Heo Nanseolheon 許蘭雪軒
1580s · Joseon Korea
I hold the golden scissors in my hand, and in the cold of night my ten fingers stiffen. I make a wedding dress for someone else, and year after year I sleep alone.
手把金翦刀 夜寒十指直
爲人作嫁衣 年年還獨宿Nanseolheon sijip, "Song of a Poor Girl"
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Nameless people 詩經 無名氏
c. 7th century BC · Zhou China · Read as a song comparing the masters who take the taxes to a big rat
Big rat, big rat, do not eat my millet! Three years I have served you, and you have never cared for me. I am going to leave you and go to that happy land.
碩鼠碩鼠，無食我黍！
三歲貫女，莫我肯顧。
逝將去女，適彼樂土。"Big Rat" (Shuo shu), Airs of Wei, in the Book of Songs
Du Xunhe 杜荀鶴
late 9th century · Tang China
Go to the deepest place of the deep mountains: even there, there is no way to escape the taxes and forced labour.
任是深山更深處，也應無計避征徭。"The Widow in the Mountains"
Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元
c. 810 · Tang China · In a district where delivering poisonous snakes freed a man from taxes, on meeting one who had lost his grandfather and father to the snakes and still could not give up the work
Who would have known that the poison of taxes is worse than this snake!
孰知賦斂之毒有甚是蛇者乎！"The Snake Catcher"
Bai Juyi 白居易
c. 807 · Tang China · As a county official, on seeing farmers cutting wheat under the blazing sun and a woman who, having lost her field to taxes, was gleaning the fallen ears
And I, today, by what merit or virtue have I never once worked at farming or silk? My official salary is three hundred bushels, and at the year's end I have grain to spare. When I think of it I am secretly ashamed, and all day long I cannot forget it.
今我何功德，曾不事農桑。
吏祿三百石，歲晏有餘糧。
念此私自媿盡日不能忘。"Watching the Wheat Harvest"
Wei Yingwu 韋應物
784 · Tang China · While prefect of Chuzhou
With so many illnesses I think of the fields of home. With people fleeing my county, I am ashamed to take my salary.
身多疾病思田里，邑有流亡愧俸錢。"Sent to Li Dan and Yuan Xi," in the Complete Tang Poems
Li Shen 李紳
late 8th century · Tang China
He hoes the grain under the noonday sun, and his sweat drips on the soil beneath the stalks. Who knows that the food in the dish, every grain of it, is hardship?
鋤禾日當午，汗滴禾下土。
誰知盤中餐，粒粒皆辛苦。"Old Style," the second poem, usually called "Pity for the Farmers," in the Complete Tang Poems
Mutta Muttā
c. 5th century BC · ancient India
I am well freed, how well I am freed, freed from three crooked things: the mortar, the pestle, and my crook-backed husband.
Sumuttā sādhumuttāmhi, tīhi khujjehi muttiyā; Udukkhalena musalena, patinā khujjakena ca
Therigatha (Verses of the Elder Nuns) 1.11
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