Original text:
Building a house is human, and there are no horses and chariots.
What can you do? The heart is far from being self-centered.
Picking chrysanthemums under the east fence, you can see Nanshan leisurely.
The mountains are getting better and better, and the birds are back.
That makes sense. I forgot what I wanted to say.
Vernacular translation:
Living in the world, there is no noise of horses and chariots. Ask me why I can do this. As long as you aim high, you will naturally feel your place is secluded. Picking chrysanthemums under the east fence, leisurely, Nanshan in the distance comes into view. The smell in the mountains and the scenery in the evening are very good, and birds come back with their companions. It contains the true meaning of life. I want to identify it, but I don't know how to express it
This article is from Drinking Five by Tao Yuanming in Wei and Jin Dynasties.
Extended data writing background:
Tao Yuanming's drinking is not a drunken pastime, but the poet's dissatisfaction with reality and love for rural life on the topic of drinking, in order to escape persecution through drunkenness in a very sinister environment at that time. In his twentieth poem, he wrote, "But if you hate many fallacies, be lenient with others", which shows his good intentions.
Tao Yuanming's era is the era of gentry. Political darkness, official corruption, easy to be killed. He felt the coldness of the world and the hardships of life, but he didn't want to bow down for five buckets of rice. Finally, in the first year of Yixi (405), at the age of 41, he was ordered by Pengze to rest for more than 80 days, abandoned his official position, and returned to the garden for a long time. He stopped being an official and took charge of Lei Ji himself.
Due to the long-term social division and turmoil, coupled with the extravagance of the rulers, many literati who dared to criticize state affairs were killed innocently. Therefore, the literati at that time did not dare to talk about politics, and all they did was to avoid politics. Some of them express that they have no political ambitions by traveling, retiring from official positions, drinking too much and talking openly about metaphysics, so as not to be suspected by the rulers and cause personal injury.
The abnormal social atmosphere caused by this unpredictable dark reality cannot but affect Tao Yuanming, who was born in a ruined aristocratic family. From the time he first offered wine in Jiangzhou at the age of 29 to the time he went to Peng at the age of 4 1, he lived in seclusion several times before and after. In fact, he was an official for less than three years, and the ideal spark was fleeting in the dark reality. So he accused the dark society in intoxicating language, exposed the political crisis, and despised hypocrisy and secularism.