中文原文﹕
車轔轔，馬蕭蕭，
行人弓箭各在腰。
耶嬢妻子走相送，
塵埃不見咸陽橋。
牽衣頓足攔道哭，
哭聲直上干雲霄。
道旁過者問行人，
行人但云點行頻。
或從十五北防河，
便至四十西營田。
去時里正與裹頭，
歸來頭白還戍邊。
邊亭流血成海水，
武皇開邊意未已。
君不聞、
漢家山東二百州，
千村萬落生荊杞？
縱有健婦把鋤犁，
禾生隴畝無東西。
況復秦兵耐苦戰，
被驅不異犬與雞。
長者雖有問，
役夫敢申恨？
且如今年冬，
未休關西卒。
縣官急索租，
租稅從何出？
信知生男惡，
反是生女好；
生女猶得嫁比鄰，
生男埋沒隨百草。
君不見，青海頭，
古來白骨無人收？
新鬼煩冤舊鬼哭，
天陰雨濕聲啾啾。
英文翻譯 / English Translation﹕
Coaches rattle and rumble, horses neigh,
People in the march each has a bow and arrows hanging by their waist.
Parents, wives and children have come to bid farewell,
Hard to discern is the Xianyang Bridge behind a dusty veil that traffic has raised.
They cling onto leavers' clothes, stomping as they cry getting in the way,
Crying so loudly, piercing skies and clouds all the way.
Passers-by ask where they are marching towards,
These leaving men reply, “we've been conscripted, it happens quite often these days.
Some were deployed to guard the north of the Yellow River when only fifteen,
Then sent to the west at the age of forty to land reclaim.
Some departed so young that neighbourhood elders had helped with their head cloths,
Even when it was time for their return, they still the borders guarded with a head of grey.
On the borders there has been such shedding of blood, so much it pools like a sea,
Yet the emperor's desire for territorial expansion by force remains.
Have you not heard,
In the two hundred shires east of the Hua Mountains,
Thousands of counties and villages therein have become unattended, lying waste?
There may be women with a solid build ploughing the land,
What grow in the fields are crops in disarray.
Then there are soldiers holding strong their fort in the west battling hard,
No different to disturbed dogs and fowls are people pressured to various duties pay.”
“Though you have kindly asked,
Yet how dare we complain?
Take this winter for example,
The soldiers out west don't get to rest, they have been deployed to another battle engage.
County clerks are in a hurry to taxes collect,
Yet how could they expect these demands be met?
Nowadays people believe having a boy is a nightmare,
Instead, having a girl is a relief.
Girls can be married off to neighbours,
Boys only get drafted to die on battlefields among all sorts of weeds.”
Do you not see over there by the Great Salk Lake,
White remains accumulate throughout time, yet there is no one to dig a grave?
New lost souls lament their misery as old ones continue their cry,
The overcast skies seem to hiss sibilant sounds in the dampness of rain.
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