Woman Tung

I was passing through the village of mottled bamboo;
there was a woman weeping in the fields.
The land stretched wide, few signs of man;
the woman was leading a calf by a rope.
It nibbled the grass below,
a vast expanse of greenery.
How sad was the sound of her weeping;
oxen and sheep heard it and stood still.
And I too stopped traveling,
approached and questioned her.
Moved by the kindness of her old master,
she wanted to speak, but tears continued to flow.
" My master was Degree-Holder Han,

who made his home in Yangchou City.
When the city fell, the troops slew and slaughtered;
my master and his wife committed suicide.
His wife (nee Hsiao) hanged herself from the rafters,
and he drowned himself in the well.
They had two young sons, the elder of them
followed his noble father in death.

The younger (named Wei) was still at mother's breast,
and she entrusted him to my old self!
I remember how the mother, about to hang herself,
held the child close and suckled him.
How many times had the boy been fed before?
And now in turmoil the two of them must part!
Outside, corpses were piled high;
it was late in the day — should we go east or west?
I bundled up the baby, so he wouldn't cry,
and together we entered among the dead!
The dead bodies covered our living bodies,
blood smeared red all over us.
For five days they killed and killed;
their camels neighed along Shu Ridge.
Crawling, at night I left the city,
to field-paths under clear skies and ripened wheat.
I plucked wheat-ears and fed them to the boy,
then hid in a village where hearth-fires still burned.
The boy and I both managed to survive;
the farmers sighed in amazement.
That year the wheat ripened,
the next year wheat ripened...
and soon the boy was called, Young Sir!
His body grew just like his father's;
his eyebrows were especially full.
His writing brush spun essays and poems
and he associated with friends of quality,
wishing to bring glory to his house.
And where is the Young Sir now?
With book and sword, beneath the Yen-shan Mountains.
The Yen-shan Mountains, 3,000 li away:
longing for him, my heart is broken! "
Done speaking, she said good-bye to me;
leaning on the calf, she gazed toward the north.
Along the northern road, a donkey approached;
she rushed toward it, and shouted from far away:
" Young Sir, you've not abandoned me!
Today, have you returned? "
Her mistake she was ignorant of herself;
she thought it strange when no one answered her.
The sparrows return to their village;
mist turns cold, trees sink into darkness.
I too return, covering my ears:
the woman's cries are too painful to hear.
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Author of original: 
Wu Chia-chi
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