黃衣小使錄姓名，領出長安乘遞行。
身被金創面多瘠，扶病徒行日一驛。
The Son of Heaven took pity on them and would not have them slain. He sent them away to the south-east, to the lands of Wu and Yüeh. A petty officer in a yellow coat took down their names and surnames: They were led from the city of Ch’ang-an under escort of an armed guard. Their bodies were covered with the wounds of arrows, their bones
朝餐飢渴費杯盤，夜臥腥臊汚牀席。
忽逢江水憶交河，垂手齊聲嗚咽歌。
stood out from their cheeks. They had grown so weak they could only march a single stage a day. In the morning they must satisfy hunger and thirst with neither plate nor cup: At night they must lie in their dirt and rags on beds that stank with filth.
其中一虜語諸虜，爾苦非多我苦多。
同伴行人因借問，欲說喉中氣憤憤。
Suddenly they came to the Yangtze River and remembered the waters of Chiao.[55] With lowered hands and levelled voices they sobbed a muffled song. Then one Tartar lifted up his voice and spoke to the other Tartars, “_Your_ sorrows are none at all compared with _my_ sorrows.” Those that were with him in the same band asked to hear his tale:
自云鄉管本涼原，大曆年中沒落蕃。
一落蕃中四十載，遣著皮裘繫毛帶。
As he tried to speak the words were choked by anger. He told them “I was born and bred in the town of Liang-yüan.[56] In the frontier wars of Ta-li[57] I fell into the Tartars’ hands. Since the days the Tartars took me alive forty years have passed: They put me into a coat of skins tied with a belt of rope. Only on the first of the first month might I wear my Chinese dress.
唯許正朝服漢儀，斂衣整巾潛淚垂。
誓心密定歸鄉計，不使蕃中妻子知。
As I put on my coat and arranged my cap, how fast the tears flowed! I made in my heart a secret vow I would find a way home: I hid my plan from my Tartar wife and the children she had borne me in the land. I thought to myself, ‘It is well for me that my limbs are still strong,’
暗思幸有殘筋力，更恐年衰歸不得。
蕃候嚴兵鳥不飛，脫身冒死奔逃歸。
And yet, being old, in my heart I feared I should never live to return. The Tartar chieftains shoot so well that the birds are afraid to fly: From the risk of their arrows I escaped alive and fled swiftly home. Hiding all day and walking all night, I crossed the Great Desert:[58]
晝伏宵行經大漠，雲陰月黑風沙惡。
驚藏青冢寒草疎，偷渡黃河夜冰薄。
Where clouds are dark and the moon black and the sands eddy in the wind. Frightened, I sheltered at the Green Grave,[59] where the frozen grasses are few: Stealthily I crossed the Yellow River, at night, on the thin ice, Suddenly I heard Han[60] drums and the sound of soldiers coming:
忽聞漢軍鼙鼓聲，路傍走出再拜迎。
游騎不聽能漢語，將軍遂縛作蕃生。
I went to meet them at the road-side, bowing to them as they came. But the moving horsemen did not hear that I spoke the Han tongue: Their Captain took me for a Tartar born and had me bound in chains. They are sending me away to the south-east, to a low and swampy land: No one now will take pity on me: resistance is all in vain.
配向東南卑濕地，定無存卹空防備。
念此吞聲仰訴天，若爲辛苦度殘年。
Thinking of this, my voice chokes and I ask of Heaven above, Was I spared from death only to spend the rest of my years in sorrow? My native village of Liang-yüan I shall not see again: My wife and children in the Tartars’ land I have fruitlessly deserted.
涼原鄉井不得見，胡地妻兒虛棄捐。
沒蕃被囚思漢土，歸漢被劫爲蕃虜。
When I fell among Tartars and was taken prisoner, I pined for the land of Han: Now that I am back in the land of Han, they have turned me into a Tartar. Had I but known what my fate would be, I would not have started home!
早知如此悔歸來，兩地寧如一處苦。
縛戎人，戎人之中我苦辛。
For the two lands, so wide apart, are alike in the sorrow they bring. Tartar prisoners in chains! Of all the sorrows of all the prisoners mine is the hardest to bear! Never in the world has so great a wrong befallen the lot of man,-- A Han heart and a Han tongue set in the body of a Turk.”
自古此冤應未有，漢心漢語吐蕃身。
upon the Khan of the Hsiung-nu as a mark of Imperial regard” (Giles). Hers was the only grave in this desolate district on which grass would grow.