No More Learning

The lady was a daughter of the Lord of Wei, and the divorced wife of the
Lord of Sung. On the death of her husband, her son succeeded to his
father's position as feudal chief of Sung. Because of her divorce, the
unhappy woman, who was deeply attached to her son, was forbidden to
enter Sung, where he lived.


AN EVENING MEETING

_Note 159. _
_The lamp-flower falls. _

An old-fashioned Chinese lamp was simply a vessel in which a vegetable
wick floated in oil. If the oil were very pure, the wick burned evenly,
leaving no charred end; but if the oil were impure, the wick turned
red-hot and formed a glowing tip called the "lamp-flower. " Its
appearance was looked upon as the happy omen which foretold a lover's
speedy return.

_Note 160. _
_But what is the rain of the Sorceress Gorge. _

The Sorceress Gorge (see Note 87) is often referred to in a figurative
sense, as it is in this poem. The allusion is to the story of a certain
prince who dreamed that a fairy, calling herself the Lady of the
Sorceress Mountain, came and passed the night with him. On leaving in
the morning, she told him that it was she who ruled over the clouds and
rain, which would ever after be symbols of their love. Since then, the
expression "clouds and rain" has become a euphemism for the relation of
the sexes.


CALLIGRAPHY

_Note 161. _
_The writing of Li Po-hai. _

Li Yung (A. D. 678-747) is often called "Po Hai" in reference to a place
where he held office. He was a person who displayed astounding knowledge
at a very early age, and rose to be very powerful. When he was nearly
seventy, he was overthrown by the machinations of his enemies and put to
death. He wrote many inscriptions and was noted for his beautiful,
spirited calligraphy.

_Note 162. _
_The writing of Chia, the official. _

Chia K'uei (A. D. 30-101) was known as the "Universal Scholar. " He was an
eminent teacher, and many of his pupils came from great distances. As
the payment he received was in grain, he was said to "till with his
tongue," which phrase has now become a current expression for earning
one's living as a teacher. Toward the end of his life, he was appointed
Imperial historiographer. He was also a noted calligraphist. (See Note
77. )


ONE GOES A JOURNEY

_Note 163. _
_Are many sweet-olive trees. _

The _olea fragrans_, or sweet-olive, is employed in a metaphorical sense
to denote literary honours. Scholars who have successfully passed their
examinations are said to have gathered its branches.


ON THE CLASSIC OF THE HILLS AND SEA

_Note 164. _
_Because the Yellow Emperor considers them of importance. _

The Yellow Emperor is one of the five mythical sovereigns who ruled
_circa_ 2697 B. C. and is supposed to have reigned a hundred years.


THE SOLITARY TRAVELLER

_Note 165. _
_He has attended an Imperial audience at the Twelve Towers. _

The "Twelve Towers" was a palace built by Ming Huang (see Note 30) for
the use of his ladies. It was an attempted imitation of a building
supposed to have been erected by the Yellow Emperor (see Note 164) for
the use of the Immortals. By his reference to it, one knows that the
traveller has been to Court and is returning disappointed.


SPRING. AUTUMN. WINTER

_Note 166. _
_It makes me think
Of the Peach-Blossom Fountain. _

An allusion to a well-known allegory, "The Peach-Blossom Fountain," by
T'ao Yüan-ming. (See Note 142. ) It tells how a fisherman, who was lost,
found himself in a beautiful country where the people all wore strange
clothes of very old-fashioned cut. On coming home, he told many stories
about this enchanting land, but it could never be found again. The gods
had permitted the fisherman to return for a short time to the
"peach-blossom" days of his youth, although he could never remember the
road he had taken, nor even point out the direction in which it lay.

[Illustration: PLAN OF A TYPICAL CHINESE HOUSE OF THE BETTER CLASS]


KEY TO PLAN OF A TYPICAL CHINESE HOUSE OF THE BETTER CLASS

Shaded Sections--Buildings.
White Sections--Courtyards.

The house faces South.
_No. 1. _ _Chao Pi. _ Spirit Wall. Built to protect the main
entrance from the malign influence of evil
spirits: these move most easily in a
straight line and find difficulty in
turning corners, therefore a wall before
the Great Gate is an effective defence.

