Why should you not use my song to gladden your casual cup?
Need you in one morning send both away,
Send them away never to return?
This is what Su would say to you before she goes,
And this is what your horse meant also
When he neighed at the gate.
Seeing my distress, who am a woman,
And hearing its cries, that is but a horse,
Shall our master alone remain pitiless?"
I looked up and sighed: I looked down and laughed. Then I said:
"Dear horse, stop your sad cries!
Sweet Su, dry your bitter tears!
For you shall go back to your stall;
And you to the women's room.
For though I am ill indeed,
And though my years are at their close,
The doom of Hsiang Chi[1] has not befallen me yet.
Must I in a single day
Lose the horse I rode and the lady I loved?
Su, O Su!
Sing once again the Song of the Willow Branch!
And I will pour you wine in that golden cup
And take you with me to the Land of Drunkenness."
- ↑ Who, surrounded at the battle of Kai-hsia (202 B.C.), gave his horse to a boatman, lest it should fall into the hands of the enemy.
