Deja, por favor, a vuestra vecina
recoger los dátiles del patio
Es una pobre viuda, sin hijos,
sin recursos, sin amparo.
Es la miseria 10 que la obliga.
Sé bondadoso y afectuoso con ella.
Tiene miedo y está avergonzada.
EI seto le ha despertado recelos,
mas no deberá desconfiar del vecino.
Me han dicho que con tantos,
tantísimos tributos,
la gente está tan estrujada
como limón sin jugo.
Pensando en las catástrofes de la guerra,
tengo los ojos anegados en lágrimas.
Texto original:
「又呈吴郎」
杜甫
堂前扑枣任西邻，无食无儿一妇人。
不为困穷宁有此？只缘恐惧转须亲。
即防远客虽多事，便插疏篱却甚真。
已诉征求贫到骨，正思戎马泪盈巾。
Antigua práctica:
In 767 A.D., the second year Du Fu drifted to Fengjie in Chongqing, he lived in a grassy hall in the west of Dewy. There were several jujube trees in front of the hall, and a widow from the west neighbor often came to hunt jujubes, but Du Fu never interfered. Later, Du Fu gave the grass hall to a relative surnamed Wu, and he himself moved to Dongtun, a dozen miles away from the grass hall. He moved to Dongtun, a dozen miles away from the Cao Tang. Unexpectedly, as soon as he arrived, he put a fence around the Cao Tang and forbade date hunting. The widow complained to Du Fu, and Du Fu wrote this poem to advise Wu Lang.
The first line of the poem opens the door and begins with how the poet himself used to treat his neighbor’s wife’s date-punching. I never stopped the neighbor from pouncing on dates in front of the hall, but let her do as she pleased, for she was an old woman with five meals and no children. The second line says: It turns out that this neighbor is an old widow with no food and no children. The poet is tantamount to saying to Wu Lang: “For such a poor woman with no one to depend on, can we not let her beat some dates?”
The third and fourth lines follow the first two: If it were not for her poverty, how could she have done such a thing? It is precisely because of her fear that she should be close to her. This shows that Du Fu sympathizes with and understands the situation of the poor, and Du Fu’s recounting of his past events is meant to inspire Wu Lang.
It is only in the fifth and sixth sentences that it comes down to Wu Lang. Although it is redundant to guard against you when you come, it is quite true that you will put up a fence as soon as you come. The implication of these two lines is that she cannot be blamed for her carelessness, but that Wu Lang is a bit too inconsiderate.
In the last two lines, she said that the government had forced her to pay rent and taxes, and that she was already penniless, and that she couldn’t help but be filled with tears when she thought of the chaos of the times. In the previous sentence, Du Fu borrowed the widow’s complaint to point out the widow’s, but also the social root cause of the poverty of the majority of the people at that time. This is the exploitation of the officials that made her poor to the extreme. This also further relieves the widow’s behavior of pouncing on dates. The next sentence goes farther, bigger, and more profound, pointing out another social root cause that plunged the people into dire straits. This is the war which has lasted for more than ten years since the “An Shi Rebellion”.
By a poor widow, by a small matter of pouncing jujube, Du Fu even associated with the whole national situation, so much so that he wept. On the one hand, this is the natural outpouring of his love for the motherland and the people; on the other hand, it is also the article that should awaken and enlighten Wu Lang. Let him know: “In this situation of war and chaos, there are still a lot of suffering people, never just a widow; the war situation does not change, even our own life is not necessarily guaranteed, we are not now because of the war and chaos and the same in a faraway place as a guest, and you are not still living in my Cao Tang?”
It is hoped that he will thus stand a little taller, look a little farther, and think a little more openly, and that he will naturally not pussyfoot about a few dates. It is from this kind of place that the reader should see the poet’s “bitter intention” and his attitude towards the people.
Traductor:
Chen Guo-jian(陈国坚)
Sobre el poeta:
Du Fu(杜甫), 712-770 d.C., era natural de Xiangfan, provincia de Hubei, y nació en Gongyi, provincia de Henan. Du Fu tuvo una vida dura, y su vida de agitación y desplazamiento le hizo sentir las penurias de las masas, por lo que sus poemas siempre estuvieron estrechamente relacionados con la actualidad, reflejando la vida social de aquella época de una forma más completa, con pensamientos profundos y un amplio ámbito.
