“Regret, by definition, comes too late; / Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.”

[larryhammer]

An interesting pendent to Song of Lasting Regret, by one of its historical protagonists:


On an Imperial Visit to Sichuan and the West, I Arrive at Sword Gate, Tang Emperor Xuanzong

Our royal carriage returns from our tour
To a sword pavilion towering through clouds:
An emerald screen of a thousand fathoms—
A cinnabar range split by five heroes—
In undergrowth, coiled banners shifting—
Immortal clouds, shook off by our horses.
To govern these times requires virtue—
Ah! the worth of this inscription ...

幸蜀西至剑门
剑阁横云峻，
銮舆出狩回。
翠屏千仞合，
丹嶂五丁开。
灌木萦旗转，
仙云拂马来。
乘时方在德，
嗟尔勒铭才。


This was written during his 757 return to Chang’an after its liberation by his son, reigning Emperor Suzong, from the forces of the An Lushan Rebellion—in other words, the same return covered in ll.51-57 (though of course written before reaching Mawei). I am amused at the fig-leaf for imperial dignity that calls his escape to Sichuan a tour of inspection. One of the few ways through the rugged mountains between Sichuan and Shaanxi is Sword Gate Pass—the peaks are notably sharp, as if they were swords—which according to legend was opened up by five heroes. Somewhere in the pass, there was an inscription carved five centuries before about how the true worth of mountains is not their strategic significance but their virtue (which is an allusion to an episode in Records of the Grand Historian from six centuries before that). The last lines are usually read as the ex-emperor’s admission that he maybe possibly might have screwed up a teeny-tiny bit. (Source)

---L.

Index of Chinese translations

Subject quote from Against Entropy, John M. Ford. Not that I'm being judgy or anything.