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 haveestablished 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’sdoing.They all made offerings of sucking-pig and poured libations of wine;The morning prayers and evening gifts depended on a “medium’s”advice
When the dragon comes, ah!The wind stirs and sighsPaper 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 arecontinually 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 Hissucking-pig,Beneath the nine-fold depths of His pool, does He know or not?
Words in this poem
- coloured a.
- Having color; tinged; dyed; painted; stained.
- disaster n.
- An unpropitious or baleful aspect of a planet or star; malevolent influence of a heavenly body; hence, an ill portent. [F. désastre; pref. dés- (L. dis-) + astre star, fr. L. astrum; a word of astrological origin. See Aster, Astral, Star.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Satire is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, the Arthur Waley translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, A Satire, in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/a-satire.html, id L18825.
Form and metre
A Satire is 30 lines in 3 stanzas. 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 2 A-A-A-A- ahA · sighs · ahA · waved · ahA · still · ahA · cold
- 3 -------AA-- shore · shrine · eats · are · sated · lucky · done · foxesA · hisA · pig · not
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Deep the waters of the Black Pool, coloured like ink; | 12 | ··/˘····/˘·· |
| They say a Holy Dragon lives there, whom men have never seen. | 15 | ···/˘/˘·····/˘· |
| Beside the Pool they have built a shrine; the authorities have | 15 | ˘/········˘/˘˘· |
| established a ritual; | 7 | ˘/˘·/˘˘ |
| A dragon by itself remains a dragon, but men can make it a god. | 18 | ·/˘·˘/˘/·/˘······· |
| Prosperity and disaster, rain and drought, plagues and pestilences-- | 17 | ˘/˘˘·˘/˘·····/˘˘˘ |
| By the village people were all regarded as the Sacred Dragon’s | 17 | ··/˘/˘··˘/˘··/˘/˘ |
| doing. | 2 | /˘ |
| They all made offerings of sucking-pig and poured libations of wine; | 17 | ···/˘˘·/˘········ |
| The morning prayers and evening gifts depended on a “medium’s” | 16 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/˘··/˘˘ |
| advice | 2 | ˘/ |
| When the dragon comes, ah! | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| The wind stirs and sighs | 5 | ····· |
| Paper money thrown, ah! | 6 | /˘/˘·· |
| Silk umbrellas waved. | 5 | ·˘/˘· |
| When the dragon goes, ah! | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| The wind also--still. | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Incense-fire dies, ah! | 6 | ˘//˘·· |
| The cups and vessels are cold. | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Meats lie stacked on the rocks of the Pool’s shore; | 10 | ·········· |
| Wine flows on the grass in front of the shrine. | 10 | ·········· |
| I do not know, of all those offerings, how much the Dragon eats; | 16 | ·······/˘˘···/˘· |
| But the mice of the woods and the foxes of the hills are | 14 | ········/˘···· |
| continually drunk and sated. | 9 | ˘/˘˘˘··/˘ |
| Why are the foxes so lucky? | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| What have the sucking-pigs done, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| That year by year they should be killed, merely to glut the foxes? | 15 | ········/˘···/˘ |
| That the foxes are robbing the Sacred Dragon and eating His | 16 | ··/˘·/˘·/˘/˘·/˘· |
| sucking-pig, | 3 | /˘· |
| Beneath the nine-fold depths of His pool, does He know or not? | 14 | ·············· |
Notes from the edition 1
Arthur Waley's notes to A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918; Project Gutenberg #42290).
- Stanza 2, line 8 Parody of a famous Han dynasty hymn. 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?
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