1. Plant water chestnuts deep and shallow to plant rice, and neither deep nor shallow to plant lotus. ——Qing Dynasty: Ruan Yuan's "Wuxing Miscellaneous Poems".
Vernacular: Deep water is suitable for planting water chestnuts, shallow water is suitable for growing rice, and places that are neither deep nor shallow are suitable for growing lotus. This poem describes the situation of the working people in Jiangnan making full use of natural production.
2. The husband works hard and suffers from hunger, while the old woman works hard at weaving and has no clothes. ——Song Dynasty: Xu Zhao's "Chu Cui Ci".
Vernacular: The husband is working hard at farming, but he is still suffering from hunger. The old woman worked hard at weaving, but she always had nothing to wear. This sentence shows that despite the hard work of the working people, they still lack food and clothing.
3. There is no idle person in the farming month, and the whole family is devoted to the south. ——Tang Dynasty: Wang Wei's "Xin Qing Ambition".
Vernacular: During the busy farming season, there are no leisurely people. The whole family of farmers is busy working in the fields.
4. The beauties’ jewelry and their seals all come from the bottom of the waves in the sand. ——Tang Dynasty: Liu Yuxi's "Nine Poems on Langtaosha".
The gold jewelry of beauties and the gold seals of princes are all gold washed out from the sand of Langdi by the working people.
5. The Tian family’s autumn work is bitter, and the neighbor’s daughter is cold at night. ——Tang Dynasty: Li Bai's "Staying at Xun Ni's House at the foot of Wusong Mountain".
Vernacular text: Farmers are even busier with autumn work. The woman next door is pounding rice all night long, not afraid of the cold autumn night.