From Fan Zhongyan's Yueyang Tower
Excerpts from the original text:
Hey, honey! Is it to taste the heart of the ancient benevolent, or to do something different? Don't be happy with things, don't be sad with yourself; If you live high in a temple, you will worry about your people; If you stay away from the Jianghu, you will worry about your husband. It's worrying about going in and going out. But when will you be happy? It must be said, "worry about the world first, and then enjoy the world." Hey! Wes, who are we going home with?
Translation:
Alas! I have also discussed the thoughts and feelings of ancient virtuous people before, which may be different from the above two kinds of people. Why? It is because you are not happy or sad because of the quality of foreign objects and your own gains and losses. When he was an official in the imperial court, he was concerned with the people; If you are not an official in the Jianghu, you are worried about the monarch.
In this way, I am worried about being an official in the imperial court, and I am also worried about being in a remote Jianghu. In this case, when will they feel happy? They will definitely say, "Worry about the world first, and enjoy the world later." Alas! Without such a person, who am I with?
Extended data:
Creative background:
This article was written in Li Qing for six years (1046). Fan Zhongyan lived in the era of internal troubles and foreign invasion in the Northern Song Dynasty, and the internal class contradictions became increasingly prominent, eyeing the foreign Khitan and Xixia. In order to consolidate the political power and improve this situation, the political group headed by Fan Zhongyan began to carry out reforms, which was later called the "Qingli New Deal".
However, the reform violated the interests of the feudal big landlord class conservatives and was strongly opposed by them. The emperor's determination to reform was not firm. Under the oppression of the conservative bureaucratic group headed by Queen Ether, the reform ended in failure. After the failure of the "Qingli New Deal", Fan Zhongyan offended the Prime Minister Lv Yijian, and Fan Zhongyan was relegated to Dengzhou, Henan. This article is about Dengzhou, not Yueyang Tower.
References:
Yueyang tower-Baidu encyclopedia