Li Shen
Flowers on the Spring River
Plant a millet in spring,
tangram
Harvest ten thousand seeds in autumn.
Xiwa Xiwa
There are no idle fields in the four seas,
nóng fìuèsè
The farmer is still hungry!
Author background
Li Shen (772-846) was a poet in Tang Dynasty. Gong Chui was born in Wuxi (now Wuxi, Jiangsu). He was an active participant in the new Yuefu movement and the earliest practitioner of creating new Yuefu poems, which was closely related to Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen.
Annotation explanation
Xiaomi: Xiaomi, peeled millet. This refers to the seeds of food crops.
Son: Xiaomi.
Four seas: within the country.
Idle land: idle and unused land.
Jude: Still so.
Modern Translation of Ancient Poetry
Sow a millet in spring and harvest 10 thousand grains in autumn. There is no barren land in the four seas, and farmers starve to death.
Appreciation of famous sentences
The poet vividly used "sowing" and "harvesting", and "one millet" turned into "10 thousand seeds" to describe farmers' labor; Moreover, all the land in the country has been reclaimed and there is no waste. It is conceivable that there are golden ears of grain and mountains of grain harvest everywhere. However, "four seas have no idle fields" shows the diligence and efforts of farmers, and the last sentence of the poem takes a sharp turn, revealing a cruel reality: the farmers who created a bumper harvest were starved to death. This huge contrast has formed a huge shock, forcing us to think deeply. Who caused the tragic fate of farmers? The poet used plain language to denounce the exploiter who got something for nothing, which made us realize the extreme injustice of the social system at that time.