Page:The works of Li Po - Obata.djvu/144

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��78. IN MEMORIAM

(The poet mourns Ho Chi-chang)

Ssu-ming had a man of madness,

Ho Chi-chang, frenzied with wind and stream.

The first time I met him at Chang-an,

He called me "a god in exile."

O dear lover of the cup,

He has turned the sod under the pine tree —

He who bartered his gold turtle for wine.

Now, alone, I shed tears, remembering him.

��Ho Chi-chang. The jovial courtier who introduced Li Po to Hsuan Tsung. Ssu-ming, a district in Cheh- hiang, was his ancestral home, to which he retired and where he died. See the Introduction, also No. 125.

The gold turtle was probably a trinket of some sort, worn as an ornament.

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