In the village, an old woman weeps, walking along the roadside, step by step.
Mourning herself as a widow left behind, in twilight years she follows a second husband.
Widowed at eighteen or nineteen, she remarries now past sixty.
Once she bore a posthumous child; now her hair hangs white and thin.
Does the son not wish to support her? Does the mother not yearn for her home?
Corvée labor reaches the poorest households; wealth exhausted, nothing left to pay.
Changing household register, luckily, brings exemption; marrying off the mother seems a wise plan.
They pull the cart and send her out the door, urgent as driving off a thief.
Sons and grandsons have their own wives; young and old clutch and cry.
Turning her head for a final farewell, she wishes to die, yet no punishment awaits.
Hearing these words at that time, I let out a long sigh.
Heaven's people indeed have their hardships; the widowed and solitary are truly among them.
Benevolent governance prioritizes these four, recorded in the books of Mencius.
Our ruler strives to restore ancient ways, daily learning from Huang and Yu.
Edicts seek chaste widows, promising to honor their households.
Alas, you foolish woman, how could ritual bind you so?
For forty years in a thatched hut, unaware of your lonely shadow.
Prefectures and counties fail to discern; imperial decrees become empty words.
And moreover, in taxes and labor, the petty officials all rush alike.
Deceit and fraud reach to the marrow; public benefit not a penny gained.
Good fields sold year after year; what remains is only weeds and mire.
Brothers wish to part and scatter; mother and child thus change and drift.
Is Heaven and Earth not vast? Yet it cannot contain your body.
Alas, O King who governs with filial piety, will you hear of this sooner or later?
My words hold no office; I turn my sleeve, tears falling in vain.