悯农·春种一粒粟
Sympathy for the Farmers: Sowing a Single Grain in Spring
Original
春种一粒粟，
秋收万颗子。
四海无闲田，
农夫犹饿死。
Translation
Spring sows a single grain of millet,
Autumn reaps ten thousand seeds full.
Across the land, no field lies fallow,
Yet farmers still die of hunger.
Line by Line Analysis
About This Poem
Sympathy for the Farmers: Sowing a Single Grain in Spring Spring sows a single grain of millet, Autumn reaps ten thousand seeds full. Across the land, no field lies fallow, Yet farmers still die of hunger. Written in the mid-Tang Dynasty, this poem emerges against a backdrop of severe land annexation and extreme social inequality. The verse uses a stark, jarring contrast between the bountiful harvest brought by farmers’ relentless hard work and their tragic fate of starvation to lay bare the systemic injustice of the time. It encapsulates the profound empathy the poet holds for the rural working class, condemning the exploitation that allows those who produce all society’s food to suffer from hunger, while calling urgent attention to the widening gap between the privileged elite and marginalized peasants.
About the Poet
李绅
Lǐ Shēn
Li Shen (772-846) was a prominent poet and official of the mid-Tang Dynasty in China. As a core member of the New Yuefu Movement, he dedicated much of his literary career to portraying the harsh realities faced by rural peasants. Despite holding various official positions throughout his life, he never lost sight of the struggles of the working class. His poetic style is characterized by plain, unadorned language that conveys profound empathy, with works that carry sharp, targeted social criticism to expose inequality and injustice.
Cultural & Historical Context
1. Historical Background: The mid-Tang Dynasty witnessed the decline of central imperial power, with powerful local warlords and wealthy landowners seizing large tracts of farmland, leaving most peasants with little or no land to cultivate, forcing them to become tenant farmers under oppressive terms. 2. Cultural Background: Li Shen was a key figure in the New Yuefu Movement, a literary movement that advocated for poetry to reflect real social issues, breaking away from the ornate, romanticized style of earlier Tang poetry and reviving the tradition of "poetry as social criticism. 3. Social Background: Rural peasants faced crippling land taxes, exorbitant rents, and frequent natural disasters, leading to widespread poverty and starvation even during years of abundant harvests, as most of the produce was seized by landlords or the government. 4. Personal Experience: Born into a once-prominent official family that fell into decline after his father’s death, Li Shen endured poverty in his youth. He traveled extensively through rural regions, where he directly witnessed the backbreaking toil and desperate suffering of farmers, which deeply shaped his sense of social responsibility. 5. Writing Purpose & Artistic Features: The poem aims to awaken the ruling class’s awareness of peasants’ dire plight and urge meaningful social reform. Its artistic strength lies in its simple, vivid imagery and dramatic contrast between agricultural abundance and human deprivation, using plain, straightforward language that cuts through to the core of social injustice, making its message accessible and emotionally resonant for readers across all classes.