this failure, due, as we are informed in the history above quoted, to his neglect of the beaten track of academic study, we owe the existence of his great work; not, indeed, his only production, though the one by which, as Confucius said of his own "Spring and Autumn,"[1] men will know him. All else that we have on record of P'u Sung-ling, besides the fact that he lived in close companionship with several eminent scholars of the day, is gathered from his own words, written when, in 1679, he laid down his pen upon the completion of a task which was to raise him within a short period to a foremost rank in the Chinese world of letters. Of that record I here append a close translation, accompanied by such notes as are absolutely necessary to make it intelligible to non-students of Chinese.
AUTHOR'S OWN RECORD
"Clad in wistaria, girdled with ivy;"[2] thus sang Ch'ü-P'ing[3] in his Falling into Trouble.[4] Of ox-headed devils and serpent Gods,[5] he of the long-nails[6] never wearied to tell. Each interprets in his own way the music of heaven;[7] and whether it be discord or not, depends upon antecedent
- ↑ Annals of the Lu State.
- ↑ Said of the bogies of the hills, in allusion to their clothes. Here quoted with reference to the official classes, in ridicule of the title under which they hold posts which, from a literary point of view, they are totally unfit to occupy.
- ↑ A celebrated statesman (b.c. 332-295) who, having lost his master's favour by the intrigues of a rival, finally drowned himself in despair. The annual Dragon Festival is said by some to be a "search" for his body. The term San Lü used here was the name of an office held by Ch'ü-P'ing.
- ↑ A poem addressed by Ch'ü-P'ing to his Prince, after his disgrace. Its non-success was the immediate cause of his death.
- ↑ That is, of the supernatural generally.
- ↑ A poet of the T'ang dynasty whose eyebrows met, whose nails were very long, and who could write very fast.
- ↑ "You know the music of earth," said Chuang Tzŭ; "but you have not heard the music of heaven."
