of the pond. All is after +this pattern, though I cannot here name each delight. +Whenever I come here alone, I am moved to prolong my +stay to ten days; for of the things that have all my life +most pleased me, not one is missing. So that not only do +I forget to go back, but would gladly end my days here. +This is my third consolation.</p> + +<p>Remembering that not having had news of me for so long, +you might be in some anxiety with regard to me, I have +hastened to set your mind at rest by recording these three +consolations. What else I have to tell shall be set out in +due order, as follows....<a name="FNanchor_7_21" id="FNanchor_7_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_21" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>Wei-chih, Wei-chih! The night I wrote this letter I +was sitting at the mountain-window of my thatched hut. +I let my brush run as my hand willed and wrote at hazard +as my thoughts came. When I folded it and addressed it, +I found that dawn had come. I raised my head and saw +only a few mountain-priests, some sitting, some sleeping. +I heard the mournful cries of mountain apes and the sad +twitterings of valley birds. O friend of all my life, parted +from me by a thousand leagues, at such times as this “dim +thoughts of the World”<a name="FNanchor_8_22" id="FNanchor_8_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_22" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> creep upon me for a while; so, +<a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>following my ancient custom, I send you these three +couplets:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>I remember how once I wrote you a letter sitting in the Palace at night,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>At the back of the Hall of Golden Bells, when dawn was coming in the sky.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>This night I fold your letter—in what place?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Sitting in a cottage on Lu Shan, by the light of a late lamp.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The caged bird and fettered ape are neither of them dead yet;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>In the world of men face to face will they ever meet again?</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>O Wei-chih, Wei-chih! This night, this heart—do you +know them or not? Lo-t‘ien bows his head.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_15" id="Footnote_1_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_15"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Other name of Po Chü-i.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_16" id="Footnote_2_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_16"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Other name of Yüan Chēn.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_17" id="Footnote_3_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_17"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The extreme North and South of China.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_18" id="Footnote_4_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_18"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> A poet, several of whose short poems are well-known.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_19" id="Footnote_5_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_19"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The son of Po Chü-i‘s uncle Po Ch‘i-k‘ang.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_20" id="Footnote_6_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_20"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> A famous mountain near Kiu-kiang.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_21" id="Footnote_7_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_21"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> What followed is omitted in the printed text.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_22" id="Footnote_8_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_22"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> This expression is used by Yüan Chēn in a poem addressed to +Po Chü-i. By “the World,” he means their life together at Court.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a><a name="HEARING_THE_EARLY_ORIOLE" id="HEARING_THE_EARLY_ORIOLE"></a>[34] HEARING THE EARLY ORIOLE</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Written in exile</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When the sun rose I was still lying in bed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An early oriole sang on the roof of my house.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a moment I thought of the Royal Park at dawn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the Birds of Spring greeted their Lord from his trees.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I remembered the days when I served before the Throne<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pencil in hand, on duty at the Ch‘ēng-ming;<a name="FNanchor_1_23" id="FNanchor_1_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_23" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the height of spring, when I paused an instant from work,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Morning and evening, was <i>this</i> the voice I heard?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now in my exile the oriole sings again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the dreary stillness of Hsün-yang town ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bird’s note cannot really have changed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All the difference lies in the listener’s heart.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If he could but forget that he lives at the World’s end,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bird would sing as it sang in the Palace of old.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_23" id="Footnote_1_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_23"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Name of a palace at Ch‘ang-an.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a><a name="DREAMING_THAT_I_WENT_WITH_LU_AND_YU" id="DREAMING_THAT_I_WENT_WITH_LU_AND_YU"></a>[35] DREAMING THAT I WENT WITH LU AND YU +TO VISIT YÜAN CHĒN</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Written in exile</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At night I dreamt I was back in Ch‘ang-an;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw again the faces of old friends.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in my dreams, under an April sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They led me by the hand to wander in the spring winds.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Together we came to the village of Peace and Quiet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We stopped our horses at the gate of Yüan Chēn.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yüan Chēn was sitting all alone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When he saw me coming, a smile came to his face.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He pointed back at the flowers in the western court;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then opened wine in the northern summer-house.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He seemed to be saying that neither of us had changed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He seemed to be regretting that joy will not stay;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That our souls had met only for a little while,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To part again with hardly time for greeting.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I woke up and thought him still at my side;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I put out my hand; there was nothing there at all.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a><a name="THE_FIFTEENTH_VOLUME" id="THE_FIFTEENTH_VOLUME"></a>[36] THE FIFTEENTH VOLUME</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Having completed the fifteenth volume of his works, the +poet sends it to his friends Yüan Chēn and Li Chien, with +a jesting poem.</i>]</h4> + +<h4>[<i>Written in 818</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My long poem, the “Eternal Grief,”<a name="FNanchor_1_24" id="FNanchor_1_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_24" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> is a beautiful and moving work;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My ten “Songs of Shensi” are models of tunefulness.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I cannot prevent Old Yüan from stealing my best rhymes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I earnestly beg Little Li to respect my ballads and songs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While I am alive riches and honour will never fall to my lot;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But well I know that after I am dead the fame of my books will live.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This random talk and foolish boasting forgive me, for to-day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have added Volume Fifteen to the row that stands to my name.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_24" id="Footnote_1_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_24"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See Giles, “Chinese Literature,” p. 169.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a><a name="INVITATION_TO_HSIAO_CHU-SHIH1" id="INVITATION_TO_HSIAO_CHU-SHIH1"></a>[37] INVITATION TO HSIAO CHÜ-SHIH<a name="FNanchor_1_25" id="FNanchor_1_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_25" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h3> + +<h4>[<i>Written when Governor of Chung-Chou</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Within the Gorges there is no lack of men;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They are people one meets, not people one cares for.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At my front door guests also arrive;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They are people one sits with, not people one knows.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I look up, there are only clouds and trees;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I look down—only my wife and child.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sleep, eat, get up or sit still;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Apart from that, nothing happens at all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But beyond the city Hsiao the hermit dwells;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with <i>him</i> at least I find myself at ease.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For <i>he</i> can drink a full flagon of wine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And is good at reciting long-line poems.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some afternoon, when the clerks have all gone home,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At a season when the path by the river bank is dry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I beg you, take up your staff of bamboo-wood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And find your way to the parlour of the Government House.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_25" id="Footnote_1_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_25"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Nos. 37, 38, 39, and 40 were written when the poet was Governor +of a remote part of Ssechuan,—in the extreme west of China.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a><a name="TO_LI_CHIEN_2" id="TO_LI_CHIEN_2"></a>[38] TO LI CHIEN</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 818</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The province I govern is humble and remote;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet our festivals follow the Courtly Calendar.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At rise of day we sacrificed to the Wind God,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When darkly, darkly, dawn glimmered in the sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Officers followed, horsemen led the way;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They brought us out to the wastes beyond the town,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where river mists fall heavier than rain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the fires on the hill leap higher than the stars.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Suddenly I remembered the early levees at Court<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When you and I galloped to the Purple Yard.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As we walked our horses up Dragon Tail Street<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We turned our heads and gazed at the Southern Hills.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since we parted, both of us have been growing old;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And our minds have been vexed by many anxious cares.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet even now I fancy my ears are full<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the sound of jade tinkling on your bridle-straps.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a><a name="THE_SPRING_RIVER" id="THE_SPRING_RIVER"></a>[39] THE SPRING RIVER</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 820</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Heat and cold, dusk and dawn have crowded one upon the other;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suddenly I find it is two years since I came to Chung-chou.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through my closed doors I hear nothing but the morning and evening drum;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From my upper windows all I see is the ships that come and go.<a name="FNanchor_1_26" id="FNanchor_1_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_26" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">In vain the orioles tempt me with their song to stray beneath the flowering trees;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In vain the grasses lure me by their colour to sit beside the pond.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is one thing and one alone I never tire of watching—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The spring river as it trickles over the stones and babbles past the rocks.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_26" id="Footnote_1_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_26"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> “The Emperor Saga of Japan [reigned <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 810-23] one day +quoted to his Minister, Ono no Takamura, the couplet:</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Through my closed doors I hear nothing but the morning and evening drum;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From my upper windows in the distance I see ships that come and go.’<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p>Takamura, thinking these were the Emperor’s own verses, said: +‘If I may venture to criticize an august composition, I would suggest +that the phrase “in the distance” be altered.’ The Emperor +was delighted, for he had purposely changed ‘all I see’ to ‘in the +distance I see.’ At that time there was only one copy of Po Chü-i’s +poems in Japan and the Emperor, to whom it belonged, had allowed +no one to see it.”—From the <i>Kōdanshō</i> [twelfth century].</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a><a name="AFTER_COLLECTING_THE_AUTUMN_TAXES" id="AFTER_COLLECTING_THE_AUTUMN_TAXES"></a>[40] AFTER COLLECTING THE AUTUMN TAXES</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">From my high castle I look at the town below<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the natives of Pa cluster like a swarm of flies.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How can I govern these people and lead them aright?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I cannot even understand what they say.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But at least I am glad, now that the taxes are in,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To learn that in my province there is no discontent.