The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time

5. LI-PO One day, at the height of his reign, the Chinese Emperor Ming Huang received ambassadors from Korea, who brought to him important messages in a dialect which none of his ministers could understand. “What!” exclaimed the emperor, “among so many magistrates, so many scholars and warriors, cannot there be found a single one who knows enough to relieve us of vexation in this affair? If in three days no one is able to decipher this letter, every one of your appointments shall be sus-pended.” For a day the ministers consulted and fretted, fearing for their offices and their heads, then Minister Ho Chi-chang approached the throne and said: “Your subject presumes to announce to your Majesty that there is a poet of great merit called Li at his house, who is perfectly acquainted with more than one science; command him to read this letter, for there is nothing of which he is not capable.”

The emperor ordered Li to present himself at court immediately, but Li refused to come—saying that he could not possibly be worthy of the task, since his essay had been rejected by the Mandarins at the last examination. The emperor soothed him by conferring upon him the title and robes of a doctor of the first rank. Li came, found his examiners among the ministers, forced them to take off his boots, and then translated the documents, which announced that Korea proposed to make war for the recovery of its freedom. Having read the message, he dictated a learned and terrifying answer, which the emperor signed, almost believing Ho, that Li was an angel descended from heaven. The Koreans sent tribute and apologies, and the emperor gave part of the tribute to Li. Li gave it to the innkeeper, for he loved wine.

Li Tai-po, the Keats of China, had discovered the world in A.D. 701. “For twenty springs,” he lived “among the clouds, loving leisure and enamored of the hills.” He grew in health and strength, and became practiced in the ways of love.

Wine of the grapes,

Goblets of gold—

And a pretty maid ofWu.

She comes on pony-back; she is fifteen;

Blue-painted eyebrows—

Shoes of pink brocade—

Inarticulate speech—

But she sings bewitchingly well.

So, feasting at the table

Inlaid with tortoise shell,

She gets drunk in my lap.

Ah, child,what caresses

Behind lily-embroidered curtains!

And then the aftermath:

Fair one,when you were here, I filled the house with flowers.

Fair one, now you are gone, only an empty couch is left.

On the couch the embroidered quilt is rolled up; I cannot sleep.

It is three years since you went. The perfume you left behind haunts me still.

The perfume strays about me forever; but where are you, Beloved?

I sigh—the yellow leaves fall from the branch.

I weep—the dew twinkles white on the green mosses.

He married, but made so little gold that his wife abandoned him, taking the children with her. Li-po consoled himself with the grape and traveled from city to city, earning crumbs of bread with sheaves of song. Hearing praise of the wine of Niauching, he made at once for that city, over three hundred miles of Chinese—i.e., impassable—roads. Everybody loved him, for he spoke with the same pride and friendliness to both paupers and kings. At the capital the emperor befriended him, but could not command him. Says his fellow poet Tu Fu:

As for Li-po, give him a jugful,

He will write one hundred poems.

He dozes in a wine-shop

On a city street of Chang-an;

And though his Sovereign calls,

He will not board the Imperial barge.

“Please your Majesty,” says he,

“I am a god of wine.”

He accepted the philosophy of Liu Ling, who desired to be followed always by two servants, one with inexhaustible wine, the other with a spade to bury him wherever he might fall; for, said Liu, “the affairs of this world are no more than duck-weed in the river.” So they soon seemed to Li, for when Ming Huang lost his throne for love the poet lost a patron, and fled from Chang-an to wander again over the countryside.

Why do I live among the green mountains?