A rule of forty years;
A kingdom of a thousand miles;
The princely pavilions that rose to lofty heights;
And the jade trees and bushes
intertwined in a misty net -
All these had never known the clash of arms.
Now, captured and enslaved,
My limbs grow frail and my temples grey.
I shall never forget the hurried departure
from the ancestral altar
When the court musicians were playing a song of farewell
And my eyes, imbued with tears, gazed at my maids.
