WANG CHI.
6th and 7th Centuries a.d.
[Author of many beautiful poems. His official career was marred by his inability to keep sober.]
RECORD OF DRUNK-LAND.
DRUNK-LAND lies at I cannot say how many thousand li from the Middle Kingdom. Its soil is uncultivated, and has no boundary. It has no hills nor dangerous cliffs. The climate is equable. Nowhere is there either darkness or light, cold or heat. Customs are everywhere the same. There are no towns; the inhabitants live scattered about. They are very refined; they neither love, nor hate, nor rejoice, nor give way to anger. They inhale the breeze, and drink the dew; they do not eat of the five cereals. Happy in their rest, dignified in their movements, they mingle freely with birds, beasts, fishes, and crustaceans. They have no chariots, nor boats, nor weapons of any kind.
Of old, the Yellow Emperor (3rd millennium b.c.) visited the capital of this country; and when he came back, in his confused state he lost his hold on the empire,[1] all through trying to govern by a system of knotted cords.[2] When the throne was handed on to Yao and Shun, there were sacrifices with a thousand goblets and a hundred flagons, the result being that a divine man had to be shot, in order to secure a passage into this territory, on the frontiers of which will be found perfect peace for life. Under the Great Yü (2205 b.c.), laws were instituted, rites were numerous, and music was of varied kinds, so that for many generations there was no communication with Drunk-Land. Then Hsi and Ho threw up their appointments as astronomers royal and fled,[3] in the hope of reaching this country; but they missed their way and died young, after which
- ↑ This statement to be based upon imagination only
- ↑ Originally used for rudimentary arithmetic, and popularly exaggerated into a method of government.
- ↑ “Now here are Hsi and Ho. They have entirely subverted their virtue and are sunk and lost in wine. They have violated the duties of their office, and left their posts. They have been the first to allow the regulations of heaven to get into disorder, putting far from them their proper business. On the first day of the last month, the sun and moon did not meet harmoniously. The blind musicians beat their drums; the inferior officers and common people bustled and ran about.” Legge’s Chinese Classics, vol. III, p. 165.
