Ode 6, Stanzas 5 and 6. The Hsiang Po

ODE 6, STANZAS 5 AND 6. THE HSIANG PO.

A EUNUCH, HIMSELF THE VICTIM OF SLANDER, COMPLAINS OF HIS FATE, AND WARNS AND DENOUNCES HIS ENEMIES; APPEALING AGAINST THEM, AS HIS LAST RESORT, TO HEAVEN.

The proud are delighted, And the troubled are in sorrow. O azure Heaven! O azure Heaven! Look on those proud men, Pity those who are troubled.

Those slanderers! Who devised their schemes for them? I would take those slanderers, And throw them to wolves and tigers. If these refused to devour them, I would cast them into the north ¹. If the north refused to receive them, I would throw them into the hands of great (Heaven) ².

Footnotes

361:1 'The north,' i.e. the region where there are the rigours of winter and the barrenness of the desert.

361:2 'Great Heaven;' 'Heaven' has to be supplied here, but there p. 362 is no doubt as to the propriety of doing so; and, moreover, the peculiar phraseology of the line shows that the poet did not rest in the thought of the material heavens.