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第11章 The Old Man Who Makes Harmonica

Whose harmonica is this that glistens so in the sun, How it looks like the wings of the dragonfly!

—Epigraph

Verse 1

In the valley surrounded by mountains

The sound of his hammer resonates through the silent fog

Making music that causes beads of dew to fall

And the maiden groves would halt their dancing steps in the wind

If so, just let this masculine resonance

Commence its marriage of love and beauty

On the plump belly of the lake in the plateau

Under the bright moonlight

Verse 2

His old and wrinkled hands

Are like the rivers in December on the plateau

Where flow the brown cadenzas

And the undulating sentiments

That in slow motion

Cut and shape the ancient brass more golden than gold

Verse 3

A fish swims across his hands, in its total freedom

Its two wings shaped in bronze-colored waves

He raises the reef higher and higher

And causes it to clash with the fish's golden scales

So that from his fairytale kingdom

A great many dragonflies would fly out

And cast their enchanting spell

Verse 4

The golden wings of the dragonflies will reverberate with loud resonance

Resonating in the vault of heaven

Resonating on the height of mountains above the ground

Resonating on the foreheads of men

Resonating on the lips of women

Resonating on the earrings of children

The golden wings of the dragonflies will reverberate with loud resonance

Resonating in the East

Resonating in the West

The resonance is meant for the Yellow people

The resonance is meant for the Black people

The resonance is meant for the White people

The resonance goes to the upper reaches

Of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River

And the resonance goes to the lower reaches

Of the Mississippi River

The resonance is the sound produced by the Yi people

From the time immemorial and

From the depths of their soul

Verse 5

As the moon rises from behind the mountain

And in an act of love stands rock-like on the hillock

Those dragonflies that linger affectionately

Those dragonflies that are busy and sweet

Perch on the bosoms of young maidens

And the silent trumpet flowers, all by themselves,

Breathe with their faces up toward the starry sky

Thanks to so many pairs of golden wings

LOVE can be here in this land for so long

Verse 6

If our land can hear no more of the fluttering of the golden wings

If our land is deprived of the echoes that invoke friendship

Then our world would be hushed in death-like silence

And our land would become a land of bleakness and desolation;

Nothing would be more hopeless

And more lamentable

Verse 7

Mankind is producing the proteins for life

Mankind is also producing the nuclear atoms for death

Picasso's doves of peace

Will fly parallel to the two wings of nuclear bombers

Ove the heads of human beings

Over plains

Over plateaus

Over rivers

Over nameless deep valleys

Our old harmonica-maker has created thousands of love affairs

And our old harmonica-maker has created thousands of sunny planets

Oh, look at the dragonflies with golden wings

How they are heading toward the homeland of all human races

Verse 8

He is bound to die someday, in obscurity,

Breathing his last breath for the sake of the immortal love

By that time a swarm of beautiful dragonflies

Will hover over his peaceful skull

Their wings sparkling with stunning golden light

And the Yi people so enamored of the chanting of songs

Will bear his dead body in the direction of

The eternal sun