[Clark is a scholar and translator of Chinese literature. Here, he describes the general tenor of Su's works, emphasizing that "permeating his writings is an unmistakable sympathy with his fellow beings, an understanding of their lives, a compassion for their troubles."]

It has been said that Su Shih revived 'the plain speaking of the satirical odes.' Certain it is that as a satirist who never hesitated to censure or ridicule when he considered either necessary, Tung-p'o stands out most prominently amongst his contemporaries. A brilliant essayist and poet, he—like Ou-yang Hsiu—is regarded as an almost universal genius, but is even a greater favourite with the Chinese literary public. To quote Dr. H. A. Giles in his Gems of Chinese Literature, 'Under his hands, the language of which China is so proud may be said to have reached perfection of finish, of art concealed. In subtlety of reasoning, in the lucid expression of abstractions, such as in English too often elude the faculty of the tongue, Su Tung-p'o is an unrivalled master.'

His writings were voluminous, and numerous editions of his complete works, under the title of Tung-p'o Ch 'üan Chi, have been published from the time of the Sung dynasty down to the present day. These works covered a great variety of subjects and were produced in many different styles, including letters, essays, records, memorials, epitaphs, prose-poems and verse.

A study of this literature gives the reader an insight into not only the times in which the author lived but also the character and temperament of the man himself. His extreme outspokenness, for instance, was continually getting him into trouble with the Throne, resulting in a series of banishments and dismissals from the posts he held, a process which continued intermittently throughout his life. Commencing with his opposition to Wang An-shih, the Innovator, and the poet's departure from the Capital to a subordinate post at Hangchow, he, shortly afterwards, lampooned in verse two of the Court Censors and, in 1072, was dismissed to Huangchow. Seven years later, on being transferred to Huchow, he presented a memorial returning thanks for this appointment. A Censor discovered allusions derogatory to the Government and Tung-p'o was thrown into prison. After several years of changing fortune during which he was summoned to return to Court, he was obliged once more to go into the provinces and, in 1094, was accused of having spoken disrespectfully of the late Emperor, and banished, first to Huichow in Kuangtung, and afterwards to the island of Hainan.

His experiences, however, had taught him in later life to be more careful in his political references, and we find few of them in his writings during his last years. Here and there occurs a vague allusion, but he appears rather to warn his friends against making similar mistakes. In a letter to his grand-nephew, Yüan Lao, he counsels him to be on his guard in all things while in the metropolis. He concludes his letter with the words—'And now, above all things be circumspect.' In another letter to the same relative he writes, 'I assure you I am anxious to compose the Epitaph and have no thought of drawing back, but, of late, anxieties and fears have crowded upon me thicker than ever. I can set about nothing nowadays without taking all sorts of precautions—eating, drinking, or talking, it is all the same. I fancy you will divine my meaning.'

Wherever he went and whatever post he held, Tung-p'o seemed to leave his mark in some practical manner, generally by digging wells. A train of wells marked his wanderings over the Empire, and he records in his writings his experiences in this line, notably in Ch'ien T'ang, in Chekiang and in Kiungchow in Hainan. In this latter place he found two springs to the north-east of the city, a few feet apart, but with waters of different taste. We are credibly informed that the Chinese profess great faith in the quality of this well, known as Tung-p'o's Double Spring, 'nor is their belief much shaken by the fact that foreign analysis is in favour of a rival well.' He added largely to the architectural beauties of Hangchow; at Yinchow he carried on successfully the work of famine relief, and the Yellow River benefited by his engineering skill.

Many of his essays and poems contain passages of great beauty, such as The Red Cliff, and The Pavillon of Flying Cranes. To read, for instance, the 'Song of the Cranes' in the original Chinese is a delight which only the sublime poetry of the Immortals can bring to one. Again, his powers of imagination are manifested in such lines as his description of Ts'ao Ts'ao's fleet sailing down towards the Red Cliff; the raging typhoon; Wang Hsün marching upon K'un Yang. Or his description of that night under the Stonebell Hill, when, accompanied by his son, Mai, he took a boat to investigate the uncanny sounds which came from its foot. 'The mighty rock rose to a height of a thousand feet, like an infuriate beast or strange monster about to pounce upon us. Falcons, perched upon the hills, rose in screaming fright to the clouds on hearing the sounds of men.

'There were noises too, like an old man coughing and cackling, in the gulleys of the hill—'

We find, too, passages of extreme tenderness, showing how deeply he felt the loss of a friend. His references to Wên Yü-k'o in the Bending Bamboos of Yün-Tang Valley are most touching in their sorrow, as for instance when he tells how, while drying his books and pictures, he picked up a painting done by his dead friend. 'I put away the volumes, and sobbed.' And his life-long correspondence with his brother Tzu-Yu, which displayed a brotherly love of unusual devotion. It was during their journey together to their respective places of banishment, when Tung-p'o was going to Hainan, that Tzu-Yu made a pathetic appeal to his elder brother to give up his too free indulgence in the wine-cup. Tung-p'o, we are informed, was repentant for the moment, but after throwing off a few lines to commemorate the occasion, and to record his formal renunciation of Bacchus, he crossed over to Hainan to lead anything but a teetotaler's life. 'Heaven,' he mused, 'was using him as its instrument to propagate the principles of the true doctrine in this outlandish corner of the earth; and, after all, the world was a mere delusion, man's home everywhere, and his best source of happiness a contented mind.' As he stepped on board the vessel for Hainan, he told Tzu-Yu that he 'was now floating out to sea on the Confucian raft and that the faith would have free course,' adapting thereby a quotation from the Analects to his own case.

