On the Third Day of the Seventh Month, Hearing That Unje County Had Been Swept Away by a Flood七月三日。聞雲梯縣爲大水所漂。
雲梯。迺予前所理完山之屬郡也。縣在巖谷間。山之高險。甲於他郡。又非濱河枕海而居者。霖雨一夕。山裂水湧。盡漂一郡。吏民物故。不可勝數。攀樹而活者。纔十之二三也。完山舊吏來謁予具言本末。且曰。此郡舊未嘗有此害。今而有之。此何祥耶。予惻然感嘆。爲詩以哀之。
Unje is a subordinate county of Wansan, which I governed before. Its seat lies among rocky gorges, and the height and steepness of its mountains surpass those of any other county; nor does it sit beside a river or the sea. The monsoon rain of a single evening tore the mountains and threw up the water and swept a whole county away, so that the clerks and the people who died cannot all be counted, and those who lived by clinging to trees were barely two or three in ten. An old clerk of Wansan came to see me and told it all from beginning to end, and said, "In the old days this county had no such disaster, and now it has one. Of what is this the omen?" I pitied him and sighed, and made a poem to grieve.
Interlinear notes 1
幷序
With a preface.
漢興三十年。河決酸棗地。後至元光間。又決於瓠子。齧桑已漂浮。東注傾淮泗。長筊與石甾。只自煩民耳。此雖古所嗟。亦坐居河涘。我曾見雲梯。正在巖石裏。山有百仞高。泥潦所不至。傍無一丈川。大水何從起。設有滔天災。依山尙可避。况復今年雨。平地僅尺咫。瀕江八九郡。亦無一戶棄。云何此山郡。乃反化鱣鮪。初聞未之信。私心謂非是。今朝逢舊吏。本末得細味。非水能懷山。山吐不測水。譬如立屋瓴。下注勢難止。豈無最高巓。可接飛鳥翅。水旣從山來。攀緣路何自。唯有古樹枝。其高頗可恃。捷者最先登。杳似猿掛臂。惰者升未能。呀喘雜𥈭眙。何况羸與弱。萍泛隨瀰瀰。觸石或舂磨。隨槎或彼此。雨歇浪復乾。如麻那忍視。其間猾吏輩。雖斃固其理。平生幾侵漁。瘠民以肥己。愚民本何辜。未識皇天意。大禹不復生。老眼空泫淚。
In the thirtieth year after the rise of the Han the Yellow River burst at the land of Suanzao (酸棗), and later, when the Yuanguang (元光) years came, it burst again at Huzi (瓠子). Niesang (齧桑) had already been swept away, and flowing east it tipped over the Huai and the Si. With long bamboo baskets and cages of stone they only troubled the people for nothing. Though this was a thing sighed over in antiquity, it was also because they lived beside a river. I myself once saw Unje, and it lay right inside the rocks. The mountains were a hundred fathoms high, so that mire and flood could not reach it, and beside it there was not even a stream a fathom wide: where would a great flood rise from? Even were there a calamity brimming over the sky, leaning on the mountains one could still escape it. Still more, the rain this year was barely a foot or so even on level ground. And of the eight or nine counties along the river not one house has been abandoned either. Why then has this mountain county alone become instead a place where fishes live? Hearing it at first I could not believe it and inwardly thought it could not be so. This morning I met the old clerk and tasted it all closely from beginning to end. The water did not embrace the mountains: the mountains spat out water beyond measure. It was as if, to liken it, one stood a roof tile upright and could hardly stop the force of its pouring down. How should there be no highest summit, a place that might touch the wing of a flying bird? But since the water had already come from the mountains, where was there a way to grasp and climb? There were only the branches of the old trees, whose height could rather be trusted. The nimble climbed up first of all, far off like monkeys hanging by their arms, while the slow could not climb and their panting and their startled gazing were mingled together. How much more the thin and the weak: they floated like duckweed and went with the swell. Dashed against the rocks, some were pounded and ground; carried on the rafts, some went this way and that. The rain stopped and the waters dried again — how could one bear to see them strewn like hemp stalks? That among them the crafty band of clerks should have died is truly the reason of it: how much did they plunder in all their lives, making the people thin to fatten their own bodies? But what crime had the foolish people to begin with? I cannot know the will of Heaven. The great Yu is not born again, and these old eyes shed their tears for nothing.