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I fear its prosperity is not due to me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And was only caused by the year’s abundant crops,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The papers that lie on my desk are simple and few;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My house by the moat is leisurely and still.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the autumn rain the berries fall from the eaves;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the evening bell the birds return to the wood.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A broken sunlight quavers over the southern porch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where I lie on my couch abandoned to idleness.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a><a name="LODGING_WITH_THE_OLD_MAN_OF_THE" id="LODGING_WITH_THE_OLD_MAN_OF_THE"></a>[41] LODGING WITH THE OLD MAN OF THE +STREAM</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 820</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Men’s hearts love gold and jade;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men’s mouths covet wine and flesh.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not so the old man of the stream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He drinks from his gourd and asks nothing more.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">South of the stream he cuts firewood and grass;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">North of the stream he has built wall and roof.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yearly he sows a single acre of land;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In spring he drives two yellow calves.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In these things he finds great repose;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond these he has no wish or care.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By chance I met him walking by the water-side;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He took me home and lodged me in his thatched hut.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I parted from him, to seek market and Court,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This old man asked my rank and pay.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Doubting my tale, he laughed loud and long:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">“Privy Councillors do not sleep in barns.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a><a name="TO_HIS_BROTHER_HSING-CHIEN" id="TO_HIS_BROTHER_HSING-CHIEN"></a>[42] TO HIS BROTHER HSING-CHIEN</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 820</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Can the single cup of wine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We drank this morning have made my heart so glad?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This is a joy that comes only from within,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which those who witness will never understand.<br /></span> +<span class="i6">I have but two brothers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bitterly grieved that both were far away;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This Spring, back through the Gorges of Pa,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have come to them safely, ten thousand leagues.<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Two sisters I had<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who had put up their hair, but not twined the sash;<a name="FNanchor_1_27" id="FNanchor_1_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_27" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yesterday both were married and taken away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By good husbands in whom I may well trust.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am freed at last from the thoughts that made me grieve,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As though a sword had cut a rope from my neck.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And limbs grow light when the heart sheds its care:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suddenly I seem to be flying up to the sky!<br /></span> +</div> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hsing-chien, drink your cup of wine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then set it down and listen to what I say.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do not sigh that your home is far away;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do not mind if your salary is small.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only pray that as long as life lasts,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You and I may never be forced to part.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_27" id="Footnote_1_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_27"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> I.e., got married.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a><a name="THE_PINE-TREES_IN_THE_COURTYARD" id="THE_PINE-TREES_IN_THE_COURTYARD"></a>[43] THE PINE-TREES IN THE COURTYARD</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 820</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i16">Below the hall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pine-trees grow in front of the steps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Irregularly scattered,—not in ordered lines.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Some are tall and some are low:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tallest of them is six roods high;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The lowest but ten feet.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">They are like wild things<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And no one knows who planted them.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They touch the walls of my blue-tiled house;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their roots are sunk in the terrace of white sand.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Morning and evening they are visited by the wind and moon;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rain or fine,—they are free from dust and mud.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the gales of autumn they whisper a vague tune;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the suns of summer they yield a cool shade.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the height of spring the fine evening rain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fills their leaves with a load of hanging pearls.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the year’s end the time of great snow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stamps their branches with a fret of glittering jade.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the Four Seasons each has its own mood;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among all the trees none is like another.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Last year, when they heard I had bought this house,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Neighbours mocked and the World called me mad—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That a whole family of twice ten souls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should move house for the sake of a few pines!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now that I have come to them, what have they given me?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They have only loosened the buckles of my care.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet even so, they are “profitable friends,”<a name="FNanchor_1_28" id="FNanchor_1_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_28" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>And fill my need of “converse with wise men.”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet when I consider how, still a man of the world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In belt and cap I scurry through dirt and dust,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From time to time my heart twinges with shame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I am not fit to be master of my pines!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_28" id="Footnote_1_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_28"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See “Analects of Confucius” 4 and 5, where three kinds of “profitable +friends” and three kinds of “profitable pleasures” are described; +the third of the latter being “plenty of intelligent companions.”</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a><a name="SLEEPING_ON_HORSEBACK" id="SLEEPING_ON_HORSEBACK"></a>[44] SLEEPING ON HORSEBACK</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 822</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We had rode long and were still far from the inn;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My eyes grew dim; for a moment I fell asleep.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under my right arm the whip still dangled;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In my left hand the reins for an instant slackened.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suddenly I woke and turned to question my groom:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">“We have gone a hundred paces since you fell asleep.”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Body and spirit for a while had exchanged place;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swift and slow had turned to their contraries.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For these few steps that my horse had carried me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had taken in my dream countless aeons of time!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">True indeed is that saying of Wise Men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">“A hundred years are but a moment of sleep.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a><a name="PARTING_FROM_THE_WINTER_STOVE" id="PARTING_FROM_THE_WINTER_STOVE"></a>[45] PARTING FROM THE WINTER STOVE</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 822</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On the fifth day after the rise of Spring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Everywhere the season’s gracious altitudes!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The white sun gradually lengthening its course,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The blue-grey clouds hanging as though they would fall;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The last icicle breaking into splinters of jade;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The new stems marshalling red sprouts.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The things I meet are all full of gladness;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is not only <i>I</i> who love the Spring.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To welcome the flowers I stand in the back garden;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To enjoy the sunlight I sit under the front eaves.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet still in my heart there lingers one regret;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soon I shall part with the flame of my red stove!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a><a name="GOOD-BYE_TO_THE_PEOPLE_OF_HANGCHOW" id="GOOD-BYE_TO_THE_PEOPLE_OF_HANGCHOW"></a>[46] GOOD-BYE TO THE PEOPLE OF HANGCHOW</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 824</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Elders and officers line the returning road;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wine and soup load the parting table.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not ruled you with the wisdom of Shao Kung;<a name="FNanchor_1_29" id="FNanchor_1_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_29" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">What is the reason your tears should fall so fast?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My taxes were heavy, though many of the people were poor;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The farmers were hungry, for often their fields were dry.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All I did was to dam the water of the Lake<a name="FNanchor_2_30" id="FNanchor_2_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_30" class="fnanchor">[2]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And help a little in a year when things were bad.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_29" id="Footnote_1_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_29"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> A legendary ruler who dispensed justice sitting under a wild +pear-tree.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_30" id="Footnote_2_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_30"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Po Chü-i built the dam on the Western Lake which is still known +as “Po’s dam.”</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a><a name="WRITTEN_WHEN_GOVERNOR_OF_SOOCHOW" id="WRITTEN_WHEN_GOVERNOR_OF_SOOCHOW"></a>[47] WRITTEN WHEN GOVERNOR OF SOOCHOW</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 825</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A Government building, not my own home.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Government garden, not my own trees.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But at Lo-yang I have a small house<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on Wei River I have built a thatched hut.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am free from the ties of marrying and giving in marriage;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If I choose to retire, I have somewhere to end my days.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And though I have lingered long beyond my time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To retire now would be better than not at all!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a><a name="GETTING_UP_EARLY_ON_A_SPRING_MORNING" id="GETTING_UP_EARLY_ON_A_SPRING_MORNING"></a>[48] GETTING UP EARLY ON A SPRING MORNING</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Part of a poem written when Governor of Soochow in 825</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The early light of the rising sun shines on the beams of my house;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The first banging of opened doors echoes like the roll of a drum.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dog lies curled on the stone step, for the earth is wet with dew;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The birds come near to the window and chatter, telling that the day is fine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the lingering fumes of yesterday’s wine my head is still heavy;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With new doffing of winter clothes my body has grown light.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a><a name="LOSING_A_SLAVE-GIRL" id="LOSING_A_SLAVE-GIRL"></a>[49] LOSING A SLAVE-GIRL</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Date uncertain</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Around my garden the little wall is low;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the bailiff’s lodge the lists are seldom checked.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am ashamed to think we were not always kind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I regret your labours, that will never be repaid.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The caged bird owes no allegiance;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wind-tossed flower does not cling to the tree.<br /></span> +</div> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Where to-night she lies none can give us news;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor any knows, save the bright watching moon.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a><a name="THE_GRAND_HOUSES_AT_LO-YANG" id="THE_GRAND_HOUSES_AT_LO-YANG"></a>[50] THE GRAND HOUSES AT LO-YANG</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Circa <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 829</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">By woods and water, whose houses are these<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With high gates and wide-stretching lands?