_No. 2. _ _Ta Mên. _ Great Gate.

_No. 3. _ _Mên Fang. _ Gate-keeper's Room.

_No. 4. _ _Ting Tzŭ Lang. _ Covered passage leading from the Reception
Hall to the Great Gate and opening on the
street.

_No. 5. _ _Lang. _ Covered passage-way.

_No. 6. _ _T'ing. _ Reception Hall.

_No. 7. _ _Lang. _ Covered passage-way.

_No. 8. _ _T'ing. _ Inner Reception Hall.

_No. 9. _ _Ch'ih. _ A stone-paved courtyard. It has no roof
and is raised in the centre. On great
occasions, such as weddings, birthdays,
and so on, it can be roofed and floored,
thus being made a part of the house.
Trees and flowers are not planted in this
court, but are set about in pots.

_No. 10. _ _T'ing. _ A courtyard. In this second courtyard, to
which steps lead down, trees and flowers
are planted, making of it an inner garden.

_No. 11. _ _Tso Ma Loa. _ Running Horse Two-Story Apartments.
This is the _Kuei_ so often spoken of, the
Women's Apartments. It is a building in
which the rooms surround a courtyard,
and are connected by verandahs running
round the court upstairs and down. The
space in the centre is known as _T'ien
Ching_ or Heaven's Well. There are
eighteen rooms in the upper story, and
eighteen in the lower. The wife uses the
front rooms; the daughters, the back.

_No. 12. _ _Hou T'ing. _ Back Court. It is bounded by a "flower
wall," or brick trellis, through which
flowers can twine, and is used by the
inmates of the _Kuei_ as a garden.

_No. 13. _ _Nü Hsia Fang. _ Women's Lower House. A house for the
women servants. As in the house for men
servants, No. 18, the floor is actually on a
lower level than those of the master's
apartments.

_No. 14. _ _Fo Lou. _ Buddhist Two-Story Apartments. In the
upper story, images of Buddhas, and of
Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, are kept.
As a rule, it is locked, and only people who
have washed carefully and put on clean
clothes may enter.

_No. 15. _ _Tsê Shih. _ Side Inner Apartment. In this house, poor
relations may live. The concubines who
do not enter the _Kuei_ except on invitation
also live here. Guests do not go further
into the house than to the wall bounding
this building on the South.

_No. 16. _ _Tung Hua T'ing. _ Eastern Flower Hall.

_No. 17. _ _Tui T'ing. _ Opposite Hall. This and No. 16 are used
for theatrical entertainments. The guests
are seated in No. 16, facing South, and the
stage faces North in No. 17. A cloth
covering is stretched over the courtyard,
and a wall divides the two _T'ing_
from the rest of the house.

_No. 18. _ _Nan Hsia Fang. _ Men's Lower House. A house for men
servants divided as far as possible from the
quarters of the women servants, also placed
conveniently near the Great Gate where
guests enter.

_No. 19. _ _Ta Shu Fang. _ Great Book Room. This room is used as a
library and study, and in it the teacher
instructs the sons of the family.

_No. 20. _ _Hsi Hua T'ing. _ Western Flower Hall. Here guests are
entertained at meals. Flower gardens are
placed on either side, and also walls which
prevent either the study or the women's
rooms from being seen from it.

_No. 21. _ _Tsê Shih. _ Side Inner Apartment. A building used by
the ladies of the house as a study or
boudoir, where they embroider, paint, or
write. The light is very good, whereas in
the _Kuei_, on account of most of the
windows opening on the court ("Heaven's
Well"), it is apt to be poor.

_No. 22. _ _Ch'u Fang. _ Kitchen. This is placed conveniently near
to No. 20, where the men of the family
dine, and No. 21, the dining-room of the
ladies.

_No. 23. _ _Ch'ü Lang. _ Passage-of-Many-Turnings. The superstitious
belief in regard to the difficulty
experienced by evil spirits in going round
sharp corners governs the planning of this
strangely shaped passage.

