Between the 7th and 9th centuries, the Japanese took to modeling themselves after neighboring China in many ways and faithfully imported Chinese language, writing, politics and literature. According to Masaka Graham, a Japanese scholar who studied Po Chu-i and his influence on Japanese literature, Chinese language and the literature became “the source and medium of all higher learning” (67). The most talented and brilliant of Japanese minds devoted themselves to Chinese learning and poets were certainly no exception. In 1018 the Wakan r?ei-sh? (A Collection of Japanese and Chinese Poetry-Recitation) appeared and then, approximately a hundred years later, a second volume was compiled, Shinsen r?ei-sh? (New Selections of Poetry-Recitation). Both compilations followed the same format and were, says Steven Carter, the translator of an anthology of Japanese poetry, “testament to the way Japanese poets adopted and adapted Chinese topics, imagery, and conceptions to their own practice, while at the same time revealing the snatches of Chinese poetry that those same poets (and later generations) probably knew best” (125). Of the 804 poetic excerpts and poems contained in the original anthology 588 are from Chinese verse and of the Chinese, 135 excerpts are from works by a single Chinese poet: Po Chü-i (Bo Juyi). Bonnie McCandless, the author of a book on Chinese poetry, reports that “The T’ang Dynasty (A.D. 618-906) is considered China’s ‘Golden Age of Poetry,’ producing her most famous poets and what has been admired as the most technically pure poetic expressions” (33). Under the T’ang Emperor, T’ai Tsung, the roles of scholars and poets were elevated to high ranks and the arts flourished. During these ‘Golden Days’ when “poetry was prince,” many of China’s best-loved poets were born and nourished. It was out of this environment that Po Chü-i emerged in 772. Po Chü-i is not only one of the Tang Dynasty’s greatest poets but he is also “among the best known of all Chinese poets in the West” says Sam Hamill, a translator of Chinese poetry (270). Po was immensely popular throughout Korea and Japan, even within his own lifetime, as he himself acknowledges in the postscript to his second collection of works, compiled in 845. A noted translator of Japanese works, Arthur Waley, “recounts that a Chinese merchant, visiting Japan, was asked whether Po Chü-i was still alive." Learning that he was indeed, the enthusiastic Japanese gave assurance that the poet would be sumptuously welcomed if he ever came to Japan” (Graham 65-6). Indeed by the time of this second collection Po’s works were being welcomed with enthusiasm by the Japanese and his collections were must reads on many a nobleman’s reading list. There are several possible reasons for Po’s immense popularity in Japan. One reason was simply because “To the Japanese, Po Chü-i represented the latest vogue in China, and thus they committed lines from his poems to memory and devoted themselves to reproducing his style.” Another reason may have been that the Buddhist flavor of the “Lay Buddhist of Fragrant Mountain’s" (it was the custom for Chinese poets to assume such titles as this) poems attracted many of the Japanese. Po’s popularity may also be due to his somewhat simple poetic language, which was easier for those just learning Chinese (Graham 66-7). Of course simple must be entirely relative, although Po’s writings may have been simple to those who read it, one must not forget that his works were read by a (predominantly male) educated elite and not by the general public (most of whom were illiterate anyway). Since Po, who was “unafraid of criticizing social injustice”(Hamill 270), was “strongly Confucian and idealist there are didactic elements in his verse, illustrating his view that poetry should serve society, not art” (McCandless 37). Because of this not all of Po’s sometimes political and meditative works enjoyed popularity in Japan; even so he did write some “ poignant and romantic poems” (Graham 61), of which a chief example is his account of the story of Yang Kuei-fei. According to Hamill, Po “set the classical Chinese standard by writing ten thousand poems” (270) but McCandless notes, “he preserved all twenty-eight hundred of his poems in volumes which he distributed to his children and libraries” (36). Even though some cannot agree on the number of poems Po wrote, most can agree that “The Song of Everlasting Sorrow” is one of his best and most famous works. Po wrote the poem in 806 at the suggestion of a friend, Wang Chih-fu, and he asked another friend, Ch’en Hung to write a prose accompaniment, "The Romance of Everlasting Sorrow" (Ch’ang hen ko chuan), which he included in his collections. The poem is Po’s description of the romance between Yang Kuei-fei and the Emperor Hsüan-tsung and their sorrow at parting. The poem tells the following