 | The works of Li Po, the Chinese poet |  |
[OMITTED]
74. THE STEEP ROAD TO SHUH
The road to Shuh is more difficult to climb than to climb the steep blue heaven.
In the remotest time of Tsang-tsung and Yu-fu—
Yea, forty milleniums ago—that land was founded.
Yet from the wall of the Middle Kingdom runs no highway thither, no highway linking human dwellings;
Only a lone precipitous path—the bird-way—was built,
Leading westward toward the evening star,
And trailing across the forehead of the Yo-mei mountain.
And how those strong men died, traveling over!
The earth sunk and the mountains crumbled.
At last there is now a road of many ladders and bridges hooked together in the air.
Lo, the road-mark high above, where the six dragons circle the sun!
Lo, the stream far below, winding forth and winding back, breaks into foam!
The yellow crane could not fly over these mountaintops;
And the monkeys wail, unable to leap over these gorges.
How the Green Mud path turns round and round!—
There are nine turns to each hundred steps.
The traveler must climb into the very realm of stars, and gasp for breath;
I fear for you. You cannot clamber over these jutting rocks.
You shall see nothing by day but the birds plaining bitterly on the aged trees, the female following the male in their flight;
You shall hear no voice but the cuckoos calling in the moonlight by night, calling mournfully in the desolate mountains.
The road to Shuh is more difficult to climb than to climb the steep blue heaven.
A mere story of it makes the youth's red face grow pale.
The lofty peaks shoot up cloudward in rows. If one foot higher, they would touch the heaven.
The dead pine trees cling to the cliff, hanging headmost over the abyss.
Anon, a giant boulder tumbles from the crag-head; a thousand mountain walls resound like thunder.
The gate of the Sword Parapet stands firm on its frightful height.
One man defending it, a thousand men could not break it open.
And the keepers of the gate are not of your kin,
They may turn, I fear, to wolves and leopards.
Fleeing at eve before the huge serpents,
Men are killed and cut up like hemp,
While the beasts whet their fangs and lick the blood.
Though many pleasures there may be in the brocade city of Shuh,
It were better to return to your house quickly.
The road to Shuh is more difficult to climb than to climb the steep blue heaven.
I shrug my shoulders and heave a long sigh—gazing into the west.
This is one of the most admired and most difficult poems of Li Po, certain portions of it being as vague as they are beautiful. Some commentators maintain that this was written at the time of the An Lu-shan rebellion, when the emperor Hsuan Tsung fled to Ssuchuan, to which course Li Po was opposed; but being in no position to declare his opinion openly, the poet voiced it thus in verse covertly. The poem hints at the double danger for the emperor in leaving his capital to the rebels who are tigers and serpents as well as in trusting his person to the hands of the strangers of Shuh, who might turn to wolves and leopards, while it dwells for the most part on the difficulty of the journey in a remarkably vivid and forceful language. The Road to Shuh runs from Shensi to Ssuchuan over the mountains.
As to those "strong men" that died, there is this story: Some thousands of years ago, a prince in Shensi, knowing the fondness of the king of Shuh, offered him his five daughters for wives. The king of Shuh despatched five strong men to fetch the princesses. It was on their homeward journey that the party saw a big serpent crawling into a hole in the mountainside. One man tried to pull out the serpent by its tail, but could not do so. All the five men joined in the enterprise, and yelling aloud, they pulled the serpent, whereupon the whole mountain range crumbled and was split into five peaks. The five strong men and the five princesses and all the attendants perished.
| The works of Li Po, the Chinese poet | |