Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE DRAGON OF THE BLACK POOL; A SATIRE, by PO CHU-YI


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DRAGON OF THE BLACK POOL; A SATIRE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Deep the waters of the black pool, coloured like ink
Last Line: Beneath the nine-fold depths of his pool, does he know or not?
Alternate Author Name(s): Bai Juyi; Bo Juyi; Po Chu-i; Lo T'ien; Jyu-yi
Subject(s): China - Tang Dynasty (618-905)


DEEP the waters of the Black Pool, coloured like ink;
They say a Holy Dragon lives there, whom men have never seen.
Beside the Pool they have built a shrine; the authorities have established a ritual;
A dragon by itself remains a dragon, but men can make it a god.
Prosperity and disaster, rain and drought, plagues and pestilences --
By the village people were all regarded as the Sacred Dragon's doing.
They all made offerings of sucking-pig and poured libations of wine;
The morning prayers and evening gifts depended on a "medium's" advice.

When the dragon comes, ah!
The wind stirs and sighs
Paper money thrown, ah!
Silk umbrellas waved.
When the dragon goes, ah!
The wind also -- still.
Incense-fire dies, ah!
The cups and vessels are cold.

Meats lie stacked on the rocks of the Pool's shore;
Wine flows on the grass in front of the shrine.
I do not know, of all those offerings, how much the Dragon eats;
But the mice of the woods and the foxes of the hills are continually drunk and sated.
Why are the foxes so lucky?
What have the sucking-pigs done,
That year by year they should be killed, merely to glut the foxes?
That the foxes are robbing the Sacred Dragon and eating His sucking-pig,
Beneath the nine-fold depths of His pool, does He know or not?





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