On the fifth day of the fifth month the statesman Küh
Yuen drowned himself in the river Mih-lo.
Since then twenty-three centuries have passed, and the
mountains wear away.
Yet every year, on the fifth day of the fifth month,
the great Dragon Boats, gay with flags and gongs,
search diligently in the streams of the Empire
for the body of Küh Yuen.
Kang Yi
When Kang Yi had been long dead the Empress decreed upon him posthumous decapitation, so that he walks for ever disgraced among the shades.
Poetics
While two ladies of the Imperial harem held before him a screen of pink silk, and a P'in Concubine knelt with his ink-slab, Li Po, who was very drunk, wrote an impassioned poem to the moon.
A Lament of Scarlet Cloud
O golden night, lit by the flame of seven stars, the years have drunk you too.
The Son of Heaven
Like this frail and melancholy rain is the memory of
the Emperor Kuang-Hsü, and of his sufferings at
the hand of Yehonala.
Yet under heaven was there found no one to avenge
him.
Now he has mounted the Dragon and has visited the
Nine Springs. His betrayer sits upon the Dragon
Throne.
Yet among the shades may he not take comfort from
the presence of his Pearl Concubine?