A long time ago I went on a journey, Right to the corner Of the Eastern Ocean. The road there Was long and winding, And stormy waves Barred my path. What made me Go this way? Hunger drove me Into the World. I tried hard To fill my belly: And even a little Seemed a lot. But this was clearly A bad bargain, So I went home And lived in idleness.
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Confirmed with Arthur Waley, A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, London: Constable, 1918.
Text Authorship:
- by Arthur Waley (1889 - 1969), no title, appears in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in Chinese (中文) by T'ao Ch'ien (365 - 427) [text unavailable]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Blair Fairchild (1877 - 1933), "A bad bargain", published 1922 [ medium voice and piano ], from Songs from the Chinese, no. 8, Éd. Durand, also set in French (Français) [sung text not yet checked]
Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:
- Also set in French (Français), a translation by L. Lemierre ; composed by Blair Fairchild.
- Go to the text. [Note: the text is not in the database yet.]
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- Also set in Hungarian (Magyar), a translation by Dezső Kosztolányi (1885 - 1936) , "Vándorlegény" ; composed by Zoltán Horusitzky.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2021-10-17
Line count: 20
Word count: 71