78 FIR-FLOWER TABLETS 



than to poetry, with its wild profusion of long and short lines 

 and its cataract of exotic verbiage." This poem is so well- 

 known as a supreme example of Li T'ai-po's rebellion against 

 the formality of contemporary prosody and of his return to 

 the freedom of ancient versification that it is a pity its beauty 

 had not struck more deeply into the souls of the authors. 

 In its present form one of Li T'ai-po's masterpieces has 

 become one of the dullest of their collection. It was com- 

 posed in honor of the journey of the brilliant Ming Huang 

 to Szechuan and is one of the best examples of poetical 

 compositions which can be set to music. 



"The Beautiful Woman Grieving before her Mirror" 

 contains many pretty lines : — 



"I sit at my dressing-stand and I am like the green Fire- 

 bird who, thinking of its mate, died alone 



My husband is parted from me as an arrow from the bow- 

 string." 



The last line of this song does not fulfil the first requirement 

 of any translation which is to make sense. It reads as 

 follows : — 



"My tears, like white jade chop-sticks, fall in a single piece 

 before the water-chestnut mirror." 



The original is perfectly clear "My jade chop-sticks drop 

 together in front of my mirror. ' ' The ' ' tears ' ' are a hidden 

 reference as is also the "water-chestnut" but in both cases 

 either the explicit or the implicit meaning must be chosen; 

 It does not seem fair to bring both into' the translation. The 

 place for one or the other is in the appended notes. 



Ch'ang Kan (p. 28) reminds one that it supplies great 

 possibilities for collaboration between poet and scholar for 

 this poem has recently appeared in "Asia" in a translation 

 by Witter Bynner and Kiang Kang Hu. Mr. Bynner is a 

 poet of acknowledged standing and Mr. Kiang is an un- 

 usually good Chinese scholar, so that their combined work 

 commands serious attention. In many respects their version 

 of Ch'ang Kau is preferable to the Ayscough-Lowell. They 

 carry the song along in the first-person, thus making it 

 more attractive than that in ' ' Fir-Flower Tablets ' ' where the 

 third-person is used in the first two lines: — 



"My hair had hardly covered my forehead 

 I was picking flowers, playing by my door 

 , When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse, 



Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums." 



