GODS OF RIVERWORLD

He returned to his apartment at four in the morning and slept from 4:30 to 7:30. After showering, he decided to go for breakfast at Li Po's. First, he called him to make sure that the Chinese would be his host for today. The handsome, somewhat Mephistophelian face was smiling.

"Yes, I am eager to have you as my guest. I have a surprise for you."

He turned his head and said something in Chinese.

Another face appeared by his. Burton was startled. It was a stranger's, a beautiful Chinese woman's.

13

Some men and women seem to be steam locomotives chug-chugging steadily on their tracks, slowing down uphill but working steadily and ru

Li Po seemed to be a rocket with inexhaustible fuel. He was always exploding, propelled here and there, noisy, sometimes obnoxious, but always letting you know that he was not to be ignored. His face, expressions, and gesticulations reminded Burton of the final stanza in Coleridge's Kubla Khan: And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Li Po, also known as Li T'ai-Po and Tai-Peng, had been born in a.d. 701 in the oasis town of Yarkand. At the time he was born, the vast desert territory did not belong to any Chinese kingdom. Yarkand was on the trade route between Persia and China, and Li Po's great-great-grandfather had come there from China. According to family tradition, he had been ba

The family had become well-to-do, and, five years after Li Po was born, he went with his parents to the southwest Chinese province of Szechwan. They settled in a city that harbored many foreigners, Zoroastrian Persians, Hindus, Jews, Nestorian Christians, and Muslims from Persia, Afghanistan, and the Mesopotamian area. Li Po knew the languages of all of these and was later to add Korean and some Japanese to his stock.

He was almost an inch over six feet, a height attributed by the Chinese to his foreign blood. At an early age, he began composing poetry and drinking wine. Though he had a great reputation as a drunkard later in life, he was not condemned for this. Heavy drinking was endemic among the upper classes; liquor was regarded as an aid to opening the gate to divine inspiration. The speed with which he could compose poetry while drunk dazzled his contemporaries. Strangely, much was great enough to make many rank him as China's foremost poet.

In his twenties, he began the roving that so many Chinese poets, statesmen and artists were famous for. For a while, he became a knight-errant, a wanderer who tried to right wrongs by his sword. During this time, he killed several warriors in duels and was widely known as a demon with the blade. Once, he was jailed for killing a man in a tavern brawl but escaped before a sentence could be passed.

Yet, he was very studious and had learned, among other things, the physics and chemistry of his time.

In many respects, he was not only the Byron of his age but also the Burton. Like the latter, he roamed everywhere, became a scholar and a fine swordsman, was politically naive, was very angry at all types of suffering, was versed in many tongues, and was not very discreet or polite.

Unlike most Chinese males, he had empathy for the slavelike bondage and sufferings of the Chinese women. This, however, did not keep him from exploiting them. Even discounting his boasting, he was extraordinarily virile. "Three women at one time are not enough!"

After his knight-errantry days, he lived for a time with a hermit named Tung Yen-tsu on Mount Min in Shu Land. Here he furthered his knowledge and love of Taoist philosophy and became a sort of St. Francis. He and Tung tamed and raised wild birds and taught them to come at the sound of their voices to be fed from their hands.

Chinese "hermits," however, were not like Western anchorites. They were usually men who had retired from public life but lived with their families and retinues of servants and often entertained friends and travelers.

When twenty-five, Li Po'left Shu Land to travel through the eastern and northern provinces. He stayed longest at Anlu in Hubei because he had fallen in love with a woman named Hu. She became his first wife and bore him several children before she died.

Once, he traveled with a friend to a famous lake, but the friend died there. Li Po buried the body near the lake, but, since his friend wanted to be buried in his ancestral lot, Li Po dug him up, wrapped him and carried the corpse on his back for a hundred miles to Wuchang in Hubei.

"I had no money to buy a horse. I had given it all away to the poor."

Li Po's reputation as a poet caused the T'ang emperor, Hsiian Tsung, to summon him to his court in a.d. 742, although the arrogant poet had refused to take the examinations for the civil service. Li Po became disgusted with the laziness and lechery of Hsiian, with the corruption of the court officials, and with the consequent impoverishment and great suffering of the people. Once, commanded to appear before the king to recite his poems, Li Po showed up drunk at the palace and insisted that the chief eunuch, a very powerful official, take off his boots for him. This insured that he would have no friends in court and that the emperor's spies would watch him closely.

It also insured that Li Po would have to travel many places to look for patrons. He did not mind that, since he loved to wander.

His second wife died, and he and his third wife got a divorce by mutual agreement after a very short marriage. His fourth wife would outlive him.

In a.d. 757, the emperor's sixteenth son, the prince of Lin, collected an army and fleet, supposedly to fight the rebel An Lu-shan. Li Po, not knowing that Lin intended to revolt against his father, joined him.

"I was fifty-seven years old then but very strong and agile for my age. I thought that it was not too late to gain glory for myself as a warrior, and the emperor might change his mind about me and raise me to some high post. At least, he might give me a pension."

Unfortunately, Lin's treason was exposed by an older brother, and his forces were slaughtered. Li Po was sentenced to death—guilty by association—but the emperor decided that Li Po was too great a poet to kill. He was banished, but he was pardoned when he was sixty. On his way home to his fourth wife, he got drunk in a boat and tried to grab his reflection in the water. He fell overboard, caught pneumonia, and died shortly thereafter.

"Were you really convinced at that moment that you could seize your image in the river?" Frigate had said.

"Yes. Had I had one more cup of wine, I could have done it. No one else could, but I would have managed it."

"And what would you have done with it?" Nur had said drily.

"I would have made it emperor! One Li Po is unconquerable by any fifty men! Two Li Pos would have conquered all of China!"

He had laughed so loudly and long then that the others were convinced that he knew that his boasting was ridiculous. Still, they could not quite be sure.

"The world's greatest wino," Frigate had said.

Li Po had awakened from death on the bank of The River. There he had started his wanderings again, but, as he said, he was used to such a life. On Earth, he had been up and down all of China's great rivers and many of the lesser.