廬山記 4.2

4.2

Numerous are the inscriptions left at Mount Lu by men of ancient and modern times. Pure expressions and beautiful verses having already fallen onto the lips of people, mountain elders and rustic old men transmit them without end. Even in deep crags and remote ravines rarely reached by human traces, though people be separated from one another by several hundred years, yet through their words one may imagine their spirit, as if walking side by side in sandals, or sitting intimately together at table in conversation. That literary writings can be handed down thus—how could one neglect them? Therefore, among the poems composed in the mountains by the worthy of the Jin and Song dynasties, there are many still to be seen. In our current dynasty, Zhang Huizhi traveled as a wanderer at Mount Lu for a long time; at fine sites of water and rock, his poems frequently hit the mark, and he has his own *Lushan ji* (Lushan Collection). Ever since the reign of peace, men have esteemed refinement; when gentlemen of the court climb heights and look into the distance, they too possess the inspiration of poets and elegists. All their surviving pieces belong to a single contemporary period; because their time is close at hand, there is no worry that they will fail to be transmitted. Now I record the poems of men prior to the Tang, setting them forth in this chapter, [preferring not to] value the ear while despising the eye in exercising arbitrary selection.