We read in a letter written during his later years to Ch'êng Ch'üan-fu, a graduate, as follows:

The Huichow wine you sent me is splendid. When at Huichow, I used to give the preference to the Mei brand, but this is far and away the better. The pleasure of wine-bibbing is, I assure you, no slight support in my solitude.

One need only read his Pine Wine of the Middle Mountains to realise that Tung-p'o was a tippler, but that, even in his cups, he could describe with so vivid a touch his drunken sensations. 'How much have I already drunk to-day? Ah! I feel I can escape now from the fetters of mortality!—I soar over the running deer in the mountain peaks, and join the leaping monkeys on the overhanging cliffs. Thence do I plunge into the billowing clouds of a vast ocean.—Heaven in tumult!'

What a genius was his! And yet, permeating his writings is an unmistakable sympathy with his fellow beings, an understanding of their lives, a compassion for their troubles. His description of the coming of rain after the great drought and the joy of the people, and the song which he wrote to commemorate the Pavilion which he raised, calling it 'The Pavilion to Glad Rain,' are surely thoughts of a man deeply and personally in sympathy with not only his social companions and intimates but with the poorer farmers and labourers with whom his official duties would bring him into contact. Writing to a friend from Hainan, he said that he had adopted the local dress and cared not what other people thought, so long as the change made him more comfortable in his surroundings. He felt that he would be happy if he could only learn the native dialect. As one writer has said of him, 'His taste for natural scenery often led him away into unbeaten tracks, while his sympathy with his kind, the pleasure of society, and his love of hearing the traditional lore of a bygone age made him equally happy in the company of the scholar, the peasant, the aboriginal Li, the gossiping old woman, or the prattling little child. With the last he was a special favourite, and, "Here's old Su coming" was the greeting he received from the Tamchow youngster of the time.' His exhortation addressed to the people of Hainan to improve their agricultural methods may be taken as an outstanding example of his compassion. 'The Island,' he wrote, 'does not grow enough rice for its own consumption and its people have to fill their bellies with slops made of a mixture of sweet potatoes, taros, and rice. I have been moved to pity at their conditions.'—After encouraging them to 'clear away the jungle and mark out your land into cultivable areas,' he concludes by telling them that 'when the fall comes, and you gather in all round your full bins of the ripe grain, you can hold high revel at your harvest-home and imbibe unrestrainedly of the very best.' A delightful reminder to us of his love of the wine-cup! One calls to mind, too, the incident at Huichow when a subscription was being raised for the construction of a bridge. Tung-p'o was without money, but gave his belt, with its clasp of rhinoceros horn, to assist the fund.

Tung-p'o extended this sympathy to the lower animals, and his writings are full of references to the birds and beasts of his world. Who but a lover of horses could have written the description of the reluctant departure of the guests from the Inn, at the Sign of the Screeching Phoenix, with their horses looking back at the grooms and whinnying? Nor does he omit to mention his faithful Hainanese dog, Black-Mouth, whose only weakness was a liking for meat which occasionally got the better of his honesty, and who, when his master received news of his recall from banishment, wagged his tail with glee! To this dog Tung-p'o dedicated a special poem.

There are many references in his works to the flora and fauna of the various districts he visited; and the medicinal properties of herbs, a subject in which he was evidently well read, receive special emphasis. A Draught of Sesamum is only one of many of his prose essays which are devoted to this topic. His early training in Taoism, and his numerous quotations from the works of Chuang Tzu, are sufficient reasons for his deep interest in the materia medica of his time, founded upon the union of the Yang and the Yin. Referring to the ingredients of a drug he writes:

It is Immortality, the Aim of Tao.
The divine Elixir, like the Island of the Blest,
                                Affords you
  shelter.

Tung-p'o was deeply affected by his adversities, more especially after the death of his constant companion, the fair Chao Yün, in Huichow. During his later years in banishment, we read of him repairing by daytime to 'a little lodge on the bluff overlooking the sea, where he watched the passing ships and wondered when the craft would come to take him homeward.' Again, when no vessels arrived from the north with rice, he would be overcome with despondency at his privations, and the weight of declining years. And yet, even in his despair, we find his saving sense of humour rising through the mists. Who could but smile, for instance, at his first effort to eat a betel-nut, a curiosity to his northern experience? The violent indigestion and sleepless night that followed his experiment resulted in an avowal of vengeance and condemnation of the offending nut in a number of verses!

Perhaps the best proof of his personal popularity, however, may be seen in the fact that, no matter where he went—whether in favour or disgrace—he succeeded in collecting around him a devoted band of admiring disciples attracted, one must think, rather by his genial good nature under adversity than by his brilliant genius. While he was in Hainan, some of these young men actually came all the way from Kiangsu, an astonishing fact when one considers the difficult means of communication in those days.

But it is as the merry wine-drinking poet that we like best to remember him, betaking himself with a few select intimates to some woodland retreat or high tower whence the world might be viewed impersonally, and the doctrines of Taoism tested with the magic aid of the best wine. The Tower of Tranquillity at Chiao-Hsi, whither he often went accompanied by friends, or the 'Wine Palace' at Tamchow erected by Tung-p'o and the two brothers Li for their convivial gatherings, were, after all, but repetitions of the famous hard-drinking coteries of the T'ang poets—the Six Idlers of the Bamboo Brook and the Eight Immortals of the Wine-cup of Li Po, or the Nine Old Gentlemen of Hsiang-Shan of Po Chü-i. 'How pleasant are these visits,' he would write with a contentment of mind which amazed his brother Tzu-Yu; for, he said, 'I wander beyond the confines of a material world.'