<Header>
<Author: 秦韜玉>
<Title: 貧女>
<Format: 七言律詩>
<Year: 1940>
<BookName: Selection from the Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty>
<Translator: Soame Jenyns>
<TranslatedTitle: The Poor Woman>
<BookPage: 60>
<UsedPage: 1>
<Feature: 4>
<End Header>
<Poem>
蓬門未識綺羅香，
擬託良媒益自傷。
誰愛風流高格調，
共憐時世儉梳妝。
敢將十指誇偏巧，
不把雙眉鬬畫長。
苦恨年年壓金線，
爲他人作嫁衣裳。
<End Poem>
<Translation>
(BROUGHT up) in a thatched cottage, what does she know of the scented pleasures of gauze and openwork silk?
She who would love to have employed a good go-between and is sick at heart (because she cannot afford it).
Who is she to hope for the love of gay young sparks and the young men about town?
She, like the rest of us, lives in hard times and has to be economical in the whims of the toilet.
What is the use of her venturing to boast of her skilled needle,
When she cannot make up her eyebrows with the others and paint them long?
Bitterly year after year she presses out the gold embroidery
And on behalf of other girls makes bridal clothes.
<End Translation>