佳人(杜甫)

佳人   Alone In Her Beauty

绝代有佳人 Who is lovelier than she?

幽居在空谷 Yet she lives alone in an empty valley.

自云良家子 She tells me she came from a good family
零落依草木 Which is humbled now into the dust.

关中昔丧乱 ...When trouble arose in the Kuan district,

兄弟遭杀戮 Her brothers and close kin were killed.
官高何足论 What use were their high offices,

不得收骨肉 Not even shielding their own lives? --

世情恶衰歇 The world has but scorn for adversity;
万事随转烛 Hope goes out, like the light of a candle.

夫婿轻薄儿 Her husband, with a vagrant heart,

新人美如玉 Seeks a new face like a new piece of jade;
合昏尚知时 And when morning-glories furl at night

鸳鸯不独宿 And mandarin-ducks lie side by side,

但见新人笑 All he can see is the smile of the new love,
那闻旧人哭 While the old love weeps unheard.

在山泉水清 The brook was pure in its mountain source,

出山泉水浊 But away from the mountain its waters darken.
侍婢卖珠回 ...Waiting for her maid returning from market for selling pearls

牵萝补茅屋 For straw to cover the roof again,

摘花不插发 She picks a few flowers, no longer for her hair,
采柏动盈掬 And lets pine-needles fall through her fingers,

天寒翠袖薄 And, forgetting her thin silk sleeve and the cold,

日暮倚修竹 She leans in the sunset on a tall bamboo.