A young girl, only eleven,
leaves home to serve her in-laws.
How could she know how it feels to be a wife?
It's like calling her elder brother, “Husband.”
The two young people feel bashful with each other;
they try to speak, but can only mumble.
Father-in-law sends her to the women's quarters
to embroider some new ornaments.
Mother-in-law gives her all kinds of awful jobs,
and sends her to the kitchen, knife in hand.
She tries dicing meat, but can't cut perfect cubes:
instead, she serves up ugly chunks on the tray.
She tries making soup, but gets the spicing wrong,
failing to distinguish “sour” and “hot.”
Cutting firewood, she tears her soft hands;
tending the fires, the skin on her fingers
wrinkles and dries.
Father-in-law says, “She's still young—
we must be patient in teaching her.”
Mother-in-law says, “If she can't be taught when young,
who'll be able to handle her when she's grown up?
Haughty and proud, she'll take advantage of us
when we're old and decrepit.
Arrogant and lewd, she'll drive our son to his knees!”
So today, she curses and scolds her,
and the next day has her whipped and beaten.
After five days of this, the girl has no untorn clothes
to wear;
after ten days, even her skin is completely torn.
Facing the wall, she moans and weeps,
with sounds of sobbing and bitter sighs.
Mother-in-law says, “You're casting spells!
Bring the stick! Bring the knife and saw!
Your flesh can still be cut—
you're pretty chubby, not too skinny at all!
You still have hair on your head—
we'll pull it all out so your head looks like a gourd!
I can't live in the same life as you,
if you live, then my life is done!”
The old witch glares in anger
as if she's about to slaughter her.
And the husband?—He watches a while,
then joins in and shouts, “Have you no shame?”
Father-in-law tries to calm down his wife,
and gets yelled at himself: “You stupid old slave!”
The neighbors try to find out what's going on,
and they're yelled at too: “None of your business!”
Oh, this poor, poor girl from an impoverished family:
why doesn't she just jump into the river?
She can become a meal for the fish and turtles,
and escape this terrible suffering.
Oh, how cruel of heaven to allow this evil!
and to hear nothing of her cries.
A girl who becomes a young wife in this world
will suffer pain and unjust accusation.
Better to be a cow, a sheep or a pig:
you eat your fill—then one cut of the knife ends it all.
When her parents visit,
she wipes her tears and pretends that she is happy.
When her brothers visit,
she bears the pain, and says, “Mother-in-law is exhausted.”
Her scars she covers with tattered clothes,
her bald head she explains as illness.
If she said a single word against mother-in-law
her life would end in a minute.