The Emperor is wise.  He knows that to 
unify his lands words work better than war. 
What once was used to press peonies on 
court ladies’ gowns will now strew the Vinaya
and Abhidharma from Sanxi to Sichuan. 
Innkeepers will hang the Four Noble Truths 
in their vestibules.  What you are is what you 
have been, a girl will recite; her sister will 
giggle and retort, What you will be is 
what you do now.  Then their mother raises 
a finger and admonishes both, 
Wear your selves like loose-fitting garments.  
Peasants will learn to read, buy scrolls as
readily as dumplings.  There will be histories, 
books of remedies, tales of ghosts, 
stories of revenge and wonder with new 
heroes, fresh villains. The sound precepts of
Kon Qiu, the subtle sayings of Lao-tse, 
the eccentric advice of Zhuang Zhou 
shall be in a million hands.  If people care 
to print them, poems will be cheap as straw.  
Mothers will read to open-mouthed toddlers 
and children to their purblind grandparents. 
  
But what of calligraphy?  Will those 
scratchings for which Master Shen Kuo beat 
me be forgiven because they are obsolete?
All characters will stand at attention 
uniform as the pikemen of General Gao.
But will people no longer admire the 
elegant brushstrokes of the great Wang Xizhi?
Will people record all but remember nothing?
What if a falsehood should be pressed a thousand
times, spread through Shun and Lignan?  Mightn’t 
it be like the butcher’s leaded scale, 
a deceitful mismeasure believed by all?  
Might that far-off bad outstrip this nearby good?

Could it be that, when the Son of Heaven 
proclaimed his decree, a counselor—
I picture the oldest and most cautious—
felt some compunction and mumbled in 
his beard, recollecting the legend 
that, in a playful hour, the Buddha 
loosed three words from his golden mouth 
and that ever since Heaven and Earth 
have been choked with entangling briars?