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Further Poems by Po Chu-i, and an Extract from his Prose Works, together with two other T‘ang Poems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

In 170 Chinese Poems I have given an account of Po Chü-i's life and translations of over sixty of his poems.

Here are twenty-two further poems, of which all but one are now translated for the first time. The exception is No. 19, of which Pfizmaier gives a very inaccurate version in Denkschr. d. K. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Wien, xxxvi (1888), p. 239.

Type
Papers Contributed
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1918

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References

page 96 note 1 Constable, 1918.

page 97 note 1 Also known as Chi K'ang, a famous quietist.

page 97 note 2 Wei Ying-wu, 8th cent, A.D., and T'ao Ch'ien, 365–427 A.D.

page 98 note 1 Yen Hui told Confucius that he had acquired the “art of sitting and forgetting”. Asked what that meant, Yen Hui replied, “I have learnt to discard my body and obliterate my intelligence; to abandon matter and be impervious to sense-perception. By this method I become one with the All-Pervading”.-Chuang Tzŭ, cap. vi.

page 98 note 2 “Change” is the principle of endless mutation which governs the Universe.

page 100 note 1 Nos. 10, 11, 12, and 13 were written when the poet was Governor of a remote part of Ssechuan, in the extreme west of China.

page 102 note 1 A legendary ruler who dispensed justice sitting under a wild pear-tree.

page 102 note 2 Po Chü-i built the dam on the Western Lake which is still known as “Po's dam”.

page 104 note 1 See Analects of Confucius, 4 and 5, where three kinds of “profitable friends” and three kinds of “profitable pleasures” are described; the third of the latter being “plenty of intelligent companions”.

page 107 note 1 155–220 A.D., founder of the Wei dynasty.

page 107 note 2 Mi Chu (3rd cent. A.D. ) was going home one day when a mysterious lady stopped him on the road and told him she was a spirit sent by Heaven to burn his house. Following her advice, he hurried on ahead and had just time to save his furniture before his house burst into flames.

page 109 note 1 This poem has not been translated before.