Sweat dripped on the ground.
Who knows the Chinese food on the plate,
Every single grain is the fruit of hard work.
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
He: He Miao.
Chinese food on a plate: food in a bowl.
Modern Translation of Ancient Poetry
At noon, when farmers were weeding hard, sweat dripped into the soil under the ears of grain. Who knows that every meal on the plate is the hard work of farmers.
Appreciation of Famous Sentences-"Who knows that every grain of Chinese food is hard?"
At the beginning of the poem, I wrote about the hard work of farmers in the hot sun at noon, reminding people to cherish the fruits of farmers' labor. This poem expresses deep sympathy and respect for farmers. In a very rough style, the poet outlined a scene of working in the field: farmers are not avoiding the scorching sun, but working in a sweat, reminding people that every grain is hard to come by. This scene is very prominent in the poem, and it can also remind us that how many people are enjoying the fruits of farmers' labor in the shade? Those rich people's rich "meals on the plate" are just the sweat of farmers working hard in the wind and rain and under the scorching sun! This sharp contrast shows us the poet's sympathy for the peasants and his dissatisfaction with the unequal reality.