「黑潭龙－疾贪吏也」白居易

黑潭水深黑如墨，传有神龙人不识。

潭上架屋官立祠，龙不能神人神之。

丰凶水旱与疾疫，乡里皆言龙所为。

家家养豚漉清酒，朝祈暮赛依巫口。

神之来兮风飘飘，纸钱动兮锦伞摇。

神之去兮风亦静，香火灭兮杯盘冷。

肉堆潭岸石，酒泼庙前草。

不知龙神享几多，林鼠山狐长醉饱。

狐何幸，豚何辜，年年杀豚将喂狐。

狐假龙神食豚尽，九重泉底龙知无

THE DRAGON OF THE BLACK POOL 

A Satire 

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 n " 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? 

* Parody of a famous Han dynasty hymn.