Returning to the Garden and Living in the Fields (Part 3)
Tao Yuanming's "Returning to the Garden and Living in the Fields" has five poems in one poem, and this is the third of them. On the surface, this poem is about the joy of pastoral labor and the idea of ??retreating to the mountains and forests; but comparing this poem with other poems, the author's "wish" actually has a special connotation.
At the foot of the southern mountain where beans are planted, there are few bean seedlings in the grass.
These two sentences are written about planting beans at the foot of Nanshan. The grass is lush but the bean seedlings are sparse. The sentence starts very plainly, like an old farmer standing there talking, which makes people feel very friendly.
In the morning, I clean up the wasteland and filth, and return with a hoe in the moonlight.
In order to prevent the bean fields from becoming barren, the poet went to the fields early in the morning and came back in the evening under the moonlight. Although it is very hard, he does not complain, which can be seen from the beautiful scenery of "Returning to Hoe with Moon Lotuses".
The road is narrow, the grass and trees are long, and the evening dew touches my clothes.
I don’t regret the stain on my clothes, but my wishes are fulfilled.
The road is narrow, the grass is long, and the dew stains your clothes, but what’s the pity if your clothes get wet? This sentence seems plain, but this plainness exactly reflects the last sentence, "But my wish will not go against me", which makes "My wish will not go against me" fully emphasized. The "wish" here also implies not to lose yourself in the dirty real world.
The language of this poem is very plain and natural. "Beans are planted at the foot of the southern mountain" and "Evening dew touches my clothes" are as simple as being spoken casually without any modification. This natural and plain verse is integrated into the mellow artistic conception of the whole poem, which elevates the spoken language to poetry, harmoniously unifying the plainness of the spoken language and the mellowness of the poetry, forming the plain and mellow artistic characteristics of Tao's poetry.
Tao's poems are both plain and full of interest. The interest of Tao's poems comes from freehand brushwork. "Returning from hoeing with a moon load", although the poet returning from labor is alone, he is accompanied by a bright moon. The poet under the moon carries a hoe on his shoulder and walks through the waist-deep grass. What a beautiful picture of returning to farming on a moonlit night! It is filled with the poet's joyful mood and pride of retreat.
"Growing beans at the foot of the southern mountain" is a plain sentence, and "returning with hoeing under the moonlight" is a beautiful sentence; the first sentence is true, and the second sentence is false. The whole poem complements each other with plainness and beauty, real scene and virtual scene, soft and perfect.