Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat, b. 1943

signed MASTER OF THE WATER, PINE AND STONE RETREAT, inscribed and dated spring 2015 and with eight seals of the artist

Inscriptions:



Title Slip:



Second Journey on the Dangerous Road to Shu



With one seal of the artist, ‘The Water, Pine and Stone Retreat’



Title Panel:



Second Journey on the Dangerous Road to Shu



Inscribed by the Master of the Water Pine and Stone Retreat at the Garden at the Edge of the Universe, Hong Kong, in the Spring, 2015.



With two seals of the artist, ‘The Water, Pine and Stone Retreat,’ and Shiwei



Painting:



Setting out once more, I climb the Dangerous Road to Shu into a gathering snowstorm, recalling the Drunken Poet Immortal and chanting his poem to keep the cold at bay. Inscribed by the Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat at the Garden at the Edge of the Universe in the Spring of 2015.



With three seals of the artist, ‘The Water, Pine and Stone Retreat,’ ‘The retired scholar who believes that all doctrines are equal,’ ‘The old man who carries the staff’



Colophon:



Aiya! Dangerous and steep! 
The Road to Shu is hard, harder than climbing the sky! 
Cancong and Yufu in the far, murky past founded this land;



for forty-eight thousand years after them hearth smoke of men did not stretch through the passes into Qin. 
Over Mount Taibai directly west there is a way for birds whereby they can cut straight across Mount Emei’s peak.



There once was a landslide, an avalanche, and warriors died in their prime, and only after that time did ladders to sky and plankways on stone link it through, one to the other.



Above there is the high ensign where the team of six dragons bends the sun, and below is the stream that winds around with dashing waves surging back crashing.



Even in flight the brown crane cannot pass, apes and monkeys want to cross and sadly strain, dragging themselves along.



At Qingni it loops and twists, each hundred steps with nine sharp turns that curve around ridges and peaks.



Touch Orion, pass by Gemini, look up and gasp, with your hands stroke your breast, sit and sigh in pain.



Oh westbound traveller when you will return? – for I am dismayed by paths so craggy, insurmountable.



You will hear and see only sorrowing birds that wail on leafless trees, forest cockerels, winding their way through the woods, followed by their hens.



You will also hear the nightjar crying to the moon and casting a gloom in deserted hills.



The Road to Shu is hard, harder than climbing the sky, causing wrinkles to form in youthful features of any who hear this song.



Peak joined to peak, the uppermost but a foot short of Heaven, barren pines hang upside down, clinging to sheer cliff face.



Torrents burst over bluffs in cascades in bellowing duels, boulders roll smashing down slopes; thunder in thousands of canyons.



Since here there is such peril you who have come so far on this way, why have you come at all?



Sword Tower looms high, juts into sky, one man could block the pass and thousands could not break through. And the one who holds it may prove no friend, may change into wolf or jackal.



At dawn we dodge fierce tigers, at dusk we dodge long snakes.



They sharpen fangs to suck our blood and kill men like scything down hemp. Men may speak of the joys of the City of Brocade, but best to turn home as soon as you can.



The Road to Shu is hard, harder than climbing the sky,



I sway gazing off towards the west and give a mighty sigh.



Nearly four years ago I painted a handscroll of the Hard Road to Shu that still pleasantly surprises, so now I paint another, for I enjoy pleasant surprises



With two seals of the artist, ‘The days are long when one’s at leisure’, and Shiwei