University of Virginia Library

THE POET AND THE MANDARIN.

The moon shone like glorified and floating dew on
the bosom of the tranquil Pei-ho, and the heart of the
young poet Le-pih was like a cup running over with
wine. It was no abatement of his exulting fulness
that he was as yet the sole possessor of the secret of
his own genius. Conscious of exquisite susceptibility
to beauty, fragrance and music (the three graces of

the Chinese), he was more intent upon enjoying his
gifts than upon the awakening of envy for their possession—the
latter being the second leaf in the book of
genius, and only turned over by the finger of satiety.
Thoughtless of the acquisition of fame as the youthful
poet may be, however, he is always ready to anticipate
its fruits, and Le-pih committed but the poet's
error, when, having the gem in his bosom which
could buy the favor of the world, he took the favor
for granted without producing the gem.

Kwonfootse had returned a conqueror, from the wars
with the Hwong-kin, and this night, on which the
moon shone so gloriously, was the hour of his triumph,
for the Emperor Tang had condescended to honor
with his presence, a gala given by the victorious general
at his gardens on the Pei-ho. Softened by his
exulting feelings (for though a brave soldier, he was
as haughty as Luykong the thunder-god, or Hwuyloo
the monarch of fire), the warlike mandarin threw open
his gardens on this joyful night, not only to those who
wore in their caps the gold ball significant of patrician
birth, but to all whose dress and mien warranted their
appearance in the presence of the emperor.

Like the realms of the blest shone the gardens of
Kwonfootse. Occupying the whole valley of the
Pei-ho, at a spot where it curved like the twisted
cavity of a shell, the sky seemed to shut in the grounds
like the cover of a vase, and the stars seemed but the
garden-lights overhead. From one edge of the vase
to the other—from hill-top to hill-top—extended a
broad avenue, a pagoda at either extremity glittering
with gold and scarlet, the sides flaming with colored
lamps and flaunting with gay streamers of barbarian
stuffs, and the moonlit river cutting it in the centre, the
whole vista, at the first glance, resembling a girdle of
precious stones with a fastening of opal. Off from
this central division radiated in all directions alleys of
camphor and cinnamon trees, lighted with amorous
dimness, and leading away to bowers upon the hill-side,
and from every quarter resounded music, and in
every nook was seen feasting and merriment.

In disguise, the emperor and imperial family mingled
in the crowd, and no one save the host and his daughters
knew what part of the gardens was honored with
their presence. There was, however, a retreat in the
grounds, sacred to the privileged few, and here, when
fatigued or desirous of refreshment, the royal personages
laid aside disguise and were surrounded with
the deferential honors of the court. It was so contrived
that the access was unobserved by the people,
and there was, therefore, no feeling of exclusion to
qualify the hilarity of the entertainment, Kwonfootse,
with all his pride, looking carefully to his popularity.
At the foot of each descent, upon the matted banks
of the river, floated gilded boats with lamps burning in
their prows, and gayly-dressed boatmen offering conveyance
across to all who required it; but there were
also, unobserved by the crowd, boats unlighted and
undecorated holding off from the shore, which, at a
sign given by the initiated, silently approached a marble
stair without the line of the blazing avenue, and taking
their freight on board, swiftly pulled up the moonlit
river, to a landing concealed by the shoulder of the hill.
No path led from the gardens hither, and from no point
of view could be overlooked the more brilliant scene
of imperial revel.

It was verging toward midnight when the unknown
poet, with brain floating in a celestial giddiness of delight,
stood on the brink of the gleaming river. The boats
plied to and fro with their freights of fair damsels and
gayly-dressed youths, the many-colored lamps throwing
a rainbow profusion of tints on the water, and
many a voice addressed him with merry invitation, for
Le-pih's beauty, so famous now in history, was of no
forbidding stateliness, and his motions, like his countenance,
were as frankly joyous as the gambols of a
young leopard. Not inclined to boisterous gayety at
the moment, Le-pih stepped between the lamp-bearing
trees of the avenue, and folding his arms in his silken
vest, stood gazing in revery on the dancing waters.
After a few moments, one of the dark boats on which
he had unconsciously fixed his gaze drew silently
toward him, and as the cushioned stern was brought
round to the bank, the boatman made a reverence to
his knees and sat waiting the poet's pleasure.

