The dragon of the black pool

Deep are the waters of the black pool and

Inkcolored. It’s said, a very holy dragon

Lives here. No human eye

Has ever seen it, but near the pool

They have built a shrine and the authorities

Have set up a ritual. A dragon

Remains perhaps a dragon, but humankind

Can make a god out of it. The villagers

Consider good harvests and failures,

Swarms of locusts and Imperial commissions,

Excise taxes and epidemics as sent by the very holy dragon. All

Offer it little shoats and jugs with wine, according to the counsel

Of one among them, who has second sight.

He ordains the morning prayers too and the

Festive evening hymns.

Welcome be thou, dragon, full of gifts!

Hail to thee in the victor’s wreath

Liberator of the nation, thou

Art chosen among the dragons and chosen is

Among all wine the wine of offering.

Bits of meat lie upon the stones around the pool.

The grass before the shrine is stained with wine.

I know not, how many of its offering gifts

The dragon eats. But the mice of the woods

And the foxes of the hills are continually drunken and overfed.

Why are the foxes so happy?

What have the little shoats done?

That they should be slaughtered year after year, only

To lordify these foxes? The very holy dragon

In the ninefold deeps of its pool, is it ware

That the foxes rob it and eat its little shoats

Or is it not ware?

Po Chü-i
tr. from Bertolt Brecht