Yet solitude and the picturesque cannot hold him for long, nor even the ardours of the chase. Po Chu-i is above all the poet of human love and sorrow, and beyond all the consoler. Those who profess to find pessimism in the Chinese character must leave him alone. At the end of the great tragedy of "The Never-ending Wrong" a whispered message of hope is borne to the lonely soul beating against the confines of the visible world: —
"Tell my lord," she murmured, "to be firm of heart as this gold and enamel; then in heaven or earth below we twain may meet once more."
It is the doctrine of eternal constancy, so dimly understood in the Western world, which bids the young wife immolate herself on her husband's tomb rather than marry again, and makes the whole world seem too small for the stricken Emperor with all the youth and beauty of China to command.
The Lute Girl
The following is Po Chu-i's own preface to his poem: —
When, after ten years of regular service, I was wrongfully dismissed from the Prefecture of the Nine Rivers and the Mastership of the Horse, in the bright autumn of the year I was sent away to Ko-pen Creek's mouth. It was there that I heard, seated in my boat at midnight, the faint tones of a lute. It seemed as though I was listening to the tones of the gongs in the Palace of the Capital. On asking an old man, I learnt that it was the performance of a woman who for many years had cultivated the two talents of music and singing to good effect. In the course of time her beauty faded, she humbled her pride, and followed her fate by becoming a merchant's wife.
. . . . .
The wine ran out and the songs ceased. My grief was such that I made a few short poems to set to music for singing.
. . . . .
But now perturbed, engulfed, distressed, worn out, I move about the river and lake at my leisure. I have been out of office for two years, but the effect of this man's words is such as to produce a peaceful influence within me.