<Header>
<Author: 杜甫>
<Title: 兵車行>
<Format: 樂府詩>
<Year: 1940>
<BookName: Selection from the Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty>
<Translator: Soame Jenyns>
<TranslatedTitle: The Song of the War Chariots>
<BookPage: 95-96>
<UsedPage: 2>
<Feature: 1, 4>
<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，
千村萬落生荆杞。
縱有健婦把鋤犂，
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，
天陰雨濕聲啾啾。
<End Poem>
<Translation>
CHARIOTS rumble, horses neigh,
Infantry march with bows and arrows at their waists,
Fathers and mothers, wives and children run out to say farewell,
Till dust hides the Hsien-yang bridge.
We clutch at their clothes and run with them and get in the way crying;
The sound of our weeping mounts up to the clouds.
The passers-by ask them where they are going.
All they can answer is they are conscripts and it is urgent.
Boys who at the age of fifteen were sent north to guard the river,
When they reach forty are still in the Army of Occupation.
When they went away the local headman bound their heads,
When they come home their hair is white,
Yet they have still to guard the frontiers,
Those frontier forts where enough blood flows to make an ocean,
And still the Emperor Ming Huang continues to extend his frontier.
Have you not heard that among the families of Han, East of the hills 
Two hundred cities, a thousand villages, and ten thousand hamlets
Are going back to thorns and wild willows?
Although there be strong women to hold the hoe and the plough,
The grain grows wildly obscuring the boundary paths;
How much more must the Ch‘in soldiers face in the bitterness of battle?
They are driven forth as if they were dogs and fowls;
Although people of position may question them, how do soldiers dare admit a grievance?
Moreover, although it is already winter there is no end to campaigning on the west of the frontier passes,
Yet District Magistrates urgently demand taxes.
Where can the taxes come from?
It has come to this, that to give birth to sons is ruinous,
And it is actually better to produce girls.
Girls can always be married to neighbours;
Sons are only fit to perish like the prairie grass.
Ah! see you not at the head of the Kokonor
How the white bones of the long dead lie unburied?
New ghosts complain bitterly, old ghosts moan,
The heavens are darkened, the rain falls
As the ghosts from the past whisper to those that have but lately died.
<End Translation>
<Formatted Translation>
CHARIOTS rumble,
horses neigh,
Infantry march with bows and arrows at their waists,
Fathers and mothers, wives and children run out to say farewell,
Till dust hides the Hsien-yang bridge.
We clutch at their clothes and run with them and get in the way crying;
The sound of our weeping mounts up to the clouds.
The passers-by ask them where they are going.
All they can answer is they are conscripts and it is urgent.
Boys who at the age of fifteen were sent north to guard the river,
When they reach forty are still in the Army of Occupation.
When they went away the local headman bound their heads,
When they come home their hair is white,
Yet they have still to guard the frontiers, Those frontier forts where enough blood flows to make an ocean,
And still the Emperor Ming Huang continues to extend his frontier.
Have you not heard that among the families of Han, East of the hills Two hundred cities,
a thousand villages, and ten thousand hamlets Are going back to thorns and wild willows?
Although there be strong women to hold the hoe and the plough,
The grain grows wildly obscuring the boundary paths;
How much more must the Ch‘in soldiers face in the bitterness of battle?
They are driven forth as if they were dogs and fowls;
Although people of position may question them,
how do soldiers dare admit a grievance?
Moreover, although it is already winter there
is no end to campaigning on the west of the frontier passes,
Yet District Magistrates urgently demand taxes.
Where can the taxes come from?
It has come to this, that to give birth to sons is ruinous,
And it is actually better to produce girls.
Girls can always be married to neighbours;
Sons are only fit to perish like the prairie grass.
Ah! see you not at the head of the Kokonor
How the white bones of the long dead lie unburied?
New ghosts complain bitterly, old ghosts moan,
The heavens are darkened, the rain falls As the ghosts from the past whisper to those that have but lately died.
<End Formatted Translation>