Like all men born to good fortune, Le-pih was
prompt to follow the first beckonings of adventure, and
asking no questions, he quietly embarked, and with a
quick dip of the oars the boat shot from the shore and
took the descending current. Almost in the next instant
she neared again to the curving and willow-fringed
margin of the stream, and lights glimmered through
the branches, and sweet, low music became audible,
and by rapid degrees, a scene burst on his eye, which
the first glimpse into the gate of paradise (a subsequent
agreeable surprise, let us presume) could scarcely have
exceeded.

Without an exchange of a syllable between the
boatman and his freight, the stern was set against a
carpeted stair at the edge of the river, and Le-pih disembarked
with a bound, and stood upon a spacious
area lying in a lap of the hill, the entire surface carpeted
smoothly with Persian stuffs, and dotted here and there
with striped tents piched with poles of silver. Garlands
of flowers hung in festoons against the brilliant-colored
cloths, and in the centre of each tent stood a
low tablet surrounded with couches and laden with
meats and wine. The guests, for whom this portion
of the entertainment was provided, were apparently
assembled at a spot farther on, from which proceeded
the delicious music heard by the poet in approaching;
and, first entering one of the abandoned tents for a
goblet of wine, Le-pih followed to the scene of attraction.

Under a canopy of gold cloth held by six bearers,
stood the imperial chair upon a raised platform—not
occupied, however, the august Tang reclining more at
his ease, a little out of the circle, upon cushions
canopied by the moonlight. Around upon the steps
of the platform and near by, were grouped the noble
ladies of the court and the royal princesses (Tang
living much in the female apartments and his daughters
numbering several score), and all, at the moment
of Le-pih's joining the assemblage, turning to observe
a damsel with a lute, to whose performance the low
sweet music of the band had been a prelude. The
first touch of the strings betrayed a trembling hand,
and the poet's sympathies were stirred, though from
her bent posture and her distant position he had not
yet seen the features of the player. As the tremulous
notes grew firmer, and the lute began to give out a
flowing harmony, Le-pih approached, and at the same
time, the listening groups of ladies began to whisper
and move away, and of those who remained, none
seemed to listen with pleasure except Kwonfootse and
the emperor. The latter, indeed, rivalled the intruding
bard in his interest, rolling over upon the cushions
and resting on the other imperial elbow in close attention.

Gaining confidence evidently from the neglect of
her auditory, or, as is natural to women, less afraid of
the judgment of the other sex, who were her only
listeners, the fair Taya (the youngest daughter of
Kwonfootse), now joined her voice to her instrument,
and sang with a sweetness that dropped like a plummet
to the soul of Le-pih. He fell to his knee upon
a heap of cushions and leaned eagerly forward. As
she became afterward one of his most passionate
themes, we are enabled to reconjure the features that
were presented to his admiring wonder. The envy
of the princesses was sufficient proof that Taya was of
rare beauty; she had that wonderful perfection of

feature to which envy pays its bitterest tribute, which
is apologized for if not found in the poet's ideal, which
we thirst after in pictures and marble, of which loveliness
and expression are but lesser degrees—fainter
shadowings. She was adorably beautiful. The outer
corners of her long almond-shaped eyes, the dipping
crescent of her forehead, the pencil of her eyebrow
and the indented corners of her mouth—all these
turned downward; and this peculiarity which, in faces
of a less elevated character, indicates a temper morose
and repulsive, in Taya's expressed the very soul of
gentle and lofty melancholy. There was something
infantine about her mouth, the teeth were so small
and regular, and their dazzling whiteness, shining between
lips of the brilliant color of a cherry freshly
torn apart, was in startling contrast with the dark
lustre of her eyes. Le-pih's poetry makes constant
allusion to those small and snowy teeth, and the turned-down
corners of the lips and eyes of his incomparable
mistress.

