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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=350457" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Old Man with the Broken Arm</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">At Hsin-fëng—an old man—four-score and eight;<br>The hair on his head and the hair of his eyebrows—white as the new snow.<br>Leaning on the shoulders of his great-grandchildren, he walks in front of the Inn;<br>With his left arm he leans on their shoulders; his right arm is broken.<br>I asked the old man how many years had passed since he broke his arm;<br>I also asked the cause of the injury, how and why it happened.<br>The old man said he was born and reared in the District of Hsin-fëng;<br>At the time of his birth—a wise reign; no wars or discords. <br>“Often I listened in the Pear-Tree Garden to the sound of flute and song;<br>Naught I knew of banner and lance; nothing of arrow or bow.<br>Then came the wars of T’ien-pao and the great levy of men;<br>Of three men in each house—one man was taken.<br>And those to whom the lot fell, where were they taken to?<br>Five months’ journey, a thousand miles—away to Yiin-nan.<br>We heard it said that in Yiin-nan there flows the Lu River;<br>As the flowers fall from the pepper-trees, poisonous vapors rise.<br>When the great army waded across, the water seethed like a cauldron;<br>When barely ten had entered the water, two or three were dead.<br>To the north of my village, to the south of my village the sound of weeping and wailing,<br>Children parting from fathers and mothers; husbands parting from wives.<br>Everyone says that in expeditions against the Min tribes<br>Of a million men who are sent out, not one returns.<br> <br>I, that am old, was then twenty-four;<br>My name and fore-name were written down in the rolls of the Board of War.<br>In the depth of the night not daring to let any one know<br>I secretly took a huge stone and dashed it against my arm.<br>For drawing the bow and waving the banner now wholly unfit;<br>I knew henceforward I should not be sent to fight in Yün-nan.<br>Bones broken and sinews wounded could not fail to hurt;<br>I was ready enough to bear pain, if only I got back home.<br>My arm—broken ever since; it was sixty years ago.<br>One limb, although destroyed—whole body safe!<br>But even now on winter nights when the wind and rain blow<br>From evening on till day’s dawn I cannot sleep for pain.<br>Not sleeping for pain<br>Is a small thing to bear,<br>Compared with the joy of being alive when all the rest are dead.<br>For otherwise, years ago, at the ford of Lu River<br>My body would have died and my soul hovered by the bones that no one gathered.<br>A ghost, I’d have wandered in Yiin-nan, always looking for home.<br>Over the graves of ten thousand soldiers, mournfully hovering.’’<br>So the old man spoke,<br>And I bid you listen to his words.<br>Have you not heard<br>That the Prime Minister of K’ai-yüan, Sung K’ai-fu,<br>Did not reward frontier exploits, lest a spirit of aggression should prevail?<br>And have you not heard<br>That the Prime Minster of T’ien-Pao, Yang Kuo-chung<br> Desiring to win imperial favour, started a frontier war?<br>But long before he could win the war, people had lost their temper;<br>Ask the man with thy broken arm in the village of Hsin-fëng!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Bai+Juyi">Bai Juyi</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=350457" data-title="The Old Man with the Broken Arm de Bai Juyi" data-description="At Hsin-fëng—an old man—four-score and eight;
The hair on his head and the hair of his eyebrows—white as the new snow.
Leaning on the shoulders of his great-grandchildren, he walks in front of the Inn;
With his left arm he leans on their sh..."></div>
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