Bai Juyi's Poems Describing Wild Solar Terms

Bai Juyi

The Tian family has less leisure in the month, and people are twice as busy in May.

In the evening, the south wind rises and the wheat turns yellow.

A woman's husband is hungry and her child is pregnant with pot pulp.

Go with Tian Xiang. Ding Zhuang is in Nangang.

Summer is steaming and rustic, and the back is burning.

I don't know about the heat, but I regret the long summer.

Another poor woman, holding her son,

Grab the ear with your right hand and hang the basket with your left arm.

Listening to his words of concern is very sad.

My family's taxes are gone, so I can take this to satisfy my hunger.

Today, I have no merit, and I have never worked in farming and mulberry.

There are three hundred stones in the land, and there is surplus food at the age of eight.

I am ashamed to read this in private, and I can't forget it every day.

Translation:

Farmers seldom have free months. When May comes, people are busier. At night, the south wind blew, and the wheat covered on the ridge was ripe and yellow. Women carry vegetables in bamboo baskets, children carry water slurry in pots, and follow each other to deliver meals in the fields. The men who collect wheat are all in Nangang. Their feet were smoked by the heat of the ground and their backs were basking in the hot sun. Tired as if I didn't know it was hot, I just cherished the long summer.

I saw a poor woman standing beside the wheat harvester with her child in her arms, picking up the left ear of wheat in her right hand and hanging a broken basket on her left arm. Listening to her look at others, everyone who hears her feels sorry for her. Because of paying rent and taxes, all the fields at home have been sold out, so we have to pick up some ears of wheat to satisfy our hunger. I have no merit, but I don't have to farm and raise silkworms. Get a salary of 300 stone meters a year, and there will be surplus food at the end of the year. I feel ashamed to think of these things, and I can't forget them all day. ?

Looking at mowing wheat was written from the first year of Yuanhe (806) to the second year of Yuanhe (807). It is a poem written by Bai Juyi when he was appointed as a county magistrate in Kun County, Shaanxi Province (now zhouzhi county, Shaanxi Province), which felt that the local people were working hard and living in poverty. This is a famous satirical poem written by the author in his early days. The county commandant is responsible for catching thieves and collecting taxes in the county. Because Bai Juyi is in charge of this matter, he knows best the disasters suffered by the working people in this respect.