<Header>
<Author: 白居易>
<Title: 黑潭龍>
<Format: 樂府詩>
<Year: 1919>
<BookName: Translation from the Chinese>
<Translator: Arthur Waley>
<TranslatedTitle: The Dragon of the Black Pool>
<BookPage: 166>
<UsedPage: 1>
<Feature: 1>
<End Header>
<Poem>
黑潭水深黑如墨，
傳有神龍人不識。
潭上駕屋官立祠，
龍不能神人神之。
豐凶水旱與疾疫，
鄉里皆言龍所為。
家家養豚漉清酒，
朝祈暮賽依巫口。
神之來兮風飄飄，
紙錢動兮錦傘搖。
神之去兮風亦靜，
香火滅兮杯盤冷。
肉堆潭岸石，
酒潑廟前草。
不知龍神享幾多，
林鼠山狐長醉飽。
狐何幸，
豚何辜，
年年殺豚將餧狐。
狐假龍神食豚盡，
九重泉底龍知無。
<End Poem>
<Translation>
Deep the waters of the Black Pool, coloured like ink;
They say a Holy Dragon lives there, whom men have
never seen.
Beside the Pool they have built a shrine; the authorities
have established a ritual;
A dragon by itself remains a dragon, but men can make
it a good.
Prosperity and disaster, rain and drought, plagues and
pestilences—
By the village people were all regarded as the Sacred
Dragon's doing.
They all made offerings of sucking-pig and poured libations
of wine;
The morning prayers and evening gifts depended on
a "medium's" advice.
When the dragon comes, ah!
The wind stirs and sighs
Paper money thrown, ah!
Silk umbrellas waved.
When the dragon goes, ah!
The wind also—still.
Incense-fire dies, ah!
The cups and vessels are cold.
Meats lie stacked on the rocks of the Pool's shore;
Wine flows on the grass in front of the shrine.
I do not know, of all those offerings, how much the
Dragon eats;
But the mice of the woods and the foxes of the hills are
continually drunk and sated.
Why are the foxes so lucky?
What have the sucking-pigs done,
That year by year they should be killed, merely to glut
the foxes?
That the foxes are robbing the Sacred Dragon and eating
His sucking-pig,
Beneath the nine-fold depths of His pool, does He know
or not?
<End Translation>
<Formatted Translation>
Deep the waters of the Black Pool, coloured like ink;
They say a Holy Dragon lives there, whom men have
never seen.
Beside the Pool they have built a shrine; the authorities have established a ritual;
A dragon by itself remains a dragon, but men can make
it a god.
Prosperity and disaster, rain and drought, plagues and pestilences—
By the village people were all regarded as the Sacred Dragon's doing.
They all made offerings of sucking-pig and poured libations of wine;
The morning prayers and evening gifts depended on a "medium's" advice.
When the dragon comes, ah!The wind stirs and sighs
Paper money thrown, ah!Silk umbrellas waved.
When the dragon goes, ah!The wind also—still.
Incense-fire dies, ah!The cups and vessels are cold.
Meats lie stacked on the rocks of the Pool's shore;
Wine flows on the grass in front of the shrine.
I do not know, of all those offerings, how much the Dragon eats;
But the mice of the woods and the foxes of the hills are continually drunk and sated.
Why are the foxes so lucky?
What have the sucking-pigs done,
That year by year they should be killed, merely to glut
the foxes?
That the foxes are robbing the Sacred Dragon and eating
His sucking-pig,
Beneath the nine-fold depths of His pool, does He know
or not?
<End Formatted Translation>