陈恭尹·《读秦纪》英译

谤声易弭怨难除，秦法虽严亦甚疏。

夜半桥边呼孺子，人间犹有未烧书。

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

Reading a Chronic of the Qin Dynasty

Chen Gongyn

Complains may be suppressed, grievances are hard to remove;¹

However harsh, the law of Qin was not free of loopholes.

At midnight a youngster² was called to a bridge;

There was extant in this world a military book.

1. Referring to the burning of classics in A.D. 213 by order of Qin Shihuang to suppress all opposition to centralization of feudal state power.

2. Referring to Zhang Liang, who later helped to exterminate the Qin Dynasty. At Xiapi he met an old man who had dropped a shoe under a bridge and asked him to put it on for him. Zhang did as he was told. The old man told Zhang to come and meet him at midnight. Twice Zhang was late. Finally when Zhang came to the bridge before the old man, the latter gave him a copy of The Patriarch Lü Shang’s Art of War (《太公兵法》).

（王晋熙、文殊 译）