Preface to the Feast on a Spring Night in Peach and Plum Garden
by Li Bai of Tang Dynasty
Well, the sky and earth is the inn of all the things. Time is a passer-by through millenniums. And the floating life is like a dream. How much pleasure can we indulge in? It is right and reasonable for the ancient people to roam at night with a candle in the hand. And now Spring shows me the misty scenes and Nature gives me beautiful pictures. We meet in the fragrant Peach and Plum Garden and are enjoying the happiness of family union. All my brothers are handsome and learned like Weilian1, but as I chant poems, I feel ashamed in comparison with Kangle2. The silent enjoyment doesn’t end yet, and our loud chatting becomes quiet. We hold a dainty feast among flowers and lift bird-shaped goblets and get drunk under the moon. If we don’t write poems for the occasion, how can we express our poetic emotions? Whoever can’t compose a poem will have the penalty to drink wine to the number adopted in Jin Gu Garden3.
