<Header>
<Author: 杜甫>
<Title: 觀公孫大娘弟子舞劍器行>
<Format: 七言古詩>
<Year: 2009>
<BookName: Three Hundred TANG POEMS>
<Translator: Harris, Peter>
<TranslatedTitle: Watching a pupil of the eldest Miss Gongsun dance the Sword Dance- a ballad>
<BookPage: 60-61>
<UsedPage: 2>
<Feature: 0>
<End Header>
<Poem>
昔有佳人公孫氏，
一舞劍氣動四方。
觀者如山色沮喪，
天地為之久低昂。
鬴如羿射九日落，
矯如群帝驂龍翔。
來如雷霆收震怒，
罷如江海凝清光。
絳脣珠袖兩寂寞，
況有弟子傳芬芳。
臨潁美人在白帝，
妙舞此曲神揚揚。
與余問答既有以，
感時撫事增惋傷。
先帝侍女八千人，
公孫劍器初第一。
五十年間似反掌，
風塵傾動昏王室。
梨園子弟散如煙，
女樂餘姿映寒日。
金粟堆南木已拱，
瞿唐石城草蕭瑟。
玳筵急管曲復終，
樂極哀來月東出。
老夫不知其所往，
足繭荒山轉愁疾。
<End Poem>
<Translation>
Transaltion>
There was once a fine woman of the Gongsun clan 
Who with one dance of the Sword Dance would move the whole world.
The huge audience ranged before her watched her in tredipation;
She seemed to make even heaven and earth keep on rising and falling.
She was as radiant as when the archer Yi shot nine suns out of the sky,
And soared up high like a host of gods riding behind their dragons;
She came in like a thunderbolt with all its pent-up rage, 
And finished like rivers and seas frozen in a cold beam of light.
Her deep red lips and sleeves of pearls ‒ they are both at rest now,
But towards the end she had a pupil to pass her rare art on to.
Now this beautiful woman from Linying is here in Baidi city
And dances the piece exquisitely, with elegance of spirit.
That there is reason for this is clear from the answers she gives me,
And makes me even more distressed as I mull over the past.
The serving girls of the former emperor numbered eight thousand in all,
And from the outset Gongsun with her Sword Dance was the best.
Fifty years have since gone by like the flick of a wrist, 
With war and turmoil bringing upheaval and darkening the royal house.
The pupils of the Pear Garden have dispersed like the mist;
The fading looks of this woman performer are lit by the winter sun.
The trees are grown up and joined together south of Gold Grain Hill;
By the Qutong rocks and the stone city wall the grass is withered and bare.
At this sumptuous feast the rapid flutes conclude the tune again;
When pleasures are greatest, grief comes‒ the moon appears in the east.
I'm an old man, and I do not know where I shall be heading.
Callused from walking the wild hills, I am ever more sad at the pace.
<End Translation>