Page:The works of Li Po - Obata.djvu/145

 ��79. ON THE ROAD OF AMBITION >

(The poet departs from Nan-ling for the capital) v

Home in the mountains in autumn-tide IssL

Of new-brewed wine and yellow chick fattened on grain. ^^^ I call the boy to boil the fowl and pour the white wine, p/| While my children, playing noisily about, tug me by A? -J

the sleeve. I sing and imbibe the bland ecstasy of the cup ; I rise and dance in the tangled beams of the setting sun.

It is not too late to win a lord of ten thousand chariots. Let me ride and spur my horse on the long, long road!

The silly woman of Kuei-chi may scorn Chu Mai-chen, " ' ^ Looking up at the sky, I laugh aloud and go. % '

Ha, am I one to crawl ever in the dust-laden weeds?

Chu Mai-chen. Died B. C. 116. A wood-cutter un- der the Han dynasty, whose wife left him because she could not endure poverty. By diligent study, however, he became governor of Kuei-chi in Chehkiangj and his wife, who had sunk to destitution, begged to be allowed to rejoin him. But he replied, "If you can pick up spilt water, you may return"; whereupon his wife went and hanged herself — Giles: Biographical Dictionary No. 65.

It is quite likely that the poet by the "silly woman of Kuei-chi" alludes to his own wife, who had left him because of his poor success in life. [119]

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