THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY THE RED WALL:[1]
SUMMER.
In the year 1081, the seventh moon just on the wane, I went with a friend on a boat excursion to the Red Wall. A clear breeze was gently blowing, scarce enough to ruffle the river, as I filled my friend’s cup and bade him troll a lay to the bright moon, singing the song of the Modest Maid.
By-and-by, up rose the moon over the eastern hills, wandering between the Wain and the Goat, shedding forth her silver beams, and linking the water with the sky. On a skiff we took our seats, and shot over the liquid plain, lightly as though travelling through space, riding on the wind without knowing whither we were bound. We seemed to be moving in another sphere, sailing through air like the Gods. So I poured out a bumper for joy, and, beating time on the skiff’s side, sang the following verse:―
With laughing oars, our joyous prow
Shoots swiftly through the glittering wave―
My heart within grows sadly grave―
Great heroes dead, where are ye now?
My friend accompanied these words upon his flageolet, delicately adjusting its notes to express the varied emotions of pity and regret, without the slightest break in the thread of sound which seemed to wind around us like a silken skein. The very monsters of the deep yielded to the influence of his strains, while the boat-woman, who had lost her husband, burst into a flood of tears. Overpowered by my own feelings, I settled myself into a serious mood, and asked my friend for some explanation of his art. To this he replied, “Did not Ts‘ao Ts‘ao say:―
The stars are few, the moon is bright,
The raven southward wings his flight.
“Westwards to Hsia-k‘ou, eastwards to Wu-ch‘ang, where hill and stream in wild luxuriance blend,―was it not there that Ts‘ao Ts‘ao was routed by Chou Yü? Ching-chou was at his feet: he was
- ↑ Not the spot mentioned in the San-kuo-chih, where Chou Yü burnt Ts‘ao Ts‘ao’s fleet, and where a wall is said to have been reddened by the flames. Su Tung-P‘o seems himself to have mistaken the identity of the place.
