The Szechwan Road

Eheu! How dangerous, how high! It would be easier to climb to Heaven

than to walk the Szechwan Road.

Since Ts’an Ts’ung and Yü Fu ruled the land, forty-eight thousand

years had gone by; and still no human foot had passed from Shu to

the frontiers of Ch’in. To the west across T’ai-po Shan there was a

bird-track, by which one could cross to the ridge of O-mi. But the

earth of the hill crumbled and heroes perished.

The “heroes” were five strong men sent by the King of Shu to fetch

the five daughters of the King of Ch’in.

So afterwards they made sky ladders and hanging bridges. Above, high

beacons of rock that turn back the chariot of the sun. Below, whirling

eddies that meet the waves of the current and drive them away. Even the

wings of the yellow cranes cannot carry them across, and the monkeys

grow weary of such climbing.

How the road curls in the pass of Green Mud!

With nine turns in a hundred steps it twists up the hills.

Clutching at Orion, passing the Well Star, I look up and gasp. Then

beating my breast sit and groan aloud.

I fear I shall never return from my westward wandering; the way is

steep and the rocks cannot be climbed.

Sometimes the voice of a bird calls among the ancient trees--a male

calling to its wife, up and down through the woods. Sometimes a

nightingale sings to the moon, weary of empty hills.

It would be easier to climb to Heaven than to walk the Szechwan Road;

and those who hear the tale of it turn pale with fear.

Between the hill-tops and the sky there is not a cubit’s space.

Withered pine-trees hang leaning over precipitous walls.

Flying waterfalls and rolling torrents mingle their din. Beating the

cliffs and circling the rocks, they thunder in a thousand valleys.

Alas! O traveller, why did you come to so fearful a place? The Sword

Gate is high and jagged. If one man stood in the Pass, he could hold it

against ten thousand.

The guardian of the Pass leaps like a wolf on all who are not his

kinsmen.

In the daytime one hides from ravening tigers and in the night from

long serpents, that sharpen their fangs and lick blood, slaying men

like grass.

They say the Embroidered City is a pleasant place, but I had rather be

safe at home.

For it would be easier to climb to Heaven than to walk the Szechwan

Road.

I turn my body and gaze longingly towards the West.

* * * * *

[When Li Po came to the capital and showed this poem to Ho Chih-ch’ang,

Chih-ch’ang raised his eyebrows and said: “Sir, you are not a man of

this world. You must indeed be the genius of the star T’ai-po” (xxxiv.

36).]