| 1 |
| A dialogue on poverty |
| 2 |
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| On the night when the rain beats, |
| 4 |
| Driven by the wind, |
| 5 |
| On the night when the snowflakes mingle |
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| With a sleety rain, |
| 7 |
| I feel so helplessly cold. |
| 8 |
| I nibble at a lump of salt, |
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| Sip the hot, oft-diluted dregs of _sake_; |
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| And coughing, snuffling, |
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| And stroking my scanty beard, |
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| I say in my pride, |
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| "There's none worthy, save I!" |
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| But I shiver still with cold. |
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| I pull up my hempen bedclothes, |
| 16 |
| Wear what few sleeveless clothes I have, |
| 17 |
| But cold and bitter is the night! |
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| As for those poorer than myself, |
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| Their parents must be cold and hungry, |
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| Their wives and children beg and cry. |
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| Then, how do you struggle through life? |
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| Wide as they call the heaven and earth, |
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| For me they have shrunk quite small; |
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| Bright though they call the sun and moon, |
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| They never shine for me. |
| 27 |
| Is it the same with all men, |
| 28 |
| Or for me alone? |
| 29 |
| By rare chance I was born a man |
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| And no meaner than my fellows, |
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| But, wearing unwadded sleeveless clothes |
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| In tatters, like weeds waving in the sea, |
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| Hanging from my shoulders, |
| 34 |
| And under the sunken roof, |
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| Within the leaning walls, |
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| Here I lie on straw |
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| Spread on bare earth, |
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| With my parents at my pillow, |
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| And my wife and children at my feet, |
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| All huddled in grief and tears. |
| 41 |
| No fire sends up smoke |
| 42 |
| At the cooking-place, |
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| And in the cauldron |
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| A spider spins its web. |
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| With not a grain to cook, |
| 46 |
| We moan like the night thrush. |
| 47 |
| Then, "to cut," as the saying is, |
| 48 |
| "The ends of what is already too short," |
| 49 |
| The village headman comes, |
| 50 |
| With rod in hand, to our sleeping place, |
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| Growling for his dues. |
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| Must it be so hopeless -- |
| 53 |
| The way of this world? |
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| 55 |
| -- Yamanoue Okura |