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From their blue gables gilded fishes hang;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By their red pillars carven coursers run.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their spring arbours, warm with caged mist;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their autumn yards with locked moonlight cold.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the stem of the pine-tree amber beads cling;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bamboo-branches ooze ruby-drops.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of lake and terrace who may the masters be?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Staff-officers, Councillors-of-State.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All their lives they have never come to see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But know their houses only from the bailiff’s map!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a><a name="THE_CRANES" id="THE_CRANES"></a>[51] THE CRANES</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 830</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The western wind has blown but a few days;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet the first leaf already flies from the bough.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the drying paths I walk in my thin shoes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the first cold I have donned my quilted coat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through shallow ditches the floods are clearing away;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through sparse bamboos trickles a slanting light.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the early dusk, down an alley of green moss,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The garden-boy is leading the cranes home.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a><a name="ON_HIS_BALDNESS" id="ON_HIS_BALDNESS"></a>[52] ON HIS BALDNESS</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 832</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At dawn I sighed to see my hairs fall;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At dusk I sighed to see my hairs fall.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For I dreaded the time when the last lock should go ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They are all gone and I do not mind at all!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have done with that cumbrous washing and getting dry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My tiresome comb for ever is laid aside.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Best of all, when the weather is hot and wet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To have no top-knot weighing down on one’s head!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I put aside my dusty conical cap;<br /></span> +<span class="i6">And loose my collar-fringe.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a silver jar I have stored a cold stream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On my bald pate I trickle a ladle-full.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like one baptized with the Water of Buddha’s Law,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sit and receive this cool, cleansing joy.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Now</i> I know why the priest who seeks Repose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Frees his heart by first shaving his head.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a><a name="THINKING_OF_THE_PAST" id="THINKING_OF_THE_PAST"></a>[53] THINKING OF THE PAST</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 833</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In an idle hour I thought of former days;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And former friends seemed to be standing in the room.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then I wondered “Where are they now?”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like fallen leaves they have tumbled to the Nether Springs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Han Yü<a name="FNanchor_1_31" id="FNanchor_1_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_31" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> swallowed his sulphur pills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet a single illness carried him straight to the grave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yüan Chēn smelted autumn stone<a name="FNanchor_2_32" id="FNanchor_2_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_32" class="fnanchor">[2]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">But before he was old, his strength crumbled away.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Master Tu possessed the “Secret of Health”:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All day long he fasted from meat and spice.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Lord Ts‘ui, trusting a strong drug,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the whole winter wore his summer coat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet some by illness and some by sudden death ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All vanished ere their middle years were passed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Only I, who have never dieted myself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have thus protracted a tedious span of age,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">I who in young days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yielded lightly to every lust and greed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose palate craved only for the richest meat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And knew nothing of bismuth or calomel.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When hunger came, I gulped steaming food;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When thirst came, I drank from the frozen stream.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With verse I served the spirits of my Five Guts;<a name="FNanchor_3_33" id="FNanchor_3_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_33" class="fnanchor">[3]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">With wine I watered the three Vital Spots.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>Day by day joining the broken clod<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have lived till now almost sound and whole.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is no gap in my two rows of teeth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Limbs and body still serve me well.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Already I have opened the seventh book of years;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet I eat my fill and sleep quietly;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I drink, while I may, the wine that lies in my cup,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all else commit to Heaven’s care.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_31" id="Footnote_1_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_31"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The famous poet, d. 824 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_32" id="Footnote_2_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_32"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Carbamide crystals.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_33" id="Footnote_3_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_33"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Heart, liver, stomach, lungs and kidney.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a><a name="A_MAD_POEM_ADDRESSED_TO_MY_NEPHEWS_AND_NIECES" id="A_MAD_POEM_ADDRESSED_TO_MY_NEPHEWS_AND_NIECES"></a>[54] A MAD POEM ADDRESSED TO MY NEPHEWS AND NIECES</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 835</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The World cheats those who cannot read;<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I</i>, happily, have mastered script and pen.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The World cheats those who hold no office;<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I</i> am blessed with high official rank.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The old are often ill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I</i>, at this day have not an ache or pain.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">They are often burdened with ties;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But <i>I</i> have finished with marriage and giving in marriage.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No changes happen to disturb the quiet of my mind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No business comes to impair the vigour of my limbs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hence it is that now for ten years<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Body and soul have rested in hermit peace.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the more, in the last lingering years<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What I shall need are very few things.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A single rug to warm me through the winter;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One meal to last me the whole day.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It does not matter that my house is rather small;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One cannot sleep in more than one room!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It does not matter that I have not many horses;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One cannot ride in two coaches at once!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As fortunate as me among the people of the world<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Possibly one would find seven out of ten.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As contented as me among a hundred men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Look as you may, you will not find one.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the affairs of others even fools are wise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In their own business even sages err.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To no one else would I dare to speak my heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So my wild words are addressed to my nephews and nieces.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a><a name="OLD_AGE" id="OLD_AGE"></a>[55] OLD AGE</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Addressed to Liu Yü-hsi, who was born in the same year</i>]</h4> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 835</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We are growing old together, you and I,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let us ask ourselves, what is age like?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dull eye is closed ere night comes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The idle head, still uncombed at noon.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Propped on a staff, sometimes a walk abroad;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or all day sitting with closed doors.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One dares not look in the mirror’s polished face;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One cannot read small-letter books.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deeper and deeper, one’s love of old friends;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fewer and fewer, one’s dealings with young men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One thing only, the pleasure of idle talk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is great as ever, when you and I meet.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a><a name="TO_A_TALKATIVE_GUEST" id="TO_A_TALKATIVE_GUEST"></a>[56] TO A TALKATIVE GUEST</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 836</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The town visitor’s easy talk flows in an endless stream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The country host’s quiet thoughts ramble timidly on.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">“I beg you, Sir, do not tell me about things at Ch‘ang-an;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For you entered just when my harp was tuned and lying balanced on my knees.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a><a name="TO_LIU_YU-HSI" id="TO_LIU_YU-HSI"></a>[57] TO LIU YU-HSI</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 838</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In length of days and soundness of limb you and I are one;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our eyes are not wholly blind, nor our ears quite deaf.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deep drinking we lie together, fellows of a spring day;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or gay-hearted boldly break into gatherings of young men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When, seeking flowers, we borrowed his horse, the river-keeper was vexed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When, to play on the water, we stole his boat, the Duke Ling was sore.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hear it said that in Lo-yang, people are all shocked,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And call us by the name of “Liu and Po, those two mad old men.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a><a name="MY_SERVANT_WAKES_ME" id="MY_SERVANT_WAKES_ME"></a>[58] MY SERVANT WAKES ME</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 839</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My servant wakes me: “Master, it is broad day.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rise from bed; I bring you bowl and comb.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Winter comes and the morning air is chill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To-day your Honour must not venture abroad.”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I stay at home, no one comes to call;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What must I do with the long, idle hours?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Setting my chair where a faint sunshine falls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have warmed wine and opened my poetry-books.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a><a name="SINCE_I_LAY_ILL" id="SINCE_I_LAY_ILL"></a>[59] SINCE I LAY ILL</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 840</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Since I lay ill, how long has passed?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Almost a hundred heavy-hanging days.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The maids have learnt to gather my medicine-herbs;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dog no longer barks when the doctor comes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The jars in my cellar are plastered deep with mould;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My singer’s carpets are half crumbled to dust.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How can I bear, when the Earth renews her light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To watch from a pillow the beauty of Spring unfold?<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a><a name="SONG_OF_PAST_FEELINGS_With_Preface" id="SONG_OF_PAST_FEELINGS_With_Preface"></a>[60] SONG OF PAST FEELINGS [With Preface]</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Circa <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 840</i>]</h4> + + +<p>When Lo-t‘ien[1] was old, he fell ill of a palsy. So he +made a list of his possessions and examined his expenses, +that he might reject whatever had become superfluous. He +had in his employ a girl about twenty years old called Fan +Su, whose postures delighted him when she sang or danced. +But above all she excelled in singing the “Willow-Branch,” +so that many called her by the name of this song, and she +was well known by this name in the town of Lo-yang. But +she was on the list of unnecessary expenses and was to be +sent away.