介绍:
The Army Wagons: A Ballad
Wagons rattling,
horses neighing,
men walking, each with bow and arrows at the waist.
Moms and dads, wives and children rush along seeing them off,
the dust is such you cannot see the Xianyang Bridge.
Pulling at clothes, stamping feet they block the road weeping,
weeping voices rise straight up against the clouds and high wisps.
Someone passing by the road asks a man on the march,
the man on the march says only: “They’re calling upon troops often now.”
Some from the age of fifteen are north guarding the River,
then as soon as they reach forty they work military settlements in the west.
When they leave, the village headman gives them turbans[1];
coming home, their hair is white, and then back to garrison[2] the frontier.
The blood that has flowed on the frontiers could make up an ocean’s waters,
and our Warrior Emperor’s plans to extend the frontier are not yet done./
Haven’t you heard
how in two hundred prefectures[3] East of the Mountains of the House of Han
a thousand villages and ten thousand hamlets grow over with thorns and briars[4]?
Even though there are sturdy wives to hold the hoe and plow,
the grain grows on the field boundary slopes and one can’t tell east from west.
Even worse for troops from Qin who endure the bitterest battles,
they are driven on, no different from dogs and chickens./
Though you sir may pose the question,
does a conscript[5] dare declare his resentment[6]?
And now in winter this year
they haven’t stopped taking soldiers from West of the Passes;
County officials urgently demand taxes,
but where are the taxes to come from?
I know well to have a boy is bad,
it’s better to have a daughter instead.
If you have a daughter you can still marry her to your neighbor;
if you have a boy he will be buried along with all the plants./
Haven’t you seen
by Kokonor
white bones from ancient times that have never been recovered?
The new ghosts are tormented by their wrongs, the former ghosts just weep,
the skies cloudy, the rain soaks them, their voices moaning.
单词释义
[1] turban [ˈtɜːbən] n. 包头巾;
[2] garrison [ˈɡærɪsn] v. 驻防; 派(兵)驻守;
[3] prefecture [ˈpriːfektʃə(r)] n. 地方行政区域; 省; 县;
[4] briar [ˈbraɪə] n. 荆棘
[5] conscript [ˈkɒnskrɪpt] n. 应征入伍者;
[6] resentment [rɪˈzentmənt] n. 愤恨; 怨恨;
