<Header>
<Author: 白居易>
<Title: 秦中吟十首 買花>
<Format: 五言古詩>
<Year: 2000>
<BookName: Po Chu-I Selected Poems>
<Translator: BURTON WATSON>
<TranslatedTitle: Buying Flowers>
<BookPage: 19>
<UsedPage: 1>
<Feature: 0>
<End Header>
<Poem>
帝城春欲暮，
喧喧車馬度。
共道牡丹時，
相隨買花去。
貴賤無常價，
酬直看花數。
灼灼百朵紅，
箋箋五束素。
上張幄幕庇，
旁織笆籬護。
水灑復泥封，
移來色如故。
家家習為俗，
人人迷不悟。
有一田舍翁，
偶來買花處。
低頭獨長嘆，
此歎無人諭。
一叢深色花，
十戶中人賦。
<End Poem>
<Translation>
Springtime about to end in the emperor's city－
clatter-clatter, carriages and horses rush by.
"Peony time!" everyone says,
"and we're all of us off to buy flowers!"
Cheap, costly－no fixed price;
you pay by the number of blossoms.
Here, all aflame, a hundred sprays of crimson,
here five clumps of the commoner white;
stretch awnings over them to lend shade,
rig bamboo paling around them for protection;
sprinkle water, pack up the mud,
transplant them, and their colors will be as goog as ever!
Household after household follows the same custom,
so many misled, never thinking it strange.
But an old man from the countryside
happens along where they're buying flowers,
head bent, heaves a long, lonely sigh,
a sigh whose meaning no one understands:
"One cluster of these deep-hued blossoms
would pay the taxes for ten ordinary families!"
<End Translation>