Taya's song was a fragment of that celebrated
Chinese romance from which Moore has borrowed so
largely in his loves of the angels, and it chanced to
be particularly appropriate to her deserted position
(she was alone now with her three listeners), dwelling as
it did upon the loneliness of a disguised Peri, wandering
in exile upon earth. The lute fell from her hands
when she ceased, and while the emperor applauded,
and Kwonfootse looked on her with paternal pride,
Le-pih modestly advanced to the fallen instrument,
and with a low obeisance to the emperor and a hesitating
apology to Taya, struck a prelude in the same
air, and broke forth into an impulsive expression of
his feelings in verse. It would be quite impossible to
give a translation of this famous effusion with its
oriental load of imagery, but in modifying it to the
spirit of our language (giving little more than its thread
of thought), the reader may see glimpses of the material
from which the great Irish lyrist spun his woof
of sweet fable. Fixing his keen eyes upon the bright
lips just closed, Le-pih sang:—

The song over, Le-pih sat with his hands folded
across the instrument and his eyes cast down, and
Taya gazed on him with wondering looks, yet slowly,
and as if unconsciously, she took from her breast a
rose, and with a half-stolen glance at her father, threw
it upon the lute. But frowningly Kwonfootse rose
from his seat and approached the poet.

“Who are you?” he demanded angrily, as the bard
placed the rose reverently in his bosom.

“Le-pih!”

With another obeisance to the emperor, and a deeper
one to the fair Taya, he turned, after this concise answer,
upon his heel, lifting his cap to his head, which,
to the rage of Kwonfootse, bore not even the gold ball
of aristocracy.

“Bind him for the bastinado!” cried the infuriated
mandarin to the bearers of the canopy.

The six soldiers dropped their poles to the ground,
but the emperor's voice arrested them.

“He shall have no violence but from you, fair
Taya,” said the softened monarch; “call to him by
the name he has just pronounced, for I would hear
that lute again!”

“Le-pih! Le-pih!” cried instantly the musical
voice of the fair girl.

The poet turned and listened, incredulous of his
own ears.

“Le-pih! Le-pih!” she repeated, in a soft tone.

Half-hesitating, half-bounding, as if still scarce believing
he had heard aright, Le-pih flew to her feet,
and dropped to one knee upon the cushion before her,
his breast heaving and his eyes flashing with eager
wonder. Taya's courage was at an end, and she sat
with her eyes upon the ground.

“Give him the lute, Kwonfootse!” said the emperor,
swinging himself on the raised chair with an
abandonment of the imperial avoirdupois, which set
ringing violently the hundred bells suspended in the
golden fringes.

“Let not the crow venture again into the nest of
the eagle,” muttered the mandarin between his teeth
as he handed the instrument to the poet.

The sound of the bells brought in the women and
courtiers from every quarter of the privileged area,
and, preluding upon the strings to gather his scattered
scuses, while they were seating themselves around
him, Le-pih at last fixed his gaze upon the lips of
Taya, and commenced his song to an irregular harmony
well adapted to extempore verse. We have tried
in vain to put this celebrated song of compliment into
English stanzas. It commenced with a description
of Taya's beauty, and an enumeration of things she
resembled, dwelling most upon the blue lily, which
seems to have been Le-pih's favorite flower. The
burthen of the conclusion, however, is the new value
everything assumed in her presence. “Of the light
in this garden,” he says, “there is one beam worth all
the glory of the moon, for it sleeps on the eye of Taya.
Of the air about me there is one breath which my soul
drinks like wine—it is from the lips of Taya. Taya
looks on a flower, and that flower seems to me, with
its pure eye, to gaze after her for ever. Taya's jacket
of blue silk is my passion. If angels visit me in my
dreams, let them be dressed like Taya. I love the
broken spangle in her slipper better than the first star
of evening. Bring me, till I die, inner leaves from
the water-lily, since white and fragrant like them are
the teeth of Taya. Call me, should I sleep, when
rises the crescent moon, for the blue sky in its bend
curves like the drooped eye of Taya,” &c., &c.

