Commiseration for the Peasants

Introducion:

Here the poet plainly paints two pictures of contrast: one is a wide tract of grain field, in which the peasants are laboring in the scorching sun, beads of sweat dripping into the soil from their faces.   

 

Text:

Mǐn Nóng

悯    农

李绅(唐)

 

Chú hé  rì dāng wǔ ， hàn dī  hé  xià tǔ 。

锄   禾 日 当   午 ， 汗  滴 禾 下  土。

Shuí zhī pán zhōng cān ，lì   lì   jiē xīn kǔ 。

谁    知   盘     中     餐 ，粒粒 皆 辛苦。

 

Commiseration for the Peasants

Li Shen (Tang)

 

At noontide the peasants weed the fields of crops,

Their sweats into the soil fall in endless drops.

But from the table bowl, who can ever know,

How all the grains from the peasants' labor grow?

 

Comment:

 

Here the poet plainly paints two pictures of contrast: one is a wide tract of grain field, in which the peasants are laboring in the scorching sun, beads of sweat dripping into the soil from their faces. Another is a dinner table, around which people enjoy eating white rice from their bowls. With the question in the third line, the poet prompts people to think of the toiling peasants in the fields when they are dining so that they will have the basic moral sense of respecting the work and labor fruit of others.