Song of the Dreary Rain苦雨歌
愁霖一月如懸河。晝夜昏黑藏羲娥。已聞街巷游蛟鼉。復患庭除生蚌螺。高墻忽倒臥橐駞。短屋還頽仆馬騾。雷公揮劒刃似磨。壁間躍出陶公梭。直敎平地轉盤渦。南宅東家放鴨鵝。城中萬屋浮濤波。大者如舶小如艖。一國正作海中倭。擬營舡舫相經過。江湖混混莫分沲。空舟獨艤無漁蓑。蓬蒿蕭艾與綠莎。時哉得意盈山阿。可惜南畝漂嘉禾。其奈四海蒼生何。甕中美酒香已訛。詎可酣飮令人𨠑。箱底芳茶貿味多。不堪烹煮駈眠魔。掩被雖欲寐無吪。打窓喧霤可從他。凡百防人多跌蹉。久矣此雨傷天和。鳥藏巢底蜂藏窠。路絶車馬無鳴珂。此時行者理則那。泥沒腰脊况襪靴。我幸杜門聊養痾。日晏而興誰復訶。率然忽作苦雨歌。
The dreary rains have hung a river overhead for a whole month, and day and night it is dark, the sun and moon hidden away. Already I hear that water-dragons and crocodiles sport in the streets, and now I fear that clams and conches will breed in the yard. A high wall suddenly topples and lies down like a camel; a low house caves in again and sprawls like a horse or a mule. The thunder god swings his sword, as though a blade had passed, and from between the walls leaps out the drum of Lord Tao (陶公). Straightway it sets whirlpools spinning on level ground, and the houses south and east turn their ducks and geese loose. Ten thousand homes within the walls float upon the waves, the big ones like great ships, the small like skiffs. The whole country has become a Japan set in the midst of the sea, so we must get boats to come and go to one another. Rivers and lakes are mingled, and no bend can be told apart; only an empty boat lies moored, with no fisherman in his straw cape. Mugwort and wormwood and green sedge have met their season and had their way, filling the foot of the hills. What a pity — the fine rice of the southern furrows is washed away; what is to become of the people of the four seas? The good wine in the jar has already changed its fragrance — how could a deep draught of it make a man drunk? The fragrant tea at the bottom of the box has much altered in taste, unfit to be brewed to drive off the demon of sleep. I would draw up the quilt and sleep, but there is no stirring, and the noisy eaves-drip beating the window must simply be let be. A hundred things block a man, so that he stumbles often; long indeed has this rain been harming the kindly air of heaven. Birds hide beneath their nests and bees hide in their hives, the roads are cut, and no jade pendants ring from cart or horse. What then of one traveling the road at such a time? The mud buries his waist and back — how much more his socks and shoes. I am fortunate: I shut my gate and merely nurse my illness, and though I rise only when the day is late, who is there to scold me again? And so on a sudden I made the 「Song of the Dreary Rain」.
Interlinear notes 1
雙韻下犯傍韻
This is in double rhyme (雙韻), but below it trespasses on a neighboring rhyme.