“By the immortal Fo!” cried the emperor, raising
himself bolt upright in his chair, as the poet ceased,
“you shall be the bard of Tang! Those are my sentiments
better expressed! The lute, in your hands,
is my heart turned inside out! Lend me your gold
chain, Kwonfootse, and, Taya! come hither and put
it on his neck!”

Taya glided to the emperor, but Le-pih rose to his
feet, with a slight flush on his forehead, and stood
erect and motionless.

“Let it please your imperial majesty,” he said,
after a moment's pause, “to bestow upon me some
gift less binding than a chain.”

“Carbuncle of Budha! What would the youth have!”
exclaimed Tang in astonishment. “Is not the gold
chain of a mandarin good enough for his acceptance?”

“My poor song,” replied Le-pih, modestly casting
down his eyes, “is sufficiently repaid by your majesty's
praises. The chain of the mandarin would gall the
neck of the poet. Yet—if I might have a reward
more valuable—”

“In Fo's name what is it?” said the embarrassed
emperor.

Kwonfootse laid his hand on his cimeter, and his
daughter blushed and trembled.

“The broken spangle on the slipper of Taya!” said
Le-pih, turning half indifferently away.

Loud laughed the ladies of the court, and Kwonfootse
walked from the bard with a look of contempt,
but the emperor read more truly the proud and delicate
spirit that dictated the reply; and in that moment
probably commenced the friendship with which, to the
end of his peaceful reign, Tang distinguished the most
gifted poet of his time.

The lovely daughter of the mandarin was not behind
the emperor in her interpretation of the character of
Le-pih, and as she stepped forward to put the detached
spangle into his hand, she bent on him a look full
of earnest curiosity and admiration.

“What others give me,” he murmured in a low
voice, pressing the worthless trifle to his lips, “makes
me their slave; but what Taya gives me is a link that
draws her to my bosom.”

Kwonfootse probably thought that Le-pih's audience
had lasted long enough, for at this moment the
sky seemed bursting into flame with a sudden tumult
of fireworks, and in the confusion that immediately
succeeded, the poet made his way unquestioned to
the bank of the river, and was reconveyed to the spot
of his first embarkation, in the same silent manner with
which he had approached the privileged area.

During the following month, Le-pih seemed much
in request at the imperial palace, but, to the surprise
of his friends, the keeping of “worshipful society”
was not followed by any change in his merry manners,
nor apparently by any improvement in his worldly
condition. His mother still sold mats in the public
market, and Le-pih still rode, every few days, to the
marsh, for his panniers of rushes, and to all comers,
among his old acquaintances, his lute and song were
as ready and gratuitous as ever.

All this time, however, the fair Taya was consuming
with a passionate melancholy which made startling
ravages in her health, and the proud mandarin, whose
affection for his children was equal to his pride, in vain
shut his eyes to the cause, and eat up his heart with
mortification. When the full moon came round again,
reminding him of the scenes the last moon had shone
upon, Kwonfootse seemed suddenly lightened of his
care, and his superb gardens on the Pei-ho were suddenly
alive with preparations for another festival. Kept
in close confinement, poor Taya fed on her sorrow,
indifferent to the rumors of marriage which could
concern only her sisters; and the other demoiselles
Kwonfootse tried in vain, with fluttering hearts, to pry
into their father's secret. A marriage it certainly was
to be, for the lanterns were painted of the color of
peach-blossoms—but whose marriage?

It was an intoxicating summer's morning, and the
sun was busy calling the dew back to heaven, and the
birds wild with entreating it to stay (so Le-pih describes
it), when down the narrow street in which the
poet's mother piled her vocation, there came a gay
procession of mounted servants with a led horse richly
caparisoned, in the centre. The one who rode before
held on his pommel a velvet cushion, and upon it lay
the cap of a noble, with its gold ball shining in the sun.
Out flew the neighbors as the clattering hoofs came
on, and roused by the cries and the barking of dogs,
forth came the mother of Le-pih, followed by the
poet himself, but leading his horse by the bridle, for
he had just thrown on his panniers, and was bound
out of the city to cut his bundle of rushes. The poet
gazed on the pageant with the amused curiosity of
others, wondering what it could mean, abroad at so
early an hour; but, holding back his sorry beast to
let the prancing horsemen have all the room they re
quired, he was startled by a reverential salute from
the bearer of the velvet cushion, who, drawing up his
followers in front of the poet's house, dismounted and
requested to speak with him in private.