_No. 24. _ _Shu Chai. _ "Books Reverenced. " The study, or students'
room.

_No. 25. _ _Hsien. _ A Side-room or Pavilion. This is a long,
low, outdoor passage, where guests sit and
amuse themselves.

_No. 26. _ _Ma Fang. _ Stable. The stable is placed as far as
possible from the house.
The horses,
however, are kept saddled near the Great
Gate for a large part of the day, in order
to be in readiness should they be needed.

_No. 27. _ _Hua Yüan. _ Flower Garden. The gardens are arranged
with hills, water, and rockeries, to look as
much like natural scenes as possible.

_No. 28. _ _Ssŭ So. _ Privy.




TABLE OF CHINESE HISTORICAL PERIODS

Five Legendary Emperors. 2852-2205 B. C.
Hsia Dynasty. 2205-1766 B. C.
Shang Dynasty. 1766-1122 B. C.
Chou Dynasty. 1122-255 B. C.
Ch'in Dynasty. 255-206 B. C.
Han Dynasty. 206 B. C. -A. D. 25
Eastern Han Dynasty. A. D. 25-221
Later Han Dynasty. A. D. 221-264
Chin Dynasty. A. D. 264-420
Period of Unrest, Six Short-lived Dynasties. A. D. 420-618
T'ang Dynasty. A. D. 618-906
The Five Dynasties: A. D. 906-960
Posterior Liang.
Posterior T'ang.
Posterior Chin.
Posterior Han.
Posterior Chou.
Sung Dynasty. A. D. 960-1277
Yüan Dynasty. A. D. 1277-1368
Ming Dynasty. A. D. 1368-1644
Ch'ing Dynasty. A. D. 1644-1912
Min Kuo (Republic of China). A. D. 1912




The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS U. S. A




The following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author




Books by AMY LOWELL

PUBLISHED BY

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

_Poetry_

LEGENDS

PICTURES OF THE FLOATING WORLD

CAN GRANDE'S CASTLE

MEN, WOMEN AND GHOSTS

SWORD BLADES AND POPPY SEED

A DOME OF MANY-COLOURED GLASS

(IN COLLABORATION WITH FLORENCE AYSCOUGH) FIR-FLOWER TABLETS: POEMS
TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE

_Prose_

TENDENCIES IN MODERN AMERICAN POETRY

SIX FRENCH POETS: STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE




Can Grande's Castle
BY AMY LOWELL
_Fourth edition_


"The poems In 'Can Grande's Castle' are only four in number, but two of
them . . . touch magnificence. 'The Bronze Horses' has a larger sweep than
Miss Lowell has ever attempted; she achieves here a sense of magnitude
and time that is amazing. . . . Not in all contemporary poetry has the
quality of balance and return been so beautifully illustrated. "--LOUIS
UNTERMEYER in _The New Era in American Poetry_.

"'Can Grande's Castle' challenges, through its vividness and contagious
zest in life and color, an unreluctant admiration . . . its rare union of
vigor and deftness, precision and flexibility, imaginative grasp and
clarity of detail. "--PROFESSOR JOHN LIVINGSTON LOWES in _Convention and
Revolt in Poetry_.

"'Sea-Blue and Blood-Red' and 'Guns as Keys: and the Great Gate Swings'
. . . are such a widening of barriers they bring into literature an
element imperceptible in poetry before . . . the epic of modernity
concentrated into thirty pages. . . . Not since the Elizabethans has such a
mastery of words been reached in English . . . one had never surmised such
enchantment could have been achieved with words. "--W. BRYHER in _The Art
of Amy Lowell. A Critical Appreciation_. London.

"The essential element of Miss Lowell's poetry is vividness, vividness
and a power to concentrate into a few pages the spirit of an age. She
indicates perfectly the slightest sense of atmosphere in a period or a
city. . . . But the spirit of these poems is not the fashioning of
pictures, however brilliant, of the past; it is the re-creation of epic
moments of history made real as this present through her own
individuality and vision. "--_The London Nation. _

"We have come to it--once Poe was the living and commanding poet, whose
things were waited for. . . . Now we watch and wait for Amy Lowell's poems.
Success justifies her work. . . . Each separate poem in 'Can Grande's
Castle' is a real and true poem of remarkable power--a work of
imagination, a moving and beautiful thing. "--JOSEPH E. CHAMBERLAIN in
_The Boston Transcript_.

