Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/261

 " Alas ! the fates were against me. I was without resource. Bound with fetters, hurried away towards the north, death would have been sweet indeed ; but that boon was refused.

" My dungeon is lighted by the will-o'-the-wisp alone ; no breath of spring cheers the murky solitude in which I dwell. The ox and the barb herd together in one stall, the rooster and the phoenix feed together from one dish. Exposed to mist and dew, I had many times thought to die ; and yet, through the seasons of two revolving years, disease hovered round me in vain. The dank, unhealthy soil to me became paradise itself. For there was that within me which misfortune could not steal away. And so I remained firm, gazing at the white clouds floating over my head, and bearing in my heart a sorrow boundless as the sky.

"The sun of those dead heroes has long since set, but their record is before me still. And, while the wind whistles under the eaves, I open my books and read ; and lo ! in their presence my heart glows with a bor- rowed fire."

" I myself," adds the famous commentator, Lin Hsi- chung, of the seventeenth century, " in consequence of the rebellion in Fuhkien, lay in prison for two years, while deadly disease raged around. Daily I recited this poem several times over, and happily escaped ; from which it is clear that the supremest efforts in literature move even the gods, and that it is not the verses of Tu Fu alone which can prevail against malarial fever."

At the final examination for his degree in 1256, Wen Tien-hsiang had been placed seventh on the list. How- ever, the then Emperor, on looking over the papers of the candidates before the result was announced, was

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