Sympathy for the Peasants
- Poetry of Yang Wanli

《悯农》

English Rendering

Rice clouds bring no rain—scant gold on the field,

Buckwheat's barren blooms frost too soon yield.

Resigned to starve through the year's last phase,

How bear an intercalary month's cruel maze?

Original Text (中文原文)

稻云不雨不多黄，荞麦空花早着霜。

已分忍饥度残岁，更堪岁里闰添长。

Analysis & Context

Composed in the second year of the Longxing era under Emperor Xiaozong of Song (1164 AD). That year coincided with an intercalary eleventh month, disrupting agricultural rhythms: rice struggled to ripen due to prolonged drought without rain, while buckwheat, though flowering, yielded no grain due to early frost. Yang Wanli, then returning from Hangzhou to Jishui in Jiangxi due to his father's critical illness, witnessed the devastated farmland and impoverished lives of peasants along the way. Deeply moved, he wrote this poem. Through depicting the agricultural plight before his eyes, the work expresses profound sympathy for the farmers' suffering and helplessness towards the injustice of the times.

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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