Chang showed this letter to his friends and so the story became known to
many who lived at that time. All who heard it were deeply moved; but
Chang, to their disappointment, declared that he meant to break with
Ts‘ui. Yüan Chēn, of Honan, who knew Chang well, asked him why he had
made this decision.
Chang answered:
“I have observed that in Nature whatever has perfect beauty is either
itself liable to sudden transformations or else is the cause of them in
others. If Ts‘ui were to marry a rich gentleman and become his pet, she
would forever be changing, as the clouds change to rain, or as the scaly
dragon turns into the horned dragon. I, for one, could never keep pace
with her transformations.
“Of old, Hsin of the Yin dynasty and Yu of the Chou dynasty ruled over
kingdoms of many thousand chariots, and their strength was very great.
Yet a single woman brought them to ruin, dissipating their hosts and
leading these monarchs to the assassin’s knife. So that to this day they
are a laughing-stock to all the world. I know that my constancy could
not withstand such spells, and that is why I have curbed my passion.”
At these words all who were present sighed deeply.
A few years afterwards Ts‘ui married some one else and Chang also found
a wife. Happening once to pass the house where Ts‘ui was living, he
called on her husband and asked to see her, saying he was her cousin.
The husband sent for her, but she would not come. Chang’s vexation
showed itself in his face. Some one told Ts‘ui of this and she secretly
wrote the poem:
_Since I have grown so lean, my face has lost its beauty.
I have tossed and turned so many times that I am too tired to leave
my bed.
It is not that I mind the others seeing
How ugly I have grown;
It is _you_ who have caused me to lose my beauty,
Yet it is _you_ I am ashamed should see me!_
Chang went away without meeting her, and a few days afterwards, when he
was leaving the town, wrote a poem of final farewell, which said:
_You cannot say that you are abandoned and deserted;
For you have found some one to love you.
Why do you not convert your broodings over the past
Into kindness to your present husband?_
After that they never heard of one another again. Many of Chang’s
contemporaries praised the skill with which he extricated himself from
this entanglement.
[64] THE PITCHER
[_A.D. 779-831_]
I dreamt I climbed to a high, high plain;
And on the plain I found a deep well.
My throat was dry with climbing and I longed to drink;
And my eyes were eager to look into the cool shaft.
I walked round it; I looked right down;
I saw my image mirrored on the face of the pool.
An earthen pitcher was sinking into the black depths;
There was no rope to pull it to the well-head.
I was strangely troubled lest the pitcher should be lost,
And started wildly running to look for help.
From village to village I scoured that high plain;
The men were gone: the dogs leapt at my throat.
I came back and walked weeping round the well;
Faster and faster the blinding tears flowed--
Till my own sobbing suddenly woke me up;
My room was silent; no one in the house stirred;
The flame of my candle flickered with a green smoke;
The tears I had shed glittered in the candle-light.
A bell sounded; I knew it was the midnight-chime;
I sat up in bed and tried to arrange my thoughts:
The plain in my dream was the graveyard at Ch‘ang-an,
Those hundred acres of untilled land.
The soil heavy and the mounds heaped high;
And the dead below them laid in deep troughs.
Deep are the troughs, yet sometimes dead men
Find their way to the world above the grave.
And to-night my love who died long ago
Came into my dream as the pitcher sunk in the well.
That was why the tears suddenly streamed from my eyes,
Streamed from my eyes and fell on the collar of my dress.