 | The works of Li Po, the Chinese poet |  |
[OMITTED]
124. TO HIS FRIEND, WEI, THE GOOD GOVERNOR
OF CHIANG-HSIA WRITTEN IN COMMEMORATION
OF THE OLD FRIENDSHIP DURING
THE DAYS OF HIS BANISHMENT AFTER THE
TUMULT OF WAR.
The five palaces and twelve lofty towers,
Where gods of felicity stroked me on the forehead,
And I bound my hair and received the everlasting life.
Woe to me, I turned to the pleasures of the world,
Pondering deep on peace and war,
And the reigns of the ninety-six illustrious kings,
Whose empty fame hangs on the drifting vapor!
I could not forget the tumultuous battles;
Fain would I try the empire-builder's art
Of staking heaven and earth in one throw,
And win me the car and cap of the mandarin.
But time ordained a dire disappointment,
I threw my hopes and went, wandering wide.
I learned swordsmanship and laughed at myself.
I wielded my pen—what did I achieve after all?
A sword could not fight a thousand foemen;
The pen did steal fame from the four seas,
Yet it is a child's play not worth talking about,
Five times I sighed; and went out of the western metropolis.
At the time of my leaving
My hat-strings were wet with tears.
It was you, my friend, excellent and wise,
Who spread the mat and drew the curtains round
For a parting feast to comfort me journeying far.
You came to see me off, you and your company on horseback,
As far as the Inn of Cavaliers.
There amid songs and tinkling bells,
Ere our hearts were sated,
The garish sun fell beyond the Kun-ming Lake.[1]
In October I arrived in the land of Yu Chow,
And saw the legions of star-beaming spears.
The northland by the sea, abandoned by our dear emperor,
And trusted to one like the monstrous whale,
That drinks up a hundred rivers at one draught,
Was crumbling fast to utter ruin.
Knowing this, I could not speak out,
And vainly wished I had lived in the fabled isle without care.
I was like an archer who, cowed by the wolf,
Sets the arrow but dares not draw the bow-string.
At the Gold Pagoda I brushed my tears
And cried to heaven, lamenting King Chao.
There was none to prize the bones of a swift steed.
In vain the fleet Black Ears bounced lustily,
And futile it was, should another Yo-I appear.
I prodded on, a houseless exile—
All things went amiss;
I sped my horse and returned to your town.[2]
I met you and listened to your song and twanging strings,
Sitting ceremoniously in your flower-painted room.
Your prefecture alone possessed the peace of antiquity
And the balmy ease that lulled the mystical king Hsi to sleep.
Our banquet table laden with wine cups and jars,
And handsome files of men sitting with moth-eyebrowed girls,
Our feast went on in the light of blazing cressets.
Drunken, we danced amid the confusion of silken stools,
And round the rafters hovered our clear song—
So our revelry lasted till even after the dawn.
But you returned to Hsing-yang, your official days over.
What a multitude that gathered for the farewell rites,
And those tents erected on the roadside near and far!
Once parted, we were divided by a thousand miles,
With our fortunes differing like summer and winter.
And suddenly the empire was wrecked.
The imperial army met the barbarian foe,
The dust of the battlefield darkened sky and sea,
And the sun and moon were no longer bright
While the wind of death shook the grass and trees.
And the white bones were piled up in hills—
Ah, what had they done—the innocent people?
And the fate of the empire hung on General Ku Shu.
He with his thirty thousand long-spear men
Surrendered, and opened the gate to the savage horde.
They tamed the courtiers like dogs and sheep,
And butchered the men who were loyal and true.
Both the sovereign and the heir fled from the palace,
And the twin imperial cities were laid to waste.[3]
The imperial prince, given the supreme command,
But there was no discipline of Huan and Wen.
His generals herded bears and tigers in the ranks,
And men wavered in doubts and fears
While the rebellion raged like tempest.
You were defending Fang-ling, I remember,
With loyalty unsurpassed in all ages.
Eating the mist and washing my mouth in the crystal fountain.
The house door opened on the winding Nine Rivers,
And beneath my pillow lay the five lakes, one linked to another.
When the fleet came upstream in the midnight
And filled the city of Hsin-yang with flags and banners,
I, betrayed by my own empty name,
Was carried by force aboard the war-boat.
They gave me five hundred pieces of gold,
I brushed it away like a rack, and heeded not;
Spurned the gift and the proffered title—
For all that I was banished to the land of Yeh-lang.
The westward journey made me old.
Though the world was being put to order,
I was ignored like a stalk of frost-bitten grass.
The sun and the moon shine alike on all—
How could I complain of injustice to heaven?
You, good governor, adored like a god,
Took compassion on your old friend.
You invited me to be your guest of honor,
And we ascended three times the tower house of Yellow Crane.
How he would sit, looking complacently at the Parrot Isle.
No more heroes were born to the enchanted mountains of Fan.[4]
And the desolation of autumn covered the world.
But lo, the river swelling with the tides of Three Canyons,
And the thousands of junks that thronged these waters,
Jostling their white sails, gliding past to Yang-chow!
On looking out on these things, my grief melted away in my heart.
And over the green trees that grew like hair by the waterside,
Watching the sun with fear lest it be swallowed by the mountains,
And merry at moonrise, drinking still more wine.
How dainty their vermilioned faces!
They came up by the long flight of stairs; emerged,
From behind the bamboo screen, smiling;
And danced, silken-robed, in the wind of spring.
Though the guests knelt and asked for rest.
You showed me your poem of Ching-shan,
Rivaling the native beauty of the lotus,
That rises from the lucent water, unadorned.
You called for me ever at your residence,
Your mansion whose red gate was guarded by men,
Holding their spears in stately rows.
Amid quaintly cut stones and trimmed bamboos
A rivulet ran, brimming with limpid water.
We went up and sat in the waterside pavilion,
And poured forth our souls in heroic discourses.
A word between us is precious like white jade,
And a pledge of ours more than yellow gold.
I was not unworthy of you, I venture to say,
And swore by the Blue Bird on my fidelity.
Came, flying and crying, from heaven.
The mandate of my pardon arrived, I was told,
And I could return from banishment in Yeh-lang.
It was as if warmth enlivened the frozen vale,
Or fire and flame sprang from the dead ashes.
And the Tartar crew mock at the imperial command.
In the middle of the night I sigh four and five times,
Worrying ever over the great empire's affairs.
Still the war banners cover the sides of the two mountains,
Between which flows the Yellow River.
Our generals like frightened fowls dare not advance,
But linger on, watering their idle horses.
Ah, where shall we find a Hu-I, the archer,
Who with the first arrow will shoot down the evil star?[5]
This, the longest poem in the entire collection of Li
Po's works, is in a way his autobiography. It was
in 759. See the Introduction.
The first stanza tells of his early life of seclusion in
the world of Taoistic visions; of his ambition; and of his
disappointment at Chang-an, the western metropolis.
The Inn of Cavaliers and the Kun-ming Lake are
both situated in the vicinity of Chang-an. At the time
of Li Po's departure from the capital (circa 745) Wei
was evidently in Chang-an and was able to give him the
big farewell demonstration described herein.
Yu Chow, the northland, is in the present Chili province.
It was here that An Lu-shan was stationed with
his star-gleaming legions, and Li Po detected the Tartar
general's rebellious schemes, though he was obliged to
keep silent. It was this region which comprised the
state of Yen in the 4th century B. C. and where King
Chao ruled and built the Gold Pagoda.
King Chao once questioned his retainer, Kuo Wei, as
to the ways of attracting the great men of the time to
his court. Kuo Wei told his liege the following parable:
Once upon a time a certain king sent out his servant
on a mission to secure a swift horse that could run a
thousand li in a day. The servant returned with a bagful
of bones of a horse which was said to have made a
thousand li in a day. For these remains the servant had
paid 500 pieces of gold. The king was angry, for he
wanted a live horse. The servant replied, "When the
world learns that your Majesty has spent 500 pieces of
gold on a dead horse, the live ones will arrive without
your looking for them." Indeed, three horses—all of
them, one thousand li runners—arrived soon at the court.
"So my king," continued Kuo Wei, "if you really desire
begin with me who have but small talent!"
King Chao took the advice. He built the Gold Pagoda,
and there he waited upon Kuo Wei as his teacher.
Then many men of ability came from all parts of China
to King Chao, and with their aid he became the most
powerful of all kings.
The Black Ears was a famous swift horse.
Yo-I was one of those great men who came to King
Chao. Li Po laments that now there is no sovereign
seeking as earnestly as King Chao for men of talent.
And these, of whom he is one, have no opportunity.
Just in what prefecture Wei was stationed is not
known. When his official term was over, he returned
to Hsin-yang, a town on the west side of Chang-an.
Sometimes the two names are applied synonymously to
the capital.
The Chinese made a great deal of leave-taking, often
erecting as in this case tents on the wayside and offering
sacrifices to the god of the road for the safety of
the one setting out on his journey.
These passages refer, of course, to the rebellion of An
Lu-shan. General Ku Shu defended the Han-ku Pass,
which is an older name for Tun Kuan. By the twin
imperial cities the poet very probably means Hsing-yang
and Chang-an, unless he means the latter and city
of Lo-yang. See the Introduction.
The imperial prince i. e. Li Ling, the Prince of
Yung. See the Introduction.
Li Po was quite willing to join the staff of the prince
at the beginning; but when his rebellious intent became
obvious, the poet retired to the mountain of Luh, near
Kiu-kiang, or Hsin-yang, as it was called at the time.
mountain range.
Wei was now the governor of Chiang-hsia, a district
in southern Hupeh. The Yellow Crane House (See
note, No. 40) looks over the Yangtze-kiang.
Chieh is a notorious tyrant, and Yao a benign sovereign,
of ancient China. By the "dogs of Chieh" are
meant Shih Ssu-ming and his cohorts, who kept up the
rebellion started by An Lu-shan.
Hu I, a famous archer of the legend, who shot down
the false suns that appeared in the heavens and devastated
the crops. Here Li Po means a savior, who could
deliver the empire from the clutch of the rebels.
| The works of Li Po, the Chinese poet | |