</p> + +<p>He had too a white horse with black mane, sturdy and +sure-footed, which he had ridden for many years. It stood +on the list of things which could be dispensed with, and was +to be sold. When the groom led the horse through the +gate, it tossed its head and looked back, neighing once +with a sound in its voice that seemed to say: “I know I am +leaving you and long to stay.” Su, when she heard the +horse neigh, rose timidly, bowed before me and spoke +sweetly, as shall hereafter be shown. When she had done +speaking her tears fell.</p> + +<p>When first I heard Su’s words, I was too sad to speak +and could not answer her. But in a little while I ordered +the bridle to be turned and the sleeve reversed.<a name="FNanchor_1_34" id="FNanchor_1_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_34" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Then I +gave her wine and drank a cup myself, and in my happiness +sang a few score notes. And these notes turned into a +poem, a poem without fixed measure, for the measure followed +my irregular tune. In all there were 255 words.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>Alas! I am no Sage. I could neither forget past feelings +nor show such sensibility as this beast reputed incapable +of feeling! Things that happen lay hold of my +heart, and when my heart is moved, I cannot control it. +Therefore, smiling at myself, I called this song “A Song of +Past Feelings Unforgotten.”</p> + +<p>The Song says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>I was selling my white horse</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And sending Willow Branch away.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>She covered her dark eyebrows;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>He trailed his golden halter.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The horse, for want of speech,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Neighed long and turned his head;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And Willow Branch, twice bowing,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Knelt long and spoke to me:</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>“Master, you have ridden this horse five years,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>One thousand eight hundred days;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Meekly he has borne the bit,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Without shying, without bolting.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And I have served you for ten years,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Three thousand and six hundred days;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name="typo_1" id="typo_1"></a><i>Patient carrier of towel and comb,<a name="FNanchor_2_35" id="FNanchor_2_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_35" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Without complaint, without loss.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And now, though my shape is lowly,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I am still fresh and strong.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And the colt is still in his prime,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Without lameness or fault.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Why should you not use the colt’s strength</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>To replace your sick legs?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>Why should you not use my song to gladden your casual cup?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Need you in one morning send both away,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Send them away never to return?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>This is what Su would say to you before she goes,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And this is what your horse meant also</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>When he neighed at the gate.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Seeing my distress, who am a woman,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And hearing its cries, that is but a horse,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Shall our master alone remain pitiless?”</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I looked up and sighed: I looked down and laughed. +Then I said:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>“Dear horse, stop your sad cries!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Sweet Su, dry your bitter tears!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>For you shall go back to your stall;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And you to the women’s room.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>For though I am ill indeed,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And though my years are at their close,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The doom of Hsiang Chi<a name="FNanchor_3_36" id="FNanchor_3_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_36" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> has not befallen me yet.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Must I in a single day</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Lose the horse I rode and the lady I loved?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Su, O Su!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Sing once again the Song of the Willow Branch!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And I will pour you wine in that golden cup</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And take you with me to the Land of Drunkenness.”</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_34" id="Footnote_1_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_34"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> I.e., Po Chü-i himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_35" id="Footnote_2_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_35"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> I.e., performing the functions of a wife.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_36" id="Footnote_3_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_36"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Who, surrounded at the battle of Kai-hsia (202 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>), gave his +horse to a boatman, lest it should fall into the hands of the enemy.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a><a name="ILLNESS" id="ILLNESS"></a>[61] ILLNESS</h3> + +<h4>[<i>Written circa 842, when he was paralyzed</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dear friends, there is no cause for so much sympathy.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall certainly manage from time to time to take my walks abroad.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All that matters is an active mind, what is the use of feet?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By land one can ride in a carrying-chair; by water, be rowed in a boat.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a><a name="RESIGNATION" id="RESIGNATION"></a>[62] RESIGNATION</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Keep off your thoughts from things that are past and done;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For thinking of the past wakes regret and pain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Keep off your thoughts from thinking what will happen;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To think of the future fills one with dismay.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better by day to sit like a sack in your chair;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better by night to lie a stone in your bed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When food comes, then open your mouth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When sleep comes, then close your eyes.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a><a name="YUAN_CHEN" id="YUAN_CHEN"></a>YÜAN CHEN</h2> + +<h5>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 799-831</i>]</h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a><a name="THE_STORY_OF_TSUI_YING-YING" id="THE_STORY_OF_TSUI_YING-YING"></a>[63] THE STORY OF TS‘UI YING-YING</h3> + + +<p>During the Chēng-Yüan<a name="FNanchor_1_37" id="FNanchor_1_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_37" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> period of the T‘ang dynasty +there lived a man called Chang.<a name="FNanchor_2_38" id="FNanchor_2_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_38" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> His nature was gentle +and refined, and his person of great beauty. But his deeper +feelings were resolutely held in restraint, and he would indulge +in no license. Sometimes his friends took him to a +party and he would try to join their frolics; but when the +rest were shouting and scuffling their hardest, Chang only +pretended to take his share. For he could never overcome +his shyness. So it came about that though already twenty-three, +he had not yet enjoyed a woman’s beauty. To those +who questioned him he answered, “It is not such as Master +Tēng-t’u<a name="FNanchor_3_39" id="FNanchor_3_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_39" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> who are true lovers of beauty; for they are merely +profligates. I consider myself a lover of beauty, who happens +never to have met with it. And I am of this opinion +because I know that, in other things, whatever is beautiful +casts its spell upon me; so that I cannot be devoid of feeling.” +His questioners only laughed.</p> + +<p>About this time Chang went to Puchow. Some two miles +east of the town there is a temple called the P‘-u-chiu-ssŭ, +and here he took up his lodging. Now it happened that at +this time the widow of a certain Ts‘ui was returning to +Ch‘ang-an.<a name="FNanchor_4_40" id="FNanchor_4_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_40" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> She passed through Puchow on her way and +stayed at the same temple.</p> + +<p>This lady was born of the Chēng family and Chang’s +mother was also a Chēng. He unravelled their relationship +and found that they were second-cousins.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>This year General Hun-Chan<a name="FNanchor_5_41" id="FNanchor_5_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_41" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> died at Puchow. There +was a certain Colonel Ting Wēn-ya who ill-treated his +troops. The soldiers accordingly made Hun Chan’s funeral +the occasion of a mutiny, and began to plunder the +town. The Ts‘ui family had brought with them much valuable +property and many slaves. Subjected to this sudden +danger when far from home, they had no one from whom +they could seek protection.</p> + +<p>Now it happened that Chang had been friendly with the +political party to which the commander at Puchow belonged. +At his request a guard was sent to the temple and +no disorder took place there. A few days afterwards the +Civil Commissioner Tu Chio was ordered by the Emperor +to take over the command of the troops. The mutineers +then laid down their arms.</p> + +<p>The widow Chēng was very sensible of the service which +Chang had rendered. She therefore provided dainties and +invited him to a banquet in the middle hall. At table she +turned to him and said, “I, your cousin, a lonely and +widowed relict, had young ones in my care. If we had +fallen into the hands of the soldiery, I could not have +helped them. Therefore the lives of my little boy and +young daughter were saved by your protection, and they +owe you eternal gratitude. I will now cause them to kneel +before you, their merciful cousin, that they may thank you +for your favours.” First she sent for her son, Huan-lang, +who was about ten years old, a handsome and gentle +child. Then she called to her daughter, Ying-ying: “Come +and bow to your cousin. Your cousin saved your life.” +For a long while she would not come, saying that she was +<a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>not well. The widow grew angry and cried: “Your cousin +saved your life. But for his help, you would now be a +prisoner. How can you treat him so rudely?”</p> + +<p>At last she came in, dressed in everyday clothes, with a +look of deep unhappiness in her face. She had not put on +any ornaments. Her hair hung down in coils, the black of +her two eyebrows joined, her cheeks were not rouged. But +her features were of exquisite beauty and shone with an almost +dazzling lustre.</p> + +<p>Chang bowed to her, amazed. She sat down by her +mother’s side and looked all the time towards her, turning +from him with a fixed stare of aversion, as though she could +not endure his presence.</p> + +<p>He asked how old she was. The widow answered, “She +was born in the year of the present Emperor’s reign that was +a year of the Rat, and now it is the year of the Dragon in the +period Chēng-yüan.<a name="FNanchor_6_42" id="FNanchor_6_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_42" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> So she must be seventeen years old.”</p> + +<p>Chang tried to engage her in conversation, but she would +not answer, and soon the dinner was over. He was passionately +in love with her and wanted to tell her so, but could +find no way.</p> + +<p>Ying-ying had a maid-servant called Hung-niang, whom +Chang sometimes met and greeted. Once he stopped her +and was beginning to tell her of his love for her mistress; +but she was frightened and ran away. Then Chang was +sorry he had not kept silence.</p> + +<p>Next day he met Hung-niang again, but was ashamed and +did not say what was in his mind. But this time the maid +herself broached the subject and said to Chang, “Master, I +dare not tell her what you told me, or even hint at it. But +<a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>since your mother was a kinswoman of the Ts‘uis, why do +you not seek my mistress’s hand on that plea?”</p> + +<p>Chang said, “Since I was a child in arms, my nature has +been averse to intimacy. Sometimes I have idled with +wearers of silk and gauze, but my fancy was never once +detained. I little thought that in the end I should be entrapped.</p> + +<p>“Lately at the banquet I could scarcely contain myself; +and since then, when I walk, I forget where I am going +and when I eat, I forget to finish my meal, and do not know +how to endure the hours from dawn to dusk.</p> + +<p>“If we were to get married through a matchmaker and +perform the ceremonies of Sending Presents and Asking +Names, it would take many months, and by that time you +would have to look for me ‘in the dried-fish shop.’ What +is the use of giving me such advice as that?”</p> + +<p>The maid replied, “My mistress clings steadfastly to +her chastity, and even an equal could not trip her with lewd +talk. Much less may she be won through the stratagems of +a maid-servant. But she is skilled in composition, and often +when she has made a poem or essay, she is restless and dissatisfied +for a long while after. You must try to provoke +her by a love-poem. There is no other way.”</p> + +<p>Chang was delighted and at once composed two Spring +Poems to send her. Hung-niang took them away and came +back the same evening with a coloured tablet, which she +gave to Chang, saying, “This is from my mistress.” It +bore the title “The Bright Moon of the Fifteenth Night.” +The words ran:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>To wait for the moon I am sitting in the western parlour;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>To greet the wind, I have left the door ajar.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a><i>When a flower’s shadow stirred and brushed the wall,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>For a moment I thought it the shadow of a lover coming.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Chang could not doubt her meaning. That night was +the fourth after the first decade of the second month. Beside +the eastern wall of Ts‘ui’s apartments there grew an +apricot-tree; by climbing it one could cross the wall. On +the next night (which was the night of the full moon) Chang +used the tree as a ladder and crossed the wall. He went +straight to the western parlour and found the door ajar. +Hung-niang lay asleep on the bed. He woke her, and she +cried in a voice of astonishment, “Master Chang, what are +you doing here?” Chang answered, half-truly: “Ts‘ui’s +letter invited me. Tell her I have come.” Hung-niang +soon returned, whispering, “She is coming, she is coming.” +Chang was both delighted and surprised, thinking that his +salvation was indeed at hand.