Help please

  • Noor
    12 years ago

    Hello.. help please in this poems. I don't understand it very well. I want your opinions in this poem please. I want somebody help me especially from line 17 to 24. What is a metafore in this line?

    From early days I have been at odds with world;
    My instinctive love is hills and mountains.
    By mischance I fell into the dusty net
    And was thirteen years away from home.
    The migrant bird longs for its native grove.
    The fish in the pond recalls the former depths.
    Now I have cleared some land to the south of town,
    Simplicity intact, I have returned to farm.
    The land I own amounts to a couple of acres
    The thatched-roof house has four or five rooms.
    Elms and willows shade the eaves in back,
    Peach and plum stretch out before the hall.
    Distant villages are lost in haze,
    Above the houses smoke hangs in the air.
    A dog is barking somewhere in the hidden lane,
    A cock crow from the top of a mulberry tree.
    My home remains unsoiled by worldly dust
    Within bare rooms I have my peach of mind.
    For long I was a prisoner in a cage
    And now I have my freedom back again.

    II.

    Here in the country human contacts are few
    On this narrow lane carriages seldom come.
    In broad daylight I keep my rustic gate closed,
    From the bare rooms all dusty thoughts are banned.
    From time to time through the tall grass
    Like me, village farmers come and go;
    When we meet we talk of nothing else
    Than how the hemp and mulberry are growing.
    Hemp and mulberry grow longer every day
    Every day the fields I have plowed are wider;
    My constant worry is that frost may come
    And my crops will wither with the weeds.

  • Sylvia
    12 years ago

    Within bare rooms I have my peach of mind.

    I wonder if peach is supposed to be peace?

    To me it seems to be about a person that left home but has returned to that home and is saying it is unspoiled by issues of the world and he likes it that way and will work to keeping it unspoiled.

  • Sincuna
    12 years ago

    It's a poem by Tao Qian, called "Returning to the Farm to Dwell: five poems". (It may be found here: http://academic.reed.edu/chinese/courses/323/return2.html)

    You must understand that the author was raised in an aristocratic family and was even a slightly county magistrate. However, he was a Daoist who had a completely spiritual affection with nature and that becomes the theme of this poem. He left the official post after serving for around 12 years and retired at a farming village where he then settled with his wife and children. He became happier with the simple life he dearly loved (note: line 2) writing poetry and living the serene life around nature.

    lines 17-20 indicates his choice of living a simpler life outside the control of corporate society; the atmosphere of corruption and excessive formality. He speaks of somewhat a Marxist view of labor (although Tao Qian lived centuries before marx) as an alienating device. We look at people who are mentally/physically and even emotionally "owned" by their job/profession, and he likens this to being a prisoner. He expresses through those lines his acceptance and contentment with living as a farmer, enjoying poetry and wine, in the presence of his family.

    The early lines of part II expresses the satisfaction of solitude. It carries an eastern element to it in the outlook of being happy and content with what you have, what nature has to offer. It may be the same day every day (as lines 5-8 of part II indicates) but it is embraced. And the ending concludes the pindrop of worry as to having that peaceful feeling lose it's sting.

    Good luck with your work.