故国三千里,深宫二十年。一声河满子,双泪落君前。 · A lady of the palace these twenty years,| She has lived here a thousand miles from her home - | Yet ask her for this song,and with the first few words of it,| See how she tries to hold back her tears.· Homesick a thousand miles away,| Shut in a deep palace twenty years. | Singing the dying swan's sweet lay,| O how can she hold back her tears! (Zhang Hu [c.785-c. 852]: “In the Harem”) |