The Road to Shu Is Hard is one of Li Bai's most famous poems.
Tips
culture
Its refrain 蜀道之难，难于上青天 'the road to Shu is harder than climbing the blue sky' is still quoted for anything forbiddingly hard. Legend has it that when 贺知章 read the poem in Chang'an, he called Li Bai a 谪仙, an immortal banished to earth.
history
蜀 is the old name of the Sichuan basin, walled off from the north by the 秦岭 and other ranges. The road crossed them on wooden walkways fixed to the cliffs (栈道). 蜀道难 was an old yuefu title before Li Bai, but his poem is the one everyone knows.