</p> + +<p>At last Ts‘ui entered.</p> + +<p>Her dress was sober and correct, and her face was stern. +She at once began to reprimand Chang, saying, “I am +grateful for the service which you rendered to my family. +You gave support to my dear mother when she was at a loss +how to save her little boy and young daughter. How came +you to send me a wicked message by the hand of a low maid-servant? +In protecting me from the license of others, you +acted nobly. But now that you wish to make me a partner +to your own licentious desires, you are asking me to accept +one wrong in exchange for another.</p> + +<p>“How was I to repel this advance? I would gladly have +hidden your letter, but it would have been immoral to +harbour a record of illicit proposals. Had I shown it to +my mother, I should ill have requited the debt we owe you. +<a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>Were I to entrust a message of refusal to a servant or concubine, +I feared it might not be truly delivered. I thought +of writing a letter to tell you what I felt; but I was afraid +I might not be able to make you understand. So I sent +those trivial verses, that I might be sure of your coming. I +have no cause to be ashamed of an irregularity which had +no other object but the preservation of my chastity.”</p> + +<p>With these words she vanished. Chang remained for a +long while petrified with astonishment. At last he climbed +back over the wall and went home in despair.</p> + +<p>Several nights after this he was lying asleep near the +verandah, when some one suddenly woke him. He rose +with a startled sigh and found that Hung-niang was there, +with <a name="typo_4" id="typo_4"></a>bedclothes under her arm and a pillow in her hand. +She shook Chang, saying, “She is coming, she is coming. +Why are you asleep?” Then she arranged the bedclothes +and pillow and went away.</p> + +<p>Chang sat up and rubbed his eyes. For a long while he +thought he must be dreaming, but he assumed a respectful +attitude and waited.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Hung-niang came back, bringing her mistress +with her. Ts‘ui, this time, was languid and flushed, yielding +and wanton in her air, as though her strength could +scarcely support her limbs. Her former severity had +utterly disappeared.</p> + +<p>That night was the eighth of the second decade. The crystal +beams of the sinking moon twinkled secretly across their +bed. Chang, in a strange exaltation, half-believed that a +fairy had come to him, and not a child of mortal men.</p> + +<p>At last the temple bell sounded, dawn glimmered in the +sky and Hung-niang came back to fetch her mistress away. +Ts‘ui turned on her side with a pretty cry, and followed her +maid to the door.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>The whole night she had not spoken a word.</p> + +<p>Chang rose when it was half-dark, still thinking that perhaps +it had been a dream. But when it grew light, he saw +her powder on his arm and smelt her perfume in his clothes. +A tear she had shed still glittered on the mattress.</p> + +<p>For more than ten days afterwards he did not see her +again. During this time he began to make a poem called +“Meeting a Fairy,” in thirty couplets. It was not yet finished, +when he chanced to meet Hung-niang in the road. +He asked her to take the poem to Ts‘ui.</p> + +<p>After this Ts‘ui let him come to her, and for a month or +more he crept out at dawn and in at dusk, the two of them +living together in that western parlour of which I spoke +before.</p> + +<p>Chang often asked her what her mother thought of him. +Ts‘ui said, “I know she would not oppose my will. So why +should we not get married at once?”</p> + +<p>Soon afterwards, Chang had to go to the capital. Before +starting, he tenderly informed her of his departure. +She did not reproach him, but her face showed pitiable distress. +On the night before he started, he was not able to +see her.</p> + +<p>After spending a few months in the west, Chang returned +to Puchow and again lodged for several months in the same +building as the Ts‘uis. He made many attempts to see +Ying-ying alone, but she would not let him do so. Remembering +that she was fond of calligraphy and verse, he frequently +sent her his own compositions, but she scarcely +glanced at them.</p> + +<p>It was characteristic of her that when any situation was +at its acutest point, she appeared quite unconscious of it. +She talked glibly, but would seldom answer a question. +<a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>She expected absolute devotion, but herself gave no encouragement.</p> + +<p>Sometimes when she was in the depth of despair, she +would affect all the while to be quite indifferent. It was +rarely possible to know from her face whether she was +pleased or sorry.</p> + +<p>One night Chang came upon her unawares when she was +playing on the harp, with a touch full of passion. But +when she saw him coming, she stopped playing. This incident +increased his infatuation.</p> + +<p>Soon afterwards, it became time for him to compete in +the Literary Examinations, and he was obliged once more +to set out for the western capital.</p> + +<p>The evening before his departure, he sat in deep despondency +by Ts‘ui’s side, but did not try again to tell her +of his love. Nor had he told her that he was going away, +but she seemed to have guessed it, and with submissive face +and gentle voice, she said to him softly: “Those whom a +man leads astray, he will in the end abandon. It must be +so, and I will not reproach you. You deigned to corrupt me +and now you deign to leave me. That is all. And your +vows of ‘faithfulness till death’—they too are cancelled. +There is no need for you to grieve at this parting, but since +I see you so sad and can give you no other comfort—you +once praised my harp-playing; but I was bashful and would +not play to you. Now I am bolder, and if you choose, I +will play you a tune.”</p> + +<p>She took her harp and began the prelude to “Rainbow +Skirts and Feather Jackets.”<a name="FNanchor_7_43" id="FNanchor_7_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_43" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> But after a few bars the +tune broke off into a wild and passionate dirge.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>All who were present caught their breath; but in a moment +she stopped playing, threw down her harp and, weeping +bitterly, ran to her mother’s room.</p> + +<p>She did not come back.</p> + +<p>Next morning Chang left. The following year he failed +in his examinations and could not leave the capital. So, to +unburden his heart, he wrote a letter to Ts‘ui. She answered +him somewhat in this fashion: “I have read your +letter and cherish it dearly. It has filled my heart half +with sorrow, half with joy. You sent with it a box of +garlands and five sticks of paste, that I may decorate my +head and colour my lips.</p> + +<p>“I thank you for your presents; but there is no one now +to care how I look. Seeing these things only makes me +think of you and grieve the more.</p> + +<p>“You say that you are prospering in your career at the +capital, and I am comforted by that news. But it makes +me fear you will never come back again to one who is so +distant and humble. But <i>that</i> is settled forever, and it is +no use talking of it.</p> + +<p>“Since last autumn I have lived in a dazed stupor. Amid +the clamour of the daytime, I have sometimes forced myself +to laugh and talk; but alone at night I have done nothing +but weep. Or, if I have fallen asleep my dreams have always +been full of the sorrows of parting. Often I dreamt +that you came to me as you used to do, but always before +the moment of our joy your phantom vanished from my +side. Yet, though we are still bedfellows in my dreams, +when I wake and think of it the time when we were together +seems very far off. For since we parted, the old year has +slipped away and a new year has begun....</p> + +<p><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>“Ch‘ang-an is a city of pleasure, where there are many +snares to catch a young man’s heart. How can I hope that +you will not forget one so sequestered and insignificant as +I? And indeed, if you were to be faithful, so worthless a +creature could never requite you. But our vows of unending +love—those <i>I</i> at least can fulfil.</p> + +<p><a name="typo_2" id="typo_2"></a>“Because you are my cousin, I met you at the feast. Lured +by a maid-servant, I visited you in private. A girl’s heart +is not in her own keeping. You ‘tempted me by your ballads’<a name="FNanchor_8_44" id="FNanchor_8_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_44" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> +and I could not bring myself to ‘throw the shuttle.’<a name="FNanchor_9_45" id="FNanchor_9_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_45" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>“Then came the sharing of pillow and mat, the time of +perfect loyalty and deepest tenderness. And I, being young +and foolish, thought it would never end.</p> + +<p>“Now, having ‘seen my Prince,’<a name="FNanchor_10_46" id="FNanchor_10_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_46" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> I cannot love again; nor, +branded by the shame of self-surrender, am I fit to perform +‘the service of towel and comb’;<a name="FNanchor_11_47" id="FNanchor_11_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_47" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> and of the bitterness of +the long celibacy which awaits me, what need is there to +speak?</p> + +<p>“The good man uses his heart; and if by chance his gaze +has fallen on the humble and insignificant, till the day of +his death, he continues the affections of his life. The cynic +cares nothing for people’s feelings. He will discard the +small to follow the great, look upon a former mistress +merely as an accomplice in sin, and hold that the most +solemn vows are made only to be broken. He will reverse +all natural laws—as though Nature should suddenly let +bone dissolve, while cinnabar resisted the fire. The dew +<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>that the wind has shaken from the tree still looks for kindness +from the dust; and such, too, is the sum of <i>my</i> hopes +and fears.</p> + +<p>“As I write, I am shaken by sobs and cannot tell you all +that is in my heart. My darling, I am sending you a jade +ring that I used to play with when I was a child. I want +you to wear it at your girdle, that you may become firm +and flawless as this jade, and, in your affections, unbroken +as the circuit of this ring.</p> + +<p>“And with it I am sending a skein of thread and a tea-trough +of flecked bamboo. There is no value in these few +things. I send them only to remind you to keep your heart +pure as jade and your affection unending as this round ring. +The bamboo is mottled as if with tears, and the thread is +tangled as the thoughts of those who are in sorrow. By +these tokens I seek no more than that, knowing the truth, +you may think kindly of me for ever.</p> + +<p>“Our hearts are very near, but our bodies are far apart. +There is no time fixed for our meeting; yet a secret longing +can unite souls that are separated by a thousand miles.</p> + +<p>“Protect yourself against the cold spring wind, eat well—look +after yourself in all ways and do not worry too +much about your worthless handmaid,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Ts‘ui Ying-ying</span>.”</p> + +<p>Chang showed this letter to his friends and so the story +became known to many who lived at that time. All who +heard it were deeply moved; but Chang, to their disappointment, +declared that he meant to break with Ts‘ui. +Yüan Chēn, of Honan, who knew Chang well, asked him +why he had made this decision.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>Chang answered:</p> + +<p>“I have observed that in Nature whatever has perfect +beauty is either itself liable to sudden transformations or +else is the cause of them in others. If Ts‘ui were to marry +a rich gentleman and become his pet, she would forever be +changing, as the clouds change to rain, or as the scaly +dragon turns into the horned dragon. I, for one, could +never keep pace with her transformations.</p> + +<p>“Of old, Hsin of the Yin dynasty and Yu of the Chou +dynasty ruled over kingdoms of many thousand chariots, +and their strength was very great. Yet a single woman +brought them to ruin, dissipating their hosts and leading +these monarchs to the assassin’s knife. So that to this day +they are a laughing-stock to all the world. I know that +my constancy could not withstand such spells, and that is +why I have curbed my passion.”</p> + +<p>At these words all who were present sighed deeply.</p> + +<p>A few years afterwards Ts‘ui married some one else and +Chang also found a wife. Happening once to pass the +house where Ts‘ui was living, he called on her husband and +asked to see her, saying he was her cousin. The husband +sent for her, but she would not come. Chang’s vexation +showed itself in his face. Some one told Ts‘ui of this and +she secretly wrote the poem:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Since I have grown so lean, my face has lost its beauty.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I have tossed and turned so many times that I am too tired to leave my bed.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>It is not that I mind the others seeing</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>How ugly I have grown;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>It is </i>you<i> who have caused me to lose my beauty,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Yet it is </i>you<i> I am ashamed should see me!</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>Chang went away without meeting her, and a few days +afterwards, when he was leaving the town, wrote a poem of +final farewell, which said:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>You cannot say that you are abandoned and deserted;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>For you have found some one to love you.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Why do you not convert your broodings over the past</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Into kindness to your present husband?</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>After that they never heard of one another again. Many +of Chang’s contemporaries praised the skill with which he +extricated himself from this entanglement.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_37" id="Footnote_1_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_37"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 785-805.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_38" id="Footnote_2_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_38"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> I.e., Yüan Chēn himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_39" id="Footnote_3_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_39"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Type of the indiscriminate lover, fourth century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_40" id="Footnote_4_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_40"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The capital of China at that time; now called Hsi-an-fu.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_41" id="Footnote_5_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_41"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> B. <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 735; d. 799. Famous for his campaigns against the +Tibetans and Uighurs.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_42" id="Footnote_6_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_42"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> I.e., <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 800.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_43" id="Footnote_7_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_43"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> A gay, court tune of the eighth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_44" id="Footnote_8_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_44"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> As Ssŭ-ma tempted Cho Wēn-chün, second century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_45" id="Footnote_9_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_45"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> As the neighbour’s daughter did to Hsieh Kun (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> fourth century), +in order to repel his advances.