卓文君

Zhuo Wenjun (150-115 BCE)

After one single parting,

in two lands, we're lovesick.

You said it would just be three or four months –

who could have known it would be five or six years?

I haven’t the heart to play the seven-stringed qin;

I've no way to send you an eight-lined letter.

Our rings of nine links are torn from their hubs;

at the ten-mile pavilion, I gaze till my eyes water.

A hundred thoughts,

a thousand memories –

ten thousand frustrations to blame you for!

I’ve got ten thousand phrases and one thousand words –

far more than I can say;

I’ve been bored a hundred times,

and leaned over the rail ten more.

Climbing high on the Double Ninth,

I see wild geese all alone;

in the eighth month, at Mid-Autumn,

though people aren’t, the moon’s whole.

In the seventh month, burning incense,

I hold candles to ask Heaven questions;

in the sixth month, at the height of summer,

everyone’s waving fans, but my heart’s cold.

In the fifth month, fiery pomegranates

meet the cold rain that waters the flowers;

in the fourth month, unripened loquats –

with my heart in a mess, I look in a mirror.

Hurriedly, hastily,

third-month peach blossoms follow river turnings;

fluttering, scattered,

second-month kites break their strings.

Ah! Husband, my husband, in the life after this one

may you come back as a woman, and I as a man.