Lady Wen-Chi Has to Decide

Kidnapped from my father’s house,

forced to marry a Mongol chieftain

and bear his barbarian children,

I lived in tents, searched for food,

cooked over outdoor fires.

Now, fifteen years later, I’ve been ransomed.

Shall I saddle up, retrace the route

across steppes, rivers, deserts and mountains,

back across the Great Wall

to the home and parents I’ve longed for,

my books, parchment and settled life,

or remain with children I bore,

nursed, sang to, taught to walk—-

these children pulling at my clothes,

begging me not to leave?

 - Wilda Morris

Note: Lady Wen-Chi was born in China about 178 C.E.. At age 12, she was kidnapped by a Mongolian group called Hsiung-nu, taken to Inner Mongolia and forced to marry a tribal leader. When she first got pregnant, she wanted to commit suicide, but she found when her baby was born, she bonded with the child quickly. Fifteen years after her capture, she was ransomed, and did return to China. She expressed in poetry the pain of leaving her children behind, saying “I was grieved then by coming away, And now I hate returning.”