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_46" id="Footnote_10_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_46"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Odes I. 1., X. 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_47" id="Footnote_11_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_47"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> = become a bride.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a><a name="THE_PITCHER" id="THE_PITCHER"></a>[64] THE PITCHER</h3> + +<h4>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 779-831</i>]</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I dreamt I climbed to a high, high plain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on the plain I found a deep well.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My throat was dry with climbing and I longed to drink;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my eyes were eager to look into the cool shaft.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I walked round it; I looked right down;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw my image mirrored on the face of the pool.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An earthen pitcher was sinking into the black depths;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There was no rope to pull it to the well-head.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I was strangely troubled lest the pitcher should be lost,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And started wildly running to look for help.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From village to village I scoured that high plain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The men were gone: the dogs leapt at my throat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I came back and walked weeping round the well;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faster and faster the blinding tears flowed—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till my own sobbing suddenly woke me up;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My room was silent; no one in the house stirred;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flame of my candle flickered with a green smoke;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tears I had shed glittered in the candle-light.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A bell sounded; I knew it was the midnight-chime;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sat up in bed and tried to arrange my thoughts:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The plain in my dream was the graveyard at Ch‘ang-an,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those hundred acres of untilled land.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soil heavy and the mounds heaped high;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the dead below them laid in deep troughs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deep are the troughs, yet sometimes dead men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Find their way to the world above the grave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to-night my love who died long ago<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Came into my dream as the pitcher sunk in the well.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That was why the tears suddenly streamed from my eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Streamed from my eyes and fell on the collar of my dress.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a><a name="PO_HSING-CHIEN" id="PO_HSING-CHIEN"></a>PO HSING-CHIEN</h2> + +<h5>[<i><span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 799-831</i>]</h5> + +<h5>[<i>Brother</i> of Po-Chü-i]</h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a><a name="THE_STORY_OF_MISS_LI" id="THE_STORY_OF_MISS_LI"></a>[65] THE STORY OF MISS LI</h3> + + +<p>Miss Li, ennobled with the title “Lady of Ch‘ien-kuo,” +was once a prostitute in Ch‘ang-an. The devotion of her +conduct was so remarkable that I have thought it worth +while to record her story. In the T‘ien-pao era<a name="FNanchor_1_48" id="FNanchor_1_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_48" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> there was +a certain nobleman, Governor of Ch‘ang-chou and Lord of +Jung-yang, whose name and surname I will omit. He was +a man of great wealth and highly esteemed by all. He had +passed his fiftieth year and had a son who was close on +twenty, a boy who in literary talent outstripped all his companions. +His father was proud of him and had great hopes +of his future. “This,” he would say, “is the ‘thousand-league +colt’ of our family.” When the time came for the +lad to compete at the Provincial Examinations, his father +gave him fine clothes and a handsome coach with richly +caparisoned horses for the journey; and to provide for his +expense at the Capital, he gave him a large sum of money, +saying, “I am sure that your talent is such that you will +succeed at the first attempt; but I am giving you two +years’ supply, that you may pursue your career free from +all anxiety.” The young man was also quite confident and +saw himself getting the first place as clearly as he saw the +palm of his own hand.</p> + +<p>Starting from P‘i-ling<a name="FNanchor_2_49" id="FNanchor_2_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_49" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> he reached Ch‘ang-an in a few +weeks and took a house in the Pu-chēng quarter. One day +he was coming back from a visit to the Eastern Market. He +entered the City by the eastern gate of P‘ing-k‘ang and was +going to visit a friend who lived in the south-western part +of the town. When he reached the Ming-k‘o Bend, he saw +<a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>a house of which the gate and courtyard were rather narrow; +but the house itself was stately and stood well back +from the road. One of the double doors was open, and at +it stood a lady, attended by her maid-servant. She was of +exquisite, bewitching beauty, such as the world has seldom +produced.</p> + +<p>When he saw her, the young man unconsciously reined in +his horse and hesitated. Unable to leave the spot, he purposely +let his whip fall to the ground and waited for his +servant to pick it up, all the time staring at the lady in the +doorway. She too was staring and met his gaze with a look +that seemed to be an answer to his admiration. But in the +end he went away without daring to speak to her.</p> + +<p>But he could not put the thought of her out of his mind +and secretly begged those of his friends who were most +expert in the pleasures of Ch‘ang-an to tell him what they +knew of the girl. He learnt from them that the house belonged +to a low and unprincipled woman named Li. When +he asked what chance he had of winning the daughter, they +answered: “The woman Li is possessed of considerable +property, for her previous dealings have been with wealthy +and aristocratic families, from whom she has received enormous +sums. Unless you are willing to spend many thousand +pounds, the daughter will have nothing to do with +you.”</p> + +<p>The young man answered: “All I care about is to win +her. I do not mind if she costs a million pounds.” The +next day he set out in his best clothes, with many servants +riding behind him, and knocked at the door of Mrs. Li’s +house. Immediately a page-boy drew the bolt. The young +man asked, “Can you tell me whose house this is?” The +boy did not answer, but ran back into the house and called +<a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>out at the top of his voice, “Here is the gentleman who +dropped his whip the other day!”</p> + +<p>Miss Li was evidently very much pleased. He heard her +saying, “Be sure not to let him go away. I am just going +to do my hair and change my clothes; I will be back in a +minute.” The young man, in high spirits, followed the +page-boy into the house. A white-haired old lady was going +upstairs, whom he took to be the girl’s mother. Bowing +low, the young man addressed her as follows: “I am told +that you have a vacant plot of land, which you would be +willing to let as building-ground. Is that true?” The +old lady answered, “I am afraid the site is too mean and +confined; it would be quite unsuitable for a gentleman’s +house. I should not like to offer it to you.” She then took +him into the guest-room, which was a very handsome one, +and asked him to be seated, saying, “I have a daughter who +has little either of beauty or accomplishment, but she is +fond of seeing strangers. I should like you to meet her.”</p> + +<p>So saying, she called for her daughter, who presently entered. +Her eyes sparkled with such fire, her arms were so +dazzling white and there was in her movements such an exquisite +grace that the young man could only leap to his +feet in confusion and did not dare raise his eyes. When +their salutations were over, he began to make a few remarks +about the weather; and realized as he did so that her +beauty was of a kind he had never encountered before.</p> + +<p>They sat down again. Tea was made and wine poured +out. The vessels used were spotlessly clean. He lingered +till the day was almost over; the curfew-drum sounded its +four beats. The old lady asked if he lived far away. He +answered untruthfully, “Several leagues beyond the Yen-p‘ing +Gate,” hoping that they would ask him to stay. The +<a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>old lady said, “The drum has sounded. You will have to +go back at once, unless you mean to break the law.”</p> + +<p>The young man answered, “I was being so agreeably entertained +that I did not notice how rapidly the day had fled. +My house is a long way off and in the city I have no friends +or relations. What am I to do?” Miss Li then interposed, +saying, “If you can forgive the meanness of our poor home, +what harm would there be in your spending the night with +us?” He looked doubtfully at the girl’s mother, but met +with no discouragement.</p> + +<p>Calling his servants, he gave them money and told them +to buy provisions for the night. But the girl laughingly +stopped him, saying, “That is not the way guests are entertained. +Our humble house will provide for your wants +to-night, if you are willing to partake of our simple fare +and defer your bounty to another occasion.” He tried to +refuse, but in the end she would not allow him to, and they +all moved to the western hall. The curtains, screens, blinds +and couches were of dazzling splendour; while the toilet-boxes, +rugs, and pillows were of the utmost elegance. +Candles were lighted and an excellent supper was served.</p> + +<p>After supper the old lady retired, leaving the lovers engaged +in the liveliest conversation, laughing and chattering +completely at their ease.</p> + +<p>After a while the young man said: “I passed your house +the other day and you happened to be standing at the door. +And after that, I could think of nothing but you; whether I +lay down to rest or sat down to eat, I could not stop thinking +of you.” She laughed and answered: “It was just the +same with me.“ He said: “You must know that I did not +come to-day simply to look for building-land. I came +<a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>hoping that you would fulfil my lifelong desire; but I was +not sure how you would welcome me. What—”</p> + +<p>He had not finished speaking when the old woman came +back and asked what they were saying. When they told +her, she laughed and said, “Has not Mencius written that +‘the relationship between men and women is the ground-work +of society’? When lovers are agreed, not even the +mandate of a parent will deter them. But my daughter is +of humble birth. Are you sure that she is fit to ‘present +pillow and mat’ to a great man?”</p> + +<p>He came down from the daïs and, bowing low, begged +that she would accept him as her slave. Henceforward the +old lady regarded him as her son-in-law; they drank heavily +together and finally parted. Next morning he had all his +boxes and bags brought round to Mrs. Li’s house and settled +there permanently. Henceforward he shut himself up with +his mistress and none of his friends ever heard of him. +He consorted only with actors and dancers and low people +of that kind, passing the time in wild sports and wanton +feasting. When his money was all spent, he sold his horses +and men-servants. In about a year his money, property, +servants and horses were all gone.</p> + +<p>For some time the old lady’s manner towards him had +been growing gradually colder, but his mistress remained as +devoted as ever. One day she said to him, “We have been +together a year, but I am still not with child. They say +that the spirit of the Bamboo Grove answers a woman’s +prayers as surely as an echo. Let us go to his temple and +offer a libation.”</p> + +<p>The young man, not suspecting any plot, was delighted to +take her to the temple, and having pawned his coat to buy +sweet wine for the libation, he went with her and performed +<a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>the ceremony of prayer. They stayed one night at the +temple and came back next day. Whipping up their donkey, +they soon arrived at the north gate of the P‘ing-k‘ang quarter. +At this point his mistress turned to him and said, “My +aunt’s house is in a turning just near here. How would it +be if we were to go there and rest for a little?”</p> + +<p>He drove on as she directed him, and they had not gone +more than a hundred paces, when he saw the entrance to a +spacious carriage-drive. A servant who belonged to the +place came out and stopped the cart, saying, “This is the +entrance.” The young man got down and was met by some +one who came out and asked who they were. When told +that it was Miss Li, he went back and announced her. +Presently a married lady came out who seemed to be about +forty. She greeted him, saying, “Has my niece arrived?” +Miss Li then got out of the cart and her aunt said to her: +“Why have you not been to see me for so long?” At +which they looked at one another and laughed. Then Miss +Li introduced him to her aunt and when that was over they +all went into a side garden near the Western Halberd Gate. +In the middle of the garden was a pagoda, and round it grew +bamboos and trees of every variety, while ponds and summer-houses +added to its air of seclusion. He asked Miss +Li if this were her aunt’s estate; she laughed, but did not +answer and spoke of something else.</p> + +<p>Tea of excellent quality was served; but when they had +been drinking it for a little while, a messenger came galloping +up on a huge Fergana horse, saying that Miss Li’s +mother had suddenly been taken very ill and had already +lost consciousness, so that they had better come back as +quickly as possible.</p> + +<p>Miss Li said to her aunt: “I am very much upset. I +<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>think I had better take the horse and ride on ahead. Then I +will send it back, and you and my husband can come along +later.” The young man was anxious to go with her, but +the aunt and her servants engaged him in conversation, +flourishing their hands in front of him and preventing him +from leaving the garden. The aunt said to him: “No doubt +my sister is dead by this time. You and I ought to discuss +together what can be done to help with the expenses of the +burial. What is the use of running off like that? Stay +here and help me to make a plan for the funeral and mourning +ceremonies.”</p> + +<p>It grew late; but the messenger had not returned. The +aunt said: “I am surprised he has not come back with the +horse. You had better go there on foot as quickly as possible +and see what has happened. I will come on later.”</p> + +<p>The young man set out on foot for Mrs. Li’s house. +When he got there he found the gate firmly bolted, locked +and sealed. Astounded, he questioned the neighbors, who +told him that the house had only been let to Mrs. Li and +that, the lease having expired, the landlord had now resumed +possession. The old lady, they said, had gone to +live elsewhere. They did not know her new address.