Note 15 — CHAPTER THREE The Ming Dynasty—1368-1644 The Pi-Pa-Chi
Reading edition
Giles, “Chinese Literature”, page 155. “A poet should not dot his i’s. The Chinese reader likes to do that for himself, each according to his own fancy. Hence such a poem as the following, often quoted as a model in its own particular line:
“A tortoise I see on a lotus-flower resting: A bird mid the reeds and the rushes is nesting; A light skiff propelled by some boatman’s fair daughter, Whose song dies away o’er the fast-flowing water.”