[VOL IV] THE POLO TEMPLE, TAI-HOO

THE POLO TEMPLE, TAI-HOO

Cover Image: The Polo Temple, Tai-Hou / Lake Taihu ZheJiang China / Drawn by T. Allom Engraved by J.Sands – ALAMY Image ID:2X55NAK

*Tai-Hou（Lake Taihu）, located between Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces in China, is one of China’s largest freshwater lakes and the third-largest freshwater lake in the world. Taihu is renowned for its beautiful natural landscapes, abundant ecological resources, and rich historical and cultural heritage. The surrounding area of the lake includes many famous cities and scenic spots like Suzhou, Jiaxing, and Huzhou.

It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is over-rul’d by Fate.

THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE.

MANY islets sparkle on the waters near to the eastern shore of the Tai-hoo, and many promontories project into them, and many mountains hang over them; and all these occasions of improvement into scenes of greater beauty and attraction, have been ardently embraced by the inhabitants. Villas and farms are seen reposing at the foot of a bold mountain-chain, that margins the lake for many a mile; and two slender pagodas, one crowning the extremity of a promontory, the other springing up from the summit of a rocky islet, mark the entrance into Pine-apple bay. Here the waters are for ever tranquil, disturbed only by the arrival and departure of trading-junks, engaged in carrying away cotton, or importing foreign produce, brought hither by the imperial canal, from the great city of Hang-tchou-foo. Trade is active and profitable, requiring the establishment of a collector’s office, which the tall pillar and the dragon-flag before it indicate.

In the foreground of this agreeable prospect, and in one of those picturesque positions which seem never to escape attention amongst the Chinese, stands a Hall of Fate, the Polo Temple, whither pilgrimages are frequently made by despairing or disappointed lovers. There is a well within it, to which peculiar virtues are ascribed, in healing the wounds of slighted love, as well as in promoting the success of mutual attachments. The mode of employing the remedy varies with the character of the disease: a hopeless passion is mitigated by a copious draught, or extinguished totally by plunging a burning torch into the greatest depth of the waters. On the inner wall is suspended the portrait of an enchantress, who dwelt for many years on the Pine-apple rock, and, dying, left it as a refuge for victims of unrequited affection, with which it is suspected she herself must once have been counted amongst. Whether the syren communicated her preternatural powers to her legacy, whether she was eminently beautiful in life, or that her portrait has been contrived to represent her as having been so, for malicious purposes, must remain untold; but, it is believed, that many love-lorn swains, attracted by the fame of the Polo Temple, and having visited its shrine in search of relief, became so enamoured of the enchantress’s portrait, that they were never after able to withdraw from it their fixed and fascinated gaze.

In China, the instance of a goddess, “the Queen of Heaven” excepted, is remarkable, because their national religion asserts that females are inadmissible to paradise, although transformation may accomplish that inestimable object. Beyond the temple, and at the farthest point of the rock that overhangs the deep waters of Tai-hoo, another, and still more effectual remedy for a broken heart, is provided. There the lover may fling himself headlong from the dizzy height, and heal the deepest wounds that capricious Cupid can possibly inflict. It was thus the oracle informed Venus, that her grief for Adonis would find a remedy; in this way only was Lesbian Sappho enabled to obtain relief from incessant pain; and Deucalion was never extricated from the pangs of Pyrrha’s love, until he cast himself from the summit of Leucate’s rock.