Page:A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1919).djvu/168

  We were not serving in the same Department of State. The bond that joined us lay deeper than outward things; The rivers of our souls spring from the same well!

Of Yüan's appearance at this time we may guess something from a picture which still survives in copy; it shows him, a youthful and elegant figure, visiting his cousin Ts'ui Ying-ying, who was a lady-in-waiting at Court. At this period of his life Po made friends with difficulty, not being, as he tells us "a master of such accomplishments as caligraphy, painting, chess or gambling, which tend to bring men together in pleasurable intercourse." Two older men, T'ang Ch'ü and Tēng Fang, liked his poetry and showed him much kindness; another, the politician K'ung T'an, won his admiration on public grounds. But all three died soon after he got to know them. Later he made three friends with whom he maintained a lifelong intimacy: the poet Liu Yü-hsi (called Mēng-tē), and the two officials Li Chien and Ts'ui Hsuan-liang. In 805 Yüan Chēn was banished for provocative behaviour towards a high official. The T'ang History relates the episode as follows: "Yüan was staying the night at the Fu-shui Inn; just as he was preparing to go to sleep in the Main Hall, the court-official Li Shih-yüan also arrived. Yüan Chēn should have offered to withdraw from the Hall. He did not do so and a scuffle ensued. Yüan, locked out of the building, took off his shoes and stole round to the back, hoping to find another way in. Liu followed with a whip and struck him across the face." [ 162 ]