He had four sons who all held high rank. Even the least successful of them became Governor of T‘ai-yüan, and his brothers all married into great families, so that his good fortune both in public and private life was without parallel.
How strange that we should find in the conduct of a prostitute a degree of constancy rarely equalled even by the heroines of history! Surely the story is one which cannot but provoke a sigh!
My great-uncle was Governor of Chin-chou; subsequently he joined the Ministry of Finance and became Inspector of Waterways, and finally Inspector of Roads. In all these three offices he had Miss Li’s husband as his colleague, so that her story was well known to him in every particular. During the Chēng-yüan period[6] I was sitting one day with Li Kung-tso[7] of Lung-hai; we fell to talking of wives who had distinguished themselves by remarkable conduct. I told him the story of Miss Li. He listened with rapt attention, and when it was over, asked me to write it down for him. So I took up my brush, wetted the hairs and made this rough outline of the story.
[Dated] autumn, eighth month of the year Yi-hai, (a.d. 795), written by Po-Hsing-chien of T‘ai-yüan.
[1] a.d. 742-56.
[2] In Kiang-su, near Ch‘ang-chou.
[3] See p. 58, “170 Chinese Poems,” Alfred A. Knopf, 1919.
[4] The “Sword-gate”: commanding the pass which leads into Szechuan from the north.
[5] See “Book or Rites,” xxxii, 3. On returning from his father’s burial a son must not enter the house; he should live in an “out-house,” mourning for his father’s absence.
[6] a.d. 785-805.