{"collection":"cfu","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cfu/mtc/mtc40.htm","path":"cfu/mtc/mtc40.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cfu/mtc/mtc40.htm","text":"More Translations from the Chinese, by Arthur Waley, [1919]\nHeat and cold, dusk and dawn have crowded one upon the other;\n Suddenly I find it is two years since I came to Chung-chou. \n Through my closed doors I hear nothing but the morning and evening drum;\n From my upper windows all I see is the ships that come and go\u00a01\n In vain the orioles tempt me with their song to stray beneath the flowering trees;\n In vain the grasses lure me by their colour to sit beside the pond.\n There is one thing and one alone I never tire of watching\u2014\n The spring river as it trickles over the stones and babbles past the rocks.\n70:1 \"The Emperor Saga of Japan (reigned A. D. 810-23) one day quoted to his Minister, Ono no Takamura, the couplet:\n\"Through my closed doors I hear nothing but the morning and evening drum;\n From my upper windows in the distance I see ships that come and go.\"\nTakamura, thinking these were the Emperor's own verses, said: \"If I may venture to criticize an august composition, I would suggest that the phrase \"in the distance\" be altered.\" The Emperor was delighted, for he had purposely changed \"all I see\" to \"in the distance I see.\" At that time there was only one copy of Po Ch\u00fc-i's poems in Japan and the Emperor, to whom it belonged, had allowed no one to see it.\"\u2014From the K\u014ddansh\u014d (twelfth century).","title":"More Translations from the Chinese: Po Ch\u00fc-i: The Sp...","type":"page"}