《长干行》李白妾发初覆额，折花门前剧。
郎骑竹马来，绕床弄青梅。
同居长干里，两小无嫌猜。
十四为君妇，羞颜未尝开。
低头向暗壁，千唤不一回。
十五始展眉，愿同尘与灰。
常存抱柱信，岂上望夫台。
十六君远行，瞿塘滟滪堆。
五月不可触，猿声天上哀。
门前迟行迹，一一生绿苔。
苔深不能扫，落叶秋风早。
八月蝴蝶来，双飞西园草。
感此伤妾心，坐愁红颜老。
早晚下三巴，预将书报家。
The River-Merchant's Wife: a Letter1 While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead2 I played about the front gate, pulling flowers3 You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,4 You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums5 And we went on living in the village of Chokan:6 Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.7 At fourteen I married My Lord you.8 I never laughed, being bashful.9 Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.10 Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.11 At fifteen I stopped scowling,12 I desired my dust to be mingled with yours13 Forever and forever, and forever.14 Why should I climb the look out?15 At sixteen you departed,16 You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies,17 And you have been gone five months.18 The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.19 You dragged your feet when you went out.20 By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,21 Too deep to clear them away!22 The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.23 The paired butterflies are already yellow with August24 Over the grass in the West garden,25 They hurt me.26 I grow older,27 If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,28 Please let me know beforehand,29 And I will come out to meet you,30 As far as Cho-fu-Sa.Tr. by Ezra PoundA letter from Chang-kan (A river-merchant’s wife writes) I would play, plucking flowers by the gate;My hair scarcely covered my forehead, then.You would come, riding on your bamboo horse,And loiter about the bench with green plums for toys.So we both dwelt in Chang-kan town,We were two children, suspecting nothing.At fourteen I became your wife,And so bashful that I could never bare my face,But hung my head, and turned to the dark wall;You would call me a thousand times,But I could not look back even once.At fifteen I was able to compose my eyebrows,And beg you to love me till we were dust and ashes.You always kept the faith of Wei-sheng,Who waited under the bridge, unafraid of death,I never knew I was to climb the Hill of Wang-fuAnd watch for you these many days.I was sixteen when you went on a long journey,Traveling beyond the Keu-Tang Gorge,Where the giant rocks heap up the swift river,And the rapids are not passable in May.Did you hear the monkeys wailingUp on the skyey height of the crags?Note: The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter" was published in 1915 in Ezra Pound's third collection of poetry, Cathay: Translations, which contains versions of Chinese poems composed from the sixteen notebooks of Ernest Fenollosa, a scholar of Chinese literature. Pound called the poems in English which resulted from the Fenollosa manuscripts "translations," but as such they are held in contempt by most scholars of Chinese language and literature. However, they have been acclaimed as "poetry" for their clarity and elegance. They are variously referred to as "translations," "interpretations," "paraphrases," and "adaptations."Pound's study of the Fenollosa manuscripts led to his preoccupation with the Chinese ideogram (a written symbol for an idea or object) as a medium for poetry. In fact, he realized that Chinese poets had long been aware of the image as the fundamental principle for poetic composition that he himself was beginning to formulate. Pound further maintained that the poetic image did not lose anything in translation between languages nor was it bound by time, but effectively communicated through time and across cultures, accruing meaning in the process. "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter," for example, communicates with depth and poignance the human experience of sorrow at separation, the human experience of love.Working with the literary traditions of other cultures was typical not only of Pound, but of most of his contemporaries, who were not convinced that the only culture of value was European. However, Pound's work has significance not only for its cross-cultural innovations, but for the "cross-chronological" breakthrough notion that the human response to the world links us all, so that an American in the twentieth century can share and learn from the human experience of an eighth century Chinese river-merchant's wife.THE JEWEL STAIRS’ GRIEVANCEThe Jewelled steps are already quite white with dew,It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,And I let down the crystal curtainAnd watch the moon through the clear autumn.Note: Jewel stairs, therefore a palace. Grievance, therefore there is something to complain of. Gauze stockings, therefore a court lady, not a servant who complains. Clear autumn, therefore she has no excuse on account of weather. Also she has come early, for the dew has not merely whitened the stairs, but has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach.Tr. and noted by Pound玉阶怨玉阶生白露，夜久侵罗袜。
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