26. The Bandits Are Gone; Showing to the Envoy
A poem by Yuan Jie, translated by Hyun Woo Kim, and an announcement
In the past days, we greeted peace:
Twenty years in the mountains and forests.
A spring was in the garden;
A valley faced the front of the gate.
The tax for the field had its normal dates;
When the sun set, one could sleep.
Suddenly encountering the change of times,
The military flag has been close for some years.
Now I am in charge of this county;
Again, the mountain barbarians here and there.
The castle is so small that no bandits attack;
The people are poor, hurt, and pitiable.
Thus, though the neighboring regions fell,
This province is intact alone.
Envoy, who obeys the royal command,
Why are you not like the bandits?
Those officials, who collect taxes,
Maltreat people like roasting them on fire.
Who could, taking away people's life,
become the sage of the age?
I think I will throw away my Fujie,
To row a boat on my own, holding a fishing rod.
I will lead my family to fish and plant barley,
Return home, and grow old, next to a lake and a river.
「 賊退示官吏」
昔歲逢太平
山林二十年
泉源在庭戶
洞壑當門前
井稅有常期
日晏猶得眠
忽然遭世變
數歲親戎旃
今來典斯郡
山夷又紛然
城小賊不屠
人貧傷可憐
是以陷隣境
此州獨見全
使臣將王命
豈不如賊焉
令彼徴斂者
迫之如火煎
誰能絕人命
以作時世賢
思欲委符節
引竿自刺船
將家就魚麥
歸老江湖邊
From Hyun Woo:
Today’s poet, Yuan Jie, was a respectable man. He wrote this poem when he was working as the governor of a province, and apparently, showed it to an envoy who had come from the capital to collect taxes.
Before the envoy came, barbarians and bandits had been rampant in the region. While another record says that Yuan Jie managed to protect his province against them, his own record says otherwise. He wrote: “How could [our] force overpower the bandits? It owes only to that they pitied [the people].” The people were so poor that even the bandits did not plunder the province.
Then came the envoy to collect taxes. He asks him: “Why are you not like the bandits?” It must have taken Yuan Jie huge courage to stand for the people and accuse the envoy of being even worse than the bandits. He even says that he will throw away his Fujie: an object that symbolizes an official’s authority given by the emperor.
In many occasions, such poetry-writing Chinese officials would either quit their jobs or get killed for resisting the higher authority. Yuan Jie did neither. He managed to directly appeal to the emperor, and the tax imposition was canceled. I may be biased, but I do not often see such uprightness and caliber together in a person who writes poems. Later, Du Fu wrote that “it was only Jie who understood the people’s pain.”
*The translation has been edited, thanks to the help of
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Hyun Woo
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Thank you for the comment. While I did not fully grasp the concept of vasslage, I wasn't sure about my word choice either. I just didn't want to repeat "official" twice when they were two different words in the original text. I think envoy can work. Thanks again!
Hyun Woo, thanks for this. I'm not really in a position to judge, but I like the poem. Especially the imagery at the conclusion. Small comment: in the European feudal tradition, everyone would be a vassal -- the chain of vassalage/lordship reached from the lowliest peasant to the King or Emperor. The church had a parallel system. SO, when you say "a vassal arrived" from the Emperor's court, it's a bit jarring. "Envoy?" perhaps? Agent? "Tax collector?" Etc.