Li T'ai-Po (li Bai 701-762)

THE PERILS OF THE SHU ROAD

BY LI T'AI-PO

ALAS! Alas! The danger! The steepness! O Affliction!
The Shu Road is as perilous and difficult as the way to the Green Heavens. ¹¹
No greater undertaking than this has been since Ts'an Ts'ung and Yü Fu ruled the land. ¹²
For forty-eight thousand years no man had passed the boundary of Ch'in.
Westward, over the Great White Mountain, was a bird-track
By which one could cross to the peak of Omei.
But the earth of the mountain fell and overwhelmed the Heroes so that they perished. ¹³
Afterwards, therefore, they made sky-ladders and joined the cliffs with hanging pathways.
Above, the soaring tips of the high mountains hold back the six dragons of the sun; ¹⁴
Below, in the ravines, the flowing waters break into whirlpools and swirl back against the current.
Yellow geese flying toward the peaks cannot pass over them;
The gibbons climb and climb, ¹⁵ despairingly pulling themselves up higher and higher, but even their endurance fails.