The Value of Doing Nothing: Living in the Country

COOL POEMS: Introduction > THE POEMS

Topic: The Value of Doing Nothing

Author: Xin Qiji (1140-1207)

Living in the Country

The roofs and eves are not high,
But the grass by the brook is green.
Who is getting tipsy with the charming country drawl?
A white-haired man and his wife.

Their eldest hoes beans by the brook;
Their second is weaving baskets for fowl,
I like the youngest with nothing to do
But pop lotus seeds while the brook flows by.

Comments: In this poem Xin hits upon a favorite theme, the dismissal of traditional moral strictures. In terms of genre the poem is a kind of pastoral, celebrating the simplicity of country life. Chinese pastