III. 1. The Distant Parting
Long ago there were two queens[18] called Huang and Ying. And they stood on the shores of the Hsiao-hsiang, to the south of Lake Tung-t’ing. Their sorrow was deep as the waters of the Lake that go straight down a thousand miles. Dark clouds blackened the sun. Shōjō[19] howled in the mist and ghosts whistled in the rain. The queens said, “Though we speak of it we cannot mend it. High Heaven is secretly afraid to shine on our loyalty. But the thunder crashes and bellows its anger, that while Yao and Shun are here they should also be crowning Yü. When a prince loses his servants, the dragon turns into a minnow. When power goes to slaves, mice change to tigers.
“Some say that Yao is shackled and hidden away, and that Shun has died in the fields.
“But the Nine Hills of Deceit stand there in a row, each like each; and which of them covers the lonely bones of the Double-eyed One, our Master?”
So the royal ladies wept, standing amid yellow clouds. Their tears followed the winds and waves, that never return. And while they wept, they looked out into the distance and saw the deep mountain of Tsang-wu.
“The mountain of Tsang-wu shall fall and the waters of the Hsiang shall cease, sooner than the marks of our tears shall fade from these bamboo-leaves.”
[Of this poem and the “Szechwan Road” a critic has said: “You could recite them all day without growing tired of them.”]
III. 4. The Szechwan Road
Eheu! How dangerous, how high! It would be easier to climb to Heaven than to walk the Szechwan Road.
Since Ts’an Ts’ung and Yü Fu ruled the land, forty-eight thousand years had gone by; and still no human foot had passed from Shu to the frontiers of Ch’in. To the west across T’ai-po Shan there was a bird-track, by which one could cross to the ridge of O-mi. But the earth of the hill crumbled and heroes[20] perished.
So afterwards they made sky ladders and hanging bridges. Above, high beacons of rock that turn back the chariot of the sun. Below, whirling eddies that meet the waves of the current and drive them away. Even the wings of the yellow cranes cannot carry them across, and the monkeys grow weary of such climbing.
How the road curls in the pass of Green Mud!
With nine turns in a hundred steps it twists up the hills.
Clutching at Orion, passing the Well Star, I look up and gasp. Then beating my breast sit and groan aloud.
I fear I shall never return from my westward wandering; the way is steep and the rocks cannot be climbed.
Sometimes the voice of a bird calls among the ancient trees—a male calling to its wife, up and down through the woods. Sometimes a nightingale sings to the moon, weary of empty hills.
It would be easier to climb to Heaven than to walk the Szechwan Road; and those who hear the tale of it turn pale with fear.
Between the hill-tops and the sky there is not a cubit’s space. Withered pine-trees hang leaning over precipitous walls.
Flying waterfalls and rolling torrents mingle their din. Beating the cliffs and circling the rocks, they thunder in a thousand valleys.
Alas! O traveller, why did you come to so fearful a place? The Sword Gate is high and jagged. If one man stood in the Pass, he could hold it against ten thousand.
The guardian of the Pass leaps like a wolf on all who are not his kinsmen.
In the daytime one hides from ravening tigers and in the night from long serpents, that sharpen their fangs and lick blood, slaying men like grass.
They say the Embroidered City is a pleasant place, but I had rather be safe at home.
For it would be easier to climb to Heaven than to walk the Szechwan Road.
I turn my body and gaze longingly towards the West.
[When Li Po came to the capital and showed this poem to Ho Chih-ch’ang, Chih-ch’ang raised his eyebrows and said: “Sir, you are not a man of this world. You must indeed be the genius of the star T’ai-po” (xxxiv. 36).]