"'Can Grande's Castle' is, in the opinion of the present reviewer, not
only the best book which Miss Lowell has so far written, but a great
book per se. . . . It is a frank and revealing book. It deals with
fundamentals. . . . In 'Sea-Blue and Blood-red' we have the old story of
Nelson and 'mad, whole-hearted Lady Hamilton' retold in a style that
dazzles and excites like golden standards won from the enemy passing in
procession with the sun upon them. "--_The New York Times Book Review. _


HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK




Legends
BY AMY LOWELL
_Second Printing_


"I read 'Legends' last night, and again this morning. I like them the
best of all your poems. . . . I like best _Many Swans_, which I have read
twice and which I feel really speaks inside my unexplained soul. I
should not like to try to explain it, because of the deep fear and
danger that is in it. But it isn't a myth of the sun, it is something
else. All the better that we can't say offhand what. That means it is
true. It rings a note in my soul. "--D. H. Lawrence.

"The subjects fit the poet like a glove. . . . The book is highly original,
immensely interesting, and in its choice of themes, of the first
significance. "--Prof. John Livingston Lowes in _The New York Evening
Post_.

"These clever dramatic tales are so brilliantly successful that we can
only hope for more of their kind. Here is a canvas broad enough for the
strokes of that untiring brush! Both in subject-matter and technique
Miss Lowell has surpassed herself in these legends. "--John Farrar in
_The Bookman_.

"Miss Lowell builds--or composes--her poems as well as a painter of the
first rank. . . . Her verse becomes increasingly supple. . . . I cannot say
pompously that this latest volume contains Miss Lowell's best work, but
it contains her work that I like best. . . . She is, at any rate, one of
the three graces or nine muses upon whom our poetry stands or
falls. "--Malcolm Cowley in _The Dial_.

"There is no writer in America to-day, of either prose or poetry, who
can manage such brilliant color effects in description. . . . In 'Legends'
she has produced weirdly beautiful work that could never by any
possibility be mistaken for the work of anyone else. "--William Rose
Benét in _The Yale Review_.

"'Legends' is, I think, Miss Lowell's best book . . . the book that
achieves the idiom, the convention that makes her work integral. "
--Padraic Colum in _The Freeman_.


HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK




Sword Blades and Poppy Seed
BY AMY LOWELL
_Fifth edition_


_OPINIONS OF LEADING REVIEWERS_

"Against the multitudinous array of daily verse our times produce this
volume utters itself with a range and brilliancy wholly remarkable. I
cannot see that Miss Lowell's use of unrhymed _vers libre_ has been
surpassed in English. Read 'The Captured Goddess,' 'Music' and 'The
Precinct. Rochester,' a piece of mastercraft in this kind. A wealth of
subtleties and sympathies, gorgeously wrought, full of macabre effects
(as many of the poems are) and brilliantly worked out. The things of
splendor she has made she will hardly outdo in their kind. "--JOSEPHINE
PRESTON PEABODY, _The Boston Herald_.

"For quaint pictorial exactitude and bizarrerie of color these poems
remind one of Flemish masters and Dutch tulip gardens; again, they are
fine and fantastic, like Venetian glass; and they are all curiously
flooded with the moonlight of dreams. . . . Miss Lowell has a remarkable
gift of what one might call the dramatic-decorative. Her decorative
imagery is intensely dramatic, and her dramatic pictures are in
themselves vivid and fantastic decorations. "--RICHARD LE GALLIENNE, _New
York Times Book Review_.

"Such poems as 'A Lady,' 'Music,' 'White and Green,' are wellnigh
flawless in their beauty--perfect 'images. '"--HARRIET MONROE, _Poetry_.

"Her most notable quality appears in the opening passage of the volume.
The sharply etched tones and contours of this picture are characteristic
of the author's work. .