佳人 杜甫

佳人      杜甫 (712 - 770 )

絕代有佳人，幽居在空谷。自云良家女，零落依草木。
關中昔喪亂，兄弟遭殺戮。官高何足論，不得收骨肉。
世情惡衰歇，萬事隨轉燭。夫婿輕薄兒，新人美如玉。
合昏尚知時，鴛鴦不獨宿。但見新人笑，那聞舊人哭。
在山泉水清，出山泉水濁。侍婢賣珠回，牽蘿補茅屋。
摘花不插髮，採柏動盈掬。天寒翠袖薄，日暮倚修竹。

 

A Fair Lady     Du Fu  (712 - 770 )

There is a fair lady of incomparable beauty,

She lives seclusively in a desolate valley,
She says she comes from a decent family,
Wretched and plagued by miseries,
She’s driven on the tramp in the savage,
Recently when the central regions were upheaved by treachery,
At the hands of the rebels her brothers could not escape butchery,
The high rank they once held offered no immunity,
She couldn’t even have their dead bodies collected to bury,
This acrid world despises those fallen in miseries,
Fortune, like a candle flame, fares flickeringly,
Her husband is but a debauchee,
His new girl is as beautiful as a fairy,
Even vetch-tree knows what time it is,
Mandarin ducks never sleep solitarily,
He has eyes only for the new girl’s cheers,
Never would he heed the old one’s tears,
In the mountain spring waters are clear,
Out of the mountain they turn sloughy,
When her maid returns from selling her jewellery,
She has to pull creepers for the thatched roof’s recovery,
The flowers she picks are not for her hair’s frippery,
She plucks full handfuls of cypress,
As the weather turns cold, in her thin viridian dress she must feel chilly,
In the vesper, leaning on the tall bamboos she finds a little solace.