白居易诗
Poems of Bai Juyi
Index
重赋
A Serious Entreaty
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厚地植桑麻 所要济生民 生民理布帛 所求活一身 |
Deep earth nurtures rural life. It wants to help the people. The people provide cotton and silk. Each wants to fully live their life. |
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身外充征赋 上以奉君亲 国家定两税 本意在爱人 |
The wordly are full of beggars' petitions Sent submissively to the families of nobles. But to our land we have our duties And their basis is the love of man. |
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厥初防其淫 明敕内外臣 税外加一物 皆以枉法论 |
The greatest is to guard against excess. This must be required of all officials. Fail in this duty, even in the least, And everyone will pervert the law. |
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奈何岁月久 贪吏得因循 浚我以求宠 敛索无冬春 |
If excess is unchecked for years, Venal officials will never change. I say this, hoping you will restrain Winter and favor us with spring. |
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织绢未成匹 缲丝未盈斤 里胥迫我纳 不许暂逡巡 |
Silk not woven to full measure Makes a bolt without full weight. With village governance broken down, You cannot hesitate to act. |
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岁暮天地闭 阴风生破村 夜深烟火尽 霰雪白纷纷 |
At year's end, Heaven and Earth are shut. Cold winds crush the villages. By midnight all their fires are cold. Sleet and snow bury all in white. |
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幼者形不蔽 老者体无温 悲端与寒气 并入鼻中辛 |
Village children poorly clothed, Village elders' bodies cold, Their sad lot and a cold wind Merge to warm them all with fever. |
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昨日輸残税 因窥官库门 缯帛如山积 丝絮如云屯 |
Yesterday, glimpsing the stores of taxes, I found this first duty lying in the dust. Bolts of silk piled up like mountains. Silk floss rising up like clouds. |
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号为羡馀物 隋月献至尊 夺我身上暖 买尔眼前恩 |
As you are to be admired above all, I offer this entreaty to your majesty. My greatest wish is that this poem Will elicit mercy from your eyes. |
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进入琼林库 岁久化为尘 |
All within a house of treasure After long years turns to dust. |
-- 白居易
废话
This poem, from around 809, is part of 秦中吟 or Songs of Qin, a collection of poems created by Bai Juyi. They were supposed to be translations of old Qin laments. But if these are straight translations, I'll eat Bai Juyi's ink stick. I say translations because the distance between the Qin and the Tang is great enough to introduce serious differences in language. So Bai Juyi's relation to that older Chinese was somewhat like my own relation to his. He could make what he would of the ambiguous text.
Recall that in 伤唐衢二首(其二), Bai Juyi wrote, "I was humbly preparing to admonish the government," and later, "I was busy writing 'Songs of Qin.'" I'd say these were not two things but the same thing. Songs of Qin was his admonishing the government. By 815, he knew his admonishment had been a waste of effort and it made him sad.
Also, this poem is in many parts similar to 村居苦寒 from 813. The fate of the villagers, the harsh cold, even the use of 纷纷 or "continuously, one after another, without cease," applied to the snow. This 重赋 is more or less a first draft of the much more compact and poetic Bitter Cold in the Villages. The difference is that in 809, Bai Juyi thought the Emperor could help the villagers. By 813, he's not sure anyone can help and blames himself for adding to that impotence.