Classic Poem

You there!
Listen, please, to my sorrowful words.
Since humans and myriad things came into being,
animals and birds, grass and trees, all have their mates.
A man created in the world
possesses honor, riches, and offspring.
My pitiful lot is so perilous and harsh,
is there another like me?
Even though you live all of a hundred years,
there are only thirty-six thousand days.
If I live alone, do I live for a thousand years?
If I remain a virgin,
do I live for ten thousand?
My unresourceful parents,
being poor and belonging to petty nobility,
act like high nobility, keeping proper duties,
their posturing still bungled,
Devoted to outrageous words and deeds
while their single daughter is getting old.
In a desolate, empty room,
I sit alone, deserted,
Tossing and turning, I cannot sleep.
Listen, please, to my solitary complaints.
My senile mother and father,
why did you raise me?
Bringing me up until I die,
will they butcher me, or bake me for food?
From men and women created during Emperor of Mankind,
traces made during Fu Hsi,
Human beings choosing mates and marrying,
it has been so since the old days.
I know a maiden with lot so fortunate,
she is married before twenty.
Descendents of people, marrying a man, marrying a woman,
even though these are all respectable deeds,
My pitiful lot is so sinister,
I am a maid even until forty.
If I knew I would be thus,
I should not have come out from the beginning,
A moonlit gauze window, during long, long nights,
unable to sleep full of worries
In my desolate, empty room,
pacing hither and thither,
Thinking of my future days,
my heart grows heavier and heavier.
My only father is half-witted,
my only mother cannot tell beans from barley;
When the day breaks, it is tomorrow,
when the year ends, it is next year.
Neglecting marriage complaints,
my parents only complain of poverty.
When a guest arrives from somewhere,
could he perchance be a matchmaker?
I inquire after a child demanding an answer,
only the officer demanding to fulfill the village compact
and duty of returning the loaned grain;
Oh, a letter from somewhere,
could it be a marriage proposal?
I ask the child again,
it is a funeral notice of my maternal uncle.
Oh, how tragic and agonizing!
What shall I do about my aching heart?
That child in the house in front
is already having a child.
That surly woman in the house out back
is getting married today or tomorrow.
That heartless time of past days,
I would unknot it after getting married,
But my parents are heartless,
do not think of me.
Do not consider riches and honors,
if his looks and bearings seem suitable.
Is a forty-year-old maiden young?
Please prepare my marriage things.
Kim Tongi is a widower,
Yi Tongi threw out his wife.
Granny matchmaker is nowhere to be seen,
why is there no one asking for me?
The black cow is now well fattened,
we also have rice and dry paddies for ancestral rites;
You look for a scholar official of good family,
making me get so old like this?
I have lipstick and powder,
but put them away;
Black skirt and white blouse,
I placed them in front of a lighted mirror;
My dark eyebrows like the Moon Mountain,
my slender waist like a fine willow;
Oh, how beautiful is my countenance,
oh, how exquisite my demeanor!
In this time flowing endlessly,
oh, how pitiful is my demeanor!
I speak to the mirror:
Oh, how oppressive my fate!
Nowhere to go, not even me,
no use for you, not even you.
My father the Minister of War,
my grandfather the Minister of Finance;
Since my lineage is like this,
how difficult to follow the custom.
It is already spring,
grass, trees, and all living things take delight,
Azaleas in full blossom everywhere,
grass sends out new shoots;
Decayed and wilted bamboo fences rustle and crinkle,
a lark flies up high in the sky.
Spring breeze, night moon, and fine rain,
how can I sleep alone in an empty room?
You devilish children,
do not speak such words:
A groom comes to the house in front,
a bride leaves the house in the back.
Things I have heard with my ears,
so many things I have felt.
The sun sets over green willows and beautiful grass,
why do the years go by so easily?
Our lives are like morning dew,
unexpectedly getting old.
With my flowing lock on my side,
All I can do is sigh.
No mate for my long nights,
no friend for my long days.
Sitting and lying down,
I think these thoughts again and again,
Perhaps my wretched life itself
is my enemy, since I cannot die!