</p> + +<p>At first he thought of hurrying back to Hsüan-yang and +questioning the aunt; but he found it was too late for him +to get there. So he pawned some of his clothes, and, with +the proceeds, bought himself supper and hired a bed. But +he was too angry and distressed to sleep, and did not once +close his eyes from dusk till dawn. Early in the morning +he dragged himself away and went to the “aunt’s house.” +He knocked on the door repeatedly, but it was breakfast-time +and no one answered. At last, when he had shouted +several times at the top of his voice, a footman walked +<a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>majestically to the door. The young man nervously mentioned +the aunt’s name and asked whether she was at home. +The footman replied: “No one of that name here.” “But +she lived here yesterday evening,” the young man protested; +“why are you trying to deceive me? If she does +not live here, who <i>does</i> the house belong to?” The footman +answered: “This is the residence of His Excellency +Mr. Ts‘ui. I believe that yesterday some persons hired a +corner of the grounds. I understand that they wished to +entertain a cousin who was coming from a distance. But +they were gone before nightfall.”</p> + +<p>The young man, perplexed and puzzled to the point of +madness, was absolutely at a loss what to do next. The +best he could think of was to go to the quarters in Pu-chēng, +where he had installed himself when he first arrived at Ch‘ang-an. +The landlord was sympathetic and offered to +feed him. But the young man was too much upset to eat, +and having fasted for three days fell seriously ill. He +rapidly grew worse, and the landlord, fearing he would not +recover, had him moved straight to the undertaker’s shop. +In a short time the whole of the undertaker’s staff +was collected round him, offering sympathy and bringing +him food. Gradually he got better and was able to walk +with a stick.</p> + +<p>The undertaker now hired him by the day to hold up the +curtains of fine cloth, by which he earned just enough to +support himself. In a few months he grew quite strong +again, but whenever he heard the mourners’ doleful songs, +in which they regretted that they could not change places +with the corpse, burst into violent fits of sobbing and shed +streams of tears over which they lost all control, then he +used to go home and imitate their performance.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>Being a man of intelligence, he very soon mastered the +art and finally became the most expert mourner in Ch‘ang-an. +It happened that there were two undertakers at this +time between whom there was a great rivalry. The undertaker +of the east turned out magnificent hearses and biers, +and in this respect his superiority could not be contested. +But the mourners he provided were somewhat inferior. +Hearing of our young man’s skill, he offered him a large +sum for his services. The eastern undertaker’s supporters, +who were familiar with the repertoire of his company, +secretly taught the young man several fresh tunes and +showed him how to fit the words to them. The lessons +went on for several weeks, without any one being allowed to +know of it. At the end of that time the two undertakers +agreed to hold a competitive exhibition of their wares in +T‘ien-mēn Street. The loser was to forfeit 50,000 cash to +cover the cost of the refreshments provided. Before the +exhibition an agreement was drawn up and duly signed by +witnesses.</p> + +<p>A crowd of several thousand people collected to watch the +competition. The mayor of the quarter got wind of the +proceedings and told the chief of police. The chief of +police told the governor of the city. Very soon all the +gentlemen of Ch‘ang-an were hurrying to the spot and +every house in the town was empty. The exhibition lasted +from dawn till midday. Coaches, hearses and all kinds +of funeral trappings were successively displayed, but the +undertaker of the west could establish no superiority. +Filled with shame, he set up a platform in the south corner +of the square. Presently a man with a long beard came +forward, carrying a hand-bell and attended by several +assistants. He wagged his beard, raised his eyebrows, +<a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>folded his arms across his chest and bowed. Then, mounting +the platform, he sang the “Dirge of the White Horse.” +When it was over, confident of an easy victory, he glared +round him, as if to imply that his opponents had all vanished. +He was applauded on every side and was himself +convinced that his talents were a unique product of the age +and could not possibly be called into question.</p> + +<p>After a while the undertaker of the east put together some +benches in the north corner of the square, and a young man +in a black hat came forward, attended by five assistants and +carrying a bunch of hearse-plumes in his hand. It was the +young man of our story.</p> + +<p>He adjusted his clothes, looked timidly up and down, +and then cleared his throat and began his tune with an air +of great diffidence.</p> + +<p>He sang the dirge “Dew on the Garlic.”<a name="FNanchor_3_50" id="FNanchor_3_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_50" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> His voice rose +so shrill and clear that “its echoes shook the forest trees.” +Before he had finished the first verse, all who heard were +sobbing and hiding their tears.</p> + +<p>When the performance was over, every one made fun of +the western undertaker, and he was so much put out that he +immediately removed his exhibits and retired from the +contest. The audience was amazed by the collapse of the +western undertaker and could not imagine where his rival +had procured so remarkable a singer.</p> + +<p>It happened that the Emperor had recently issued an +order commanding the governors of outside provinces to +confer with him at the capital at least once a year.</p> + +<p>At this time the young man’s father, who was governor +of Ch‘ang-chou, had recently arrived at the capital to make +his report. Hearing of the competition, he and some of +<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>his colleagues discarded their official robes and insignia, and +slipped away to join the crowd. With them was an old +servant, who was the husband of the young man’s foster-nurse. +Recognizing his foster-son’s way of moving and +speaking, he was on the point of accosting him, but not +daring to do so, he stood weeping silently. The father +asked him why he was crying, and the servant replied, “Sir, +the young man who is singing reminds me of your lost +son.” The father answered: “My son became the prey of +robbers, because I gave him too much money. This cannot +be he.” So saying, he also began to weep and, leaving the +crowd, returned to his lodging.</p> + +<p>But the old servant went about among the members of the +troupe, asking who it was that had just sung with such +skill. They all told him it was the son of such a one; and +when he asked the young man’s own name, that too was unfamiliar, +for he was living under an <i>alias</i>. The old servant +was so much puzzled that he determined to put the matter +to the test for himself. But when the young man saw his +old friend walking towards him, he winced, turned away his +face, and tried to hide in the crowd. The old man followed +him and catching his sleeve, said: “Surely it is you!” +Then they embraced and wept. Presently they went back +together to his father’s lodging. But his father abused him, +saying: “Your conduct has disgraced the family. How +dare you show your face again?” So saying, he took him +out of the house and led him to the ground between the +Ch‘ü-chiang Pond and the Apricot Gardens. Here he +stripped him naked and thrashed him with his horse-whip, +till the young man succumbed to the pain and collapsed. +The father then left him and went away.</p> + +<p>But the young man’s singing-master had told some of his +<a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>friends to watch what happened to him. When they saw +him stretched inanimate on the ground, they came back and +told the other members of the troupe.</p> + +<p>The news occasioned universal lamentation, and two men +were despatched with a reed mat to cover up the body. +When they got there they found his heart still warm, and +when they had held him in an upright posture for some +time, his breathing recommenced. So they carried him +home between them and administered liquid food through a +reed-pipe. Next morning, he recovered consciousness; but +after several months he was still unable to move his hands +and feet. Moreover, the sores left by his thrashing festered +in so disgusting a manner that his friends found him too +troublesome, and one night deposited him in the middle of +the road. However, the passers-by, harrowed by his condition, +never failed to throw him scraps of food.</p> + +<p>So copious was his diet that in three months he recovered +sufficiently to hobble with a stick. Clad in a linen coat,—which +was knotted together in a hundred places, so that it +looked as tattered as a quail’s tail,—and carrying a broken +saucer in his hand, he now went about the idle quarters of +the town, earning his living as a professional beggar.</p> + +<p>Autumn had now turned to winter. He spent his nights +in public lavatories and his days haunting the markets and +booths.</p> + +<p>One day when it was snowing hard, hunger and cold had +driven him into the streets. His beggar’s cry was full of +woe and all who heard it were heart-rent. But the snow was +so heavy that hardly a house had its outer door open, and +the streets were empty.</p> + +<p>When he reached the eastern gate of An-i, about the +<a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>seventh or eighth turning north of the Hsün-li Wall, there +was a house with the double-doors half open.</p> + +<p>It was the house where Miss Li was then living, but +the young man did not know.</p> + +<p>He stood before the door, wailing loud and long.</p> + +<p>Hunger and cold had given such a piteous accent to his +cry that none could have listened unmoved.</p> + +<p>Miss Li heard it from her room and at once said to her +servant, “That is so-and-so. I know his voice.” She flew +to the door and was horrified to see her old lover standing +before her so emaciated by hunger and disfigured by sores +that he seemed scarcely human. “Can it be you?” she +said. But the young man was so overcome by bewilderment +and excitement that he could not speak, but only +moved his lips noiselessly.</p> + +<p>She threw her arms round his neck, then wrapped him in +her own embroidered jacket and led him to the parlour. +Here, with quavering voice, she reproached herself, saying, +“It is my doing that you have been brought to this pass.” +And with these words she swooned.</p> + +<p>Her mother came running up in great excitement, asking +who had arrived. Miss Li, recovering herself, said who it +was. The old woman cried out in rage: “Send him away! +What did you bring him in here for?”</p> + +<p>But Miss Li looked up at her defiantly and said: “Not so! +This is the son of a noble house. Once he rode in grand +coaches and wore golden trappings on his coat. But when +he came to our house, he soon lost all he had; and then we +plotted together and left him destitute. Our conduct has +indeed been inhuman! We have ruined his career and +robbed him even of his place in the category of human relationships. +For the love of father and son is implanted +<a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>by Heaven; yet we have hardened his father’s heart, so that +he beat him with a stick and left him on the ground.</p> + +<p>“Every one in the land knows that it is I who have reduced +him to his present plight. The Court is full of his +kinsmen. Some day one of them will come into power. +Then an inquiry will be set afoot, and disaster will overtake +us. And since we have flouted Heaven and defied the laws +of humanity, neither spirits nor divinities will be on our +side. Let us not wantonly incur a further retribution!</p> + +<p>“I have lived as your daughter for twenty years. Reckoning +what I have cost you in that time, I find it must be +close on a thousand pieces of gold. You are now aged +sixty, so that by the price of twenty more years’ food and +clothing, I can buy my freedom. I intend to live separately +with this young man. We will not go far away; I shall +see to it that we are near enough to pay our respects to you +both morning and evening.”</p> + +<p>The “mother” saw that she was not to be gainsaid and +fell in with the arrangement. When she had paid her ransom, +Miss Li had a hundred pieces of gold left over; and +with them she hired a vacant room, five doors away. Here +she gave the young man a bath, changed his clothes, fed him +with hot soup to relax his stomach, and later on fattened +him up with cheese and milk.</p> + +<p>In a few weeks she began to place before him all the +choicest delicacies of land and sea; and she clothed him +with cap, shoes and stockings of the finest quality. In a +short time he began gradually to put on flesh, and by the +end of the year, he had entirely recovered his former health.</p> + +<p>One day Miss Li said to him: “Now your limbs are stout +again and your will strong! Sometimes, when deeply pondering +in silent sorrow, I wonder to myself how much you +<a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>remember of your old literary studies?” He thought and +answered: “Of ten parts I remember two or three.”</p> + +<p>Miss Li then ordered the carriage to be got ready and the +young man followed her on horseback. When they reached +the classical bookshop at the side-gate south of the Flag tower, +she made him choose all the books he wanted, till she +had laid out a hundred pieces of gold. Then she packed +them in the cart and drove home. She now made him dismiss +all other thoughts from his mind and apply himself +only to study. All the evening he toiled at his books, with +Miss Li at his side, and they did not retire till midnight. +If ever she found that he was too tired to work, she made +him lay down his classics and write a poem or ode.</p> + +<p>In two years he had thoroughly mastered his subjects and +was admired by all the scholars of the realm. He said to +Miss Li, “<i>Now</i>, surely, I am ready for the examiners!” but +she would not let him compete and made him revise all he +had learnt, to prepare for the “hundredth battle.” At the +end of the third year she said, “Now you may go.” He +went in for the examination and passed at the first attempt. +His reputation spread rapidly through the examination +rooms and even older men, when they saw his compositions, +were filled with admiration and respect, and sought +his friendship.</p> + +<p>But Miss Li would not let him make friends with them, +saying, “Wait a little longer! Nowadays when a bachelor +of arts has passed his examination, he thinks himself fit to +hold the most advantageous posts at Court and to win a +universal reputation. But your unfortunate conduct and +disreputable past put you at a disadvantage beside your +fellow-scholars. You must ‘grind, temper and sharpen’ +your attainments, that you may secure a second victory. +<a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>Then you will be able to match yourself against famous +scholars and contend with the illustrious.”</p> + +<p>The young man accordingly increased his efforts and enhanced +his value. That year it happened that the Emperor +had decreed a special examination for the selection of +candidates of unusual merit from all parts of the Empire. +The young man competed, and came out top in the “censorial +essay.” He was offered the post of Army Inspector +at Ch‘ēng-tu Fu. The officers who were to escort him were +all previous friends.</p> + +<p>When he was about to take up his post, Miss Li said to +him, “Now that you are restored to your proper station in +life, I will not be a burden to you. Let me go back and +look after the old lady till she dies. You must ally yourself +with some lady of noble lineage, who will be worthy +to carry the sacrificial dishes in your Ancestral Hall. Do +not injure your prospects by an unequal union. Good-bye, +for now I must leave you.”</p> + +<p>The young man burst into tears and threatened to kill +himself if she left him, but she obstinately refused to go +with him. He begged her passionately not to desert him, +and she at last consented to go with him across the river +as far as Chien-mēn.<a name="FNanchor_4_51" id="FNanchor_4_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_51" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> “There,” she said, “you must part +with me.” The young man consented and in a few weeks +they reached Chien-mēn. Before he had started out again, +a proclamation arrived announcing that the young man’s +father, who had been Governor of Ch‘ang-chou, had been +appointed Governor of Ch‘ēng-tu and Intendant of the +Chien-nan Circuit. Next morning the father arrived, and +the young man sent in his card and waited upon him at the +<a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>posting-station. His father did not recognize him, but the +card bore the names of the young man’s father and grandfather, +with their ranks and titles. When he read these, he +was astounded, and bidding his son mount the steps he +caressed him and wept. After a while he said: “Now we +two are father and son once more,” and bade him tell his +story. When he heard of the young man’s adventures, he +was amazed. Presently he asked: “And where is Miss +Li?” He replied: “She came with me as far as here, but +now she is going back again.