Return to Nature IV
- Poetry of Tao Yuanming

《归园田居五首 · 其四》

English Rendering

Having long left hills and streams, how

I love to roam in woody place!

Coming with sons and nephews, now

Through hazels I see ruined trace.

I pace up and down on waste land

And find debris of dwellers old.

Marks of old wells and stoves still stand,

Dead branches are left in the cold.

I ask a woodman passing by,

If he knows who lived here before.

The woodman answers with a sigh,

"They are all dead and gone, no more."

Thirty years passed in town and court.

Everything has changed, it is true.

Life is a vision fair and short;

All will vanish into the blue.

Return to Nature IV by Tao Yuanming
Return to Nature IV by Tao Yuanming

Original Text (中文原文)

久去山泽游,浪莽林野娱。

试携子侄辈,披榛步荒墟。

徘徊丘垄间,依依昔人居。

井灶有遗处,桑竹残杇株。

借问采薪者,此人皆焉如?

薪者向我言,死没无复余。

一世异朝市,此语真不虚。

人生似幻化,终当归空无。

Analysis & Context

Composed around 405 CE, this fourth poem in Tao Yuanming's "Returning to Dwell in Gardens and Fields" series reflects the poet's matured perspective after sustained reclusion. Through a journey with younger family members to abandoned ruins, Tao contemplates historical transitions and life's impermanence. While containing elegiac tones for the departed, the work ultimately reveals his philosophical understanding of life's illusory nature and ultimate return to emptiness—expressed with deceptively simple language that radiates profound wisdom.

Reader's Companion

The Essence of the Verse

Classical Chinese poetry thrives on Concision and Ambiguity. Without tense or number, the words create a timeless space where the reader becomes the co-creator of the poem's meaning.

Reading Between the Lines

Look for Contrasts: light and shadow, movement and stillness. Don't just translate the words; feel the Yijing (artistic conception) that lingers long after the last character.

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