Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. Excerpt: ...red face grow pale. The lofty peaks shoot up cloudward in rows. If one foot higher, they would touch the heaven. The dead pine trees cling to the cliff, hanging headmost over the abyss. The sparkling cascades and the spurting torrents vie with one another to make the bellowing din. Anon, a giant boulder tumbles from the crag-head; a thousand mountain walls resound like thunder. 0 you wayfarers from afar, why do you come hither on this direful road? The gate of the Sword Parapet stands firm on its frightful height. One man defending it, a thousand men could not break it open. And the keepers of the gate are not of your kin, They may turn, I fear, to wolves and leopards. The Steep Road to Shuh Fleeing at morn before the savage tigers, Fleeing at eve before the huge serpents, Men are killed and cut up like hemp, While the beasts whet their fangs and lick the blood. Though many pleasures there may be in the brocade city of Shuh, It were better to return to your house quickly. The road to Shuh is more difficult to climb than to climb the steep blue heaven. I shrug my shoulders and heave a long sigh--gazing into the west. This is one of the most admired and most difficult poems of Li Po, certain portions of it being as vague as they are beautiful. Some commentators maintain that this was written at the time of the An Lu-shan rebellion, when the emperor Hsuan Tsung fled to Ssuchuan, to which course Li Po was opposed; but being in no position to declare his opinion openly, the poet voiced it thus in verse covertly. The poem hints at the double danger for the emperor in leaving his capital to the rebels who are tigers and serpents as well as in trusting his person to the hands of the strangers of Shuh, who might turn to wolves and leopards, while...