Tying his horse to the door-post, Le-pih led the
way into the small room, where sat his mother braiding
her mats to a cheerful song of her son's making,
and here the messenger informed the bard, with much
circumstance and ceremony, that in consequence of
the pressing suit of Kwonfootse, the emperor had been
pleased to grant to the gifted Le-pih, the rank expressed
by the cap borne upon the velvet cushion, and
that as a noble of the celestial empire, he was now a
match for the incomparable Taya. Futhermore the
condescending Kwonfootse had secretly arranged the
ceremonial for the bridal, and Le-pih was commanded
to mount the led horse and come up with his cap and
gold ball to be made forthwith supremely happy.

An indefinable expression stole over the features of
the poet as he took up the cap, and placing it on his
head, stood gayly before his mother. The old dame
looked at him a moment, and the tears started to her
eyes. Instantly Le-pih plucked it off and flung it on
the waste heap at her side, throwing himself on his
knees before her in the same breath, and begging her
forgiveness for his silly jest.

“Take back your bauble to Kwonfootse!” he said,
rising proudly to his feet, “and tell him that the emperor,
to whom I know how to excuse myself, can
easily make a poet into a noble, but he can not make
a noble into a poet. The male bird does not borrow
its brighter plumage from its mate, and she who marries
Le-pih will braid rushes for his mother!”

Astonished, indeed, were the neighbors, who had
learned the errand of the messenger from his attendants
without, to see the crest-fallen man come forth again
with his cap and cushion. Astonished much more
were they, ere the gay cavalcade were well out of sight,
to see Le-pih appear with his merry countenance and
plebeian cap, and, mounting his old horse, trot briskly
away, sickle in hand, to the marshes. The day passed
in wondering and gossip, interrupted by the entrance
of one person to the house while the old dame was
gone with her mats to the market, but she returned
duly before sunset, and went in as usual to prepare
supper for her son.

The last beams of day were on the tops of the
pagodas when Le-pih returned, walking beside his
heavy-laden beast, and singing a merry song. He
threw off his rushes at the door and entered, but his
song was abruptly checked, for a female sat on a low
seat by his mother, stooping over a half-braided mat,
and the next moment, the blushing Taya lifted up her
brimming eyes and gazed at him with silent but pleading
love.

Now, at last, the proud merriment and self respecting
confidence of Le-pih were overcome. His eyes
grew flushed and his lips trembled without utterance.
With both his hands pressed on his beating heart, he
stood gazing on the lovely Taya.

“Ah!” cried the old dame, who sat with folded
hands and smiling face, looking on at a scene she did
not quite understand, though it gave her pleasure,
“Ah! this is a wife for my boy, sent from heaven!
No haughty mandarin's daughter she! no proud minx,
to fall in love with the son and despise the mother!
Let them keep their smart caps and gift-horses for
those who can be bought at such prices! My son is
a noble by the gift of his Maker—better than an emperor's
gold ball! Come to your supper, Le-pib!
Come, my sweet daughter!”

Taya placed her finger on her lip, and Le-pih
agreed that the moment was not yet come to enlighten
his mother as to the quality of her guest. She was
not long in ignorance, however, for before they could
seat themselves at table, there was a loud knocking at

the door, and before the old dame could bless herself,
an officer entered and arrested the daughter of Kwonfootse
by name, and Le-pih and his mother at the
same time, and there was no dismissing the messenger
now. Off they marched, amid the silent consternation
and pity of the neighbors—not toward the palace
of justice, however, but to the palace of the emperor,
where his majesty, to save all chances of mistake,
chose to see the poet wedded, and sit, himself, at the
bridal feast. Tang had a romantic heart, fat and
voluptuous as he was, and the end of his favor to Le-pih
and Taya was the end of his life.