Anonymous: "Waiting on Him: A Dunhuang Song" (From Chinese)

A popular song from the mid-Tang dynasty, from a collection recovered in a scroll-cave at Dunhuang. Unlike most Song verse in this genre in the early period (but like most other lyrics in the peculiar collection it is taken from, the 雲謠集) this lyric appears to have been actually composed by a woman, rather than by a man in a woman's voice.

Waiting On Him (To the tune of "Bowing to the Moon")
By Anonymous
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Off to another land my wayward man has gone
 
  But now the new year has well-nigh come
And he hasn't made it home
 
  I hate his love that runs like water 
So reckless and so ready to roam 
He couldn't care less for home 
 Beneath the flowers I turn and pray
  To the powers of heaven and earth and say 
  Till this very day
He has left me in this empty room alone 

 I see above me the blues of heaven's dome
 I am sure the moon and stars and sun  
Must know about my pain 
 I lean at the window-screen alone  
 And let the tears come streaming down
  On my gold-beaded silken gown
And cry away at unlucky fate
 
  And how screwed-up my karma has become
Still I pray I see his face
 
  And I swear I'll give him hell when he gets home


The Original:

拜新月

蕩子他州去  
已經新歲未還歸
堪恨情如水  
到處輙狂迷  
不思家國   
花下遙指祝神明
直至于今   
拋妾獨守空閨 

上有宆蒼在  
三光也合遙知 
倚帡幃坐   
淚流點滴   
金縷羅衣   
—自嗟薄命  
緣業至于思  
乞求待見面  
誓辜伊   

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