<Header>
<Author: 杜甫>
<Title: 兵車行>
<Format: 七言古詩>
<Year: 1912>
<BookName: CHINESE POEMS>
<Translator: CHARLES BUDD>
<TranslatedTitle: Conscripts leaving for the Frontier>
<BookPage: 110-111>
<UsedPage: 2>
<Feature: 4, 6>
<End Header>
<Poem>
車轔轔，
馬蕭蕭，
行人弓箭各在腰。
耶孃妻子走相送，
塵埃不見咸陽橋。
牽衣頓足闌道哭，
哭聲直上干雲霄。
道傍過者問行人，
行人但云點行頻。
或從十五北防河，
便至四十西營田。
去時里正與裹頭，
歸來頭白還戍邊。
邊亭流血成海水，
武皇開邊意未已。
君不聞漢家山東二百州，
千村萬落生荊杞。
縱有健婦把鋤犁，
禾生隴畝無東西。
況復秦兵耐苦戰，
被驅不異犬與雞。
長者雖有問，
役夫敢申恨。
且如今年冬，
未休關西卒。
縣官急索租，
租稅從何出？
信知生男惡，
反是生女好。
生女猶是嫁比鄰，
生男埋沒隨百草。
君不見青海頭，
古來白骨無人收。
新鬼煩冤舊鬼哭，
天陰雨溼聲啾啾。
<End Poem>
<Translation>
CHARIOTS rumbling; horses neighing;
   Soldiers shouting martial cries;
Drums are sounding; trumpets braying;
   Seas of glittering spears arise.

On each warrior’s back are hanging
   Deadly arrows, mighty bows;
Pipes are blowing, gongs are clanging,
   On they march in serried rows.

Age-bowed parents, sons and daughters
   Crowd beside in motley bands;
Here one stumbles, there one falters
   Through the clouds of blinding sands.

Wives and mothers sometimes clinging
   To their loved ones in the ranks,
Or in grief their bodies flinging
   On the dusty crowded flanks.

Mothers’, wives’, and children’s weeping
   Rises sad above the din,—
Through the clouds to Heaven creeping—
   Justice begging for their kin.

‘To what region are they going?’
   Asks a stranger passing by;
‘To the Yellow River, flowing
   Through the desert bare and dry!

‘Forced conscription daily snapping
   Ties which bind us to our clan;
Forced conscription slowly sapping
   All the manhood of the Han.’

And the old man went on speaking
   To the stranger from afar :
‘ ’Tis the Emperor, glory seeking,
   Drives them ’neath his baleful star.

‘Guarding river; guarding passes
   On the frontier, wild and drear;
Fighting foes in savage masses—
   Scant of mercy, void of fear.

‘Proclamations, without pity,
   Rain upon us day by day,
Till from village, town, and city
   All our men are called away.

‘Called away to swell the flowing
   Of the streams of human blood,
Where the bitter north wind blowing
   Petrifies the ghastly flood.

‘Guarding passes through the mountains,
   Guarding rivers in the plain;
While in sleep, in youth’s clear fountain,
   Scenes of home come back again.

‘But, alas ! the dream is leaded
   With the morn’s recurring grief,
Only few return—grey-headed—
   To their homes, for days too brief.

‘For the Emperor, still unheeding
   Starving homes and lands untilled,
On his fatuous course proceeding,
   Swears his camps shall be refilled.

‘Hence new levies are demanded,
   And the war goes on apace,
Emperor and foemen banded
   In the slaughter of the race.

‘All the region is denuded
   Of its men and hardy boys,
Only women left, deluded
   Of life’s promise and its joys.

‘Yet the prefects clamour loudly
   That the taxes must be paid,—
Ride about and hector proudly!
   How can gold from stones be made?

‘Levy after levy driven,
   Treated more like dogs than men,
Over mountains, tempest riven,
   Through the salty desert fen.

‘There by Hun and Tartar harried—
   Ever fighting, night or day;
Wounded, left to die, or carried
   Far from kith and kin away.

‘Better bring forth daughters only
   Than male children doomed to death,
Slaughtered in the desert lonely,
   Frozen by the north wind’s breath.

‘Where their bodies, left unburied,
   Strew the plain from west to east,
While above in legions serried
   Vultures hasten to the feast.

‘Brave men’s bones on desert bleaching,
   Far away from home and love,
Spirits of the dead beseeching
   Justice from the heaven above.’
<End Translation>