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot allow it,” the father said. Next day he ordered +a carriage for his son and sent him on to report +himself at Ch‘ēng-tu; but he detained Miss Li at Chien-mēn, +found her a suitable lodging and ordered a match-maker to +perform the initial ceremonies for uniting the two families +and to accomplish the six rites of welcome. The young +man came back from Ch‘ēng-tu and they were duly married. +In the years that followed their marriage, Miss Li +showed herself a devoted wife and competent housekeeper, +and was beloved by all her relations.</p> + +<p>Some years later both the young man’s parents died, and +in his mourning observances he showed unusual piety. As +a mark of divine favour, magic toadstools grew on the roof +of his mourning-hut,<a name="FNanchor_5_52" id="FNanchor_5_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_52" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> each stem bearing three plants. The +report of his virtue reached even the Emperor’s ears. Moreover +a number of white swallows nested in the beams of his +roof, an omen which so impressed the Emperor that he +raised his rank immediately.</p> + +<p>When the three years of mourning were over, he was +<a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>successively promoted to various distinguished posts and in +the course of ten years was Governor of several provinces. +Miss Li was given the fief of Chien-kuo, with the title “The +Lady of Chien-kuo.”</p> + +<p>He had four sons who all held high rank. Even the least +successful of them became Governor of T‘ai-yüan, and his +brothers all married into great families, so that his good +fortune both in public and private life was without parallel.</p> + +<p>How strange that we should find in the conduct of a +prostitute a degree of constancy rarely equalled even by the +heroines of history! Surely the story is one which cannot +but provoke a sigh!</p> + +<p>My great-uncle was Governor of Chin-chou; subsequently +he joined the Ministry of Finance and became Inspector of +Waterways, and finally Inspector of Roads. In all these +three offices he had Miss Li’s husband as his colleague, so +that her story was well known to him in every particular. +During the Chēng-yüan period<a name="FNanchor_6_53" id="FNanchor_6_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_53" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> I was sitting one day with +Li Kung-tso<a name="FNanchor_7_54" id="FNanchor_7_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_54" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> of Lung-hai; we fell to talking of wives who +had distinguished themselves by remarkable conduct. I +told him the story of Miss Li. He listened with rapt attention, +and when it was over, asked me to write it down for +him. So I took up my brush, wetted the hairs and made +this rough outline of the story.</p> + +<p>[<i>Dated</i>] <i>autumn, eighth month of the year Yi-hai</i>, (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> +795), <i>written by Po-Hsing-chien of T‘ai-yüan.</i></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_48" id="Footnote_1_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_48"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 742-56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_49" id="Footnote_2_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_49"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> In Kiang-su, near Ch‘ang-chou.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_50" id="Footnote_3_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_50"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> See <a name="typo_3" id="typo_3"></a>p. 58, “170 Chinese Poems,” Alfred A. Knopf, 1919.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_51" id="Footnote_4_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_51"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The “Sword-gate”: commanding the pass which leads into +Szechuan from the north.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_52" id="Footnote_5_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_52"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See “Book or Rites,” xxxii, 3. On returning from his father’s +burial a son must not enter the house; he should live in an “out-house,” +mourning for his father’s absence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_53" id="Footnote_6_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_53"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 785-805.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_54" id="Footnote_7_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_54"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> A writer.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a><a name="WANG_CHIEN" id="WANG_CHIEN"></a>WANG CHIEN</h2> + +<h5>[<i>c. <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 830</i>]</h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a><a name="HEARING_THAT_HIS_FRIEND_WAS_COMING_BACK_FROM_THE_WAR" id="HEARING_THAT_HIS_FRIEND_WAS_COMING_BACK_FROM_THE_WAR"></a>[66] HEARING THAT HIS FRIEND WAS COMING BACK FROM THE WAR</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In old days those who went to fight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In three years had one year’s leave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But in <i>this</i> war the soldiers are never changed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They must go on fighting till they die on the battle-field.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I thought of you, so weak and indolent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hopelessly trying to learn to march and drill.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That a young man should ever come home again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seemed about as likely as that the sky should fall.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since I got the news that you were coming back,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice I have mounted to the high hall of your home.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I found your brother mending your horse’s stall;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I found your mother sewing your new clothes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am half afraid; perhaps it is not true;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet I never weary of watching for you on the road.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each day I go out at the City Gate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a flask of wine, lest you should come thirsty.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh that I could shrink the surface of the World,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So that suddenly I might find you standing at my side.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a><a name="THE_SOUTH" id="THE_SOUTH"></a>[67] THE SOUTH</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In the southern land many birds sing;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of towns and cities half are unwalled.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The country markets are thronged by wild tribes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mountain-villages bear river-names.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poisonous mists rise from the damp sands;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strange fires gleam through the night-rain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And none passes but the lonely fisher of pearls.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Year by year on his way to the South Sea.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a><a name="OU-YANG_HSIU" id="OU-YANG_HSIU"></a>OU-YANG HSIU</h2> + +<h5>[<i>b. 1007; d. 1072</i>]</h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a><a name="AUTUMN" id="AUTUMN"></a>[68] AUTUMN</h3> + + +<p>Master Ou-yang was reading his books<a name="FNanchor_1_55" id="FNanchor_1_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_55" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> at night when he +heard a strange sound coming from the north-west. He +paused and listened intently, saying to himself: “How +strange, how strange!” First there was a pattering and +rustling; but suddenly this broke into a great churning and +crashing, like the noise of waves that wake the traveller at +night, when wind and rain suddenly come; and where they +lash the ship, there is a jangling and clanging as of metal +against metal.</p> + +<p>Or again, like the sound of soldiers going to battle, who +march swiftly with their gags<a name="FNanchor_2_56" id="FNanchor_2_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_56" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> between their teeth, when +the captain’s voice cannot be heard, but only the tramp +of horses and men moving.</p> + +<p>I called to my boy, bidding him go out and see what +noise this could be. The boy said: “The moon and stars +are shining; the Milky Way glitters in the sky. Nowhere is +there any noise of men. The noise must be in the trees.”</p> + +<p>“I-hsi! alas!” I said, “this must be the sound of +Autumn. Oh, why has Autumn come? For as to Autumn’s +form, her colours are mournful and pale. Mists +scatter and clouds withdraw. Her aspect is clean and +bright. The sky is high and the sunlight clear as crystal. +Her breath is shivering and raw, pricking men’s skin and +bones; her thoughts are desolate, bringing emptiness and +silence to the rivers and hills. And hence it is that her +whisperings are sorrowful and cold, but her shouts are wild +and angry. Pleasant grasses grew soft and green, vying in +<a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>rankness. Fair trees knit their shade and gave delight. +Autumn swept the grasses and their colour changed; she met +the trees, and their boughs were stripped. And because +Autumn’s being is compounded of sternness, therefore it +was that they withered and perished, fell and decayed. For +Autumn is an executioner,<a name="FNanchor_3_57" id="FNanchor_3_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_57" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> and her hour is darkness. She +is a warrior, and her element is metal. Therefore she is +called ‘the doom-spirit of heaven and earth’;<a name="FNanchor_4_58" id="FNanchor_4_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_58" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> for her +thoughts are bent on stern destruction.</p> + +<p>“In Spring, growth; in Autumn, fruit: that is Heaven’s +plan. Therefore in music the note <i>shang</i> is the symbol of +the West and <i>I-tsē</i> is the pitch-pipe of the seventh month. +For <i>shang</i> means ‘<i>to strike</i>’; when things grow old they are +stricken by grief. And <i>I</i> means ‘<i>to slay</i>’; things that have +passed their prime must needs be slain. Plants and trees +have no feelings; when their time comes they are blown +down. But man moves and lives and is of creatures most +divine. A hundred griefs assail his heart, ten thousand +tasks wear out his limbs, and each inward stirring shakes the +atoms of his soul. And all the more, when he thinks of +things that his strength cannot achieve or grieves at things +his mind cannot understand, is it strange that cheeks that +were steeped in red should grow withered as an old stick, +and hair that was black as ebony should turn as spangled as +a starry sky? How should ought else but what is fashioned +of brass or stone strive to outlast the splendour of a tree? +Who but man himself is the slayer of his youth? Why was +I angered at Autumn’s voice?”</p> + +<p>The boy made no answer: he was sleeping with lowered +<a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>head. I could hear nothing but the insects chirping shrilly +on every side as though they sought to join in my lamentation.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_55" id="Footnote_1_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_55"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The poem was written in 1052, when Ou-yang was finishing his +“New History of the T‘ang Dynasty.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_56" id="Footnote_2_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_56"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Pieces of wood put in their mouths to prevent their talking.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_57" id="Footnote_3_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_57"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Executions took place in autumn. See <i>Chou Li</i>, Book xxxiv +(Biot’s translation, tom. ii, p. 286).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_58" id="Footnote_4_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_58"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> “Book of Rites,” I. 656 (Couvreur’s edition).</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a><a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDIX</h2> + + +<p>An essay on Po Chü-i, whose poems occupy most of this +book, will be found in “170 Chinese Poems.” The fullest +account of Li Po’s life (with translations) is given +in a paper read by me to the China Society, and published +in the <i>Asiatic Review</i>, July, 1919. Notices of Ch‘ü Yüan, +Wang Wei, Yüan Chēn, Wang Chien and Ou-yang Hsiu will +be found in Giles’s “Biographical Dictionary.” To Wang +Chieh Po Chü-i addressed several poems.</p> + +<p>Of the 68 pieces in this book, 55 are now translated for +the first time. Of the eight poems by Li Po, all but Number +6 have been translated before, some of them by several +hands.</p> + +<p>Among the poems by Po Chü-i, three (Nos. 11, 12, and +44) have been translated by Woitsch<a name="FNanchor_1_59" id="FNanchor_1_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_59" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> and one, (No. 43), +very incorrectly, by Pfizmaier. Another (No. 21) was +translated into rhymed verse by Prof. Giles in “Adversaria +Sinica” (1914), p. 323. Ou-yang Hsiu’s “Autumn” was +translated by Giles (with great freedom in many places) +in his “Chinese Literature,” p. 215.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_59" id="Footnote_1_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_59"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Aus den Gedichten Po Chü-i’s. Peking, 1908.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center" style="font-size: smaller;">Transcriber’s Note: The following apparent misprints have been +corrected for this electronic edition:</p> +<table cellpadding="2" border="1" frame="box" rules="none" style="font-size: smaller;" summary="List of misprints and their corrections"> + +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"><a href="#typo_1">Patient carrier of towel and comb,[2]</a> +</td><td> <i>as printed</i> </td><td>cited footnote 1, which is inapplicable and not on page</td></tr> + +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"><a href="#typo_2">“Because you are my cousin,<br /> +“Then came the sharing of pillow and mat,<br /> +“Now, having ‘seen my Prince,’<br /></a> +</td><td> <i>as printed</i> </td><td>all were missing opening “</td></tr> + +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"><a href="#typo_3">Footnote 3: See p. 58, “170 Chinese Poems,” Alfred A. Knopf, 1919.</a> +</td><td> <i>as printed</i> </td><td>See p, 58</td></tr> + +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"><a href="#typo_4">with bedclothes under her arm</a> +</td><td> <i>as printed</i> </td><td>bed-clothes</td></tr> + +</table> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's More Translations from the Chinese, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORE TRANSLATIONS FROM THE CHINESE *** + +***** This file should be named 16500-h.htm or 16500-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/5/0/16500/ + +Produced by David Starner, Jonathan Niehof and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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