白居易诗
Poems of Bai Juyi
Index
缭绫 - 念女工之劳也
Winding Silk -- Thinking of Working Women's Toil
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(评分人数不足) |
(We should think more of these people.) |
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缭绫缭绫何所似 不似罗绡与纨绮 |
Winding silk, winding silk, what kind of place is this? It's not just gathering new silk and weaving white beauty. |
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应似天台山上月明前 四十五尺瀑布泉 |
It should be a mountain tower beneath a bright moon, With a tall waterfall below a spring. |
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中有文章又奇绝 地铺白烟花簇雪 |
Writing this, I feel strange: Improvised beds, white smoke, bouquet of flowers in the snow. |
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织者何人衣者谁 越溪寒女汉宫姬 |
Who are these weavers and seamstresses? Poor Viet women working for palace beauties. |
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去年中使宣口敕 天上取样人间织 |
Last year, an edict from the palace: Heaven commands a levy of women. |
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织为云外秋雁行 染作江南春水色 |
From beyond Yunnan, weavers stream in like spring geese. From Jiangnan, dyers rush in like snowmelt streams. |
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广裁衫袖长制裙 金斗熨波刀翦纹 |
Broad-cut jacket sleeves, long-cut skirts. Irons smoothing waves of cloth, scissors cutting patterns. |
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异彩奇文相隐映 转侧看花花不定 |
Extraordinary splendor, remarkable work Blossoms as you turn it back and forth. |
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昭阳舞人恩正深 春衣一对直千金 |
The sun shines on dancing people full of righteous grace, All in new spring clothes that cost a thousand coin. |
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汗沾粉污不再著 曳土蹋泥无惜心 |
Of soaked in sweat, smeared with dust, no one wants to know. Of dragged in dirt and trod in mud, no one feels the shame. |
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缭绫织成费功绩 莫比寻常缯与帛 |
These women's work is worth our recognition. No one can say their fabrics are ordinary. |
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丝细缲多女手疼 扎扎千声不盈尺 |
By winding reels and reels of silk, their hands are ruined. A thousand voices cry but their work is without end. |
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昭阳殿里歌舞人 若见织时应也惜 |
The sun shines on a palace of happy dancers Who might feel pity if they could see this place. |
-- 白居易
废话
This poem appears in Bai Juyi's volume of New Lyric Poetry of 815. A levy of women forced to work, far from home, to supply luxuries for the weathy. Sleeping on the factory floor. Ruining their hands. There is nothing new under the sun. This was a public poem and Bai Juyi couched his criticism in layers of plausible deniability. I have stripped these layers away. He was wrong about the possibility of pity. The factories and the women are still there. And no one feels any pity for the iPhone dead. The selfishness of the dancers has never been greater. 万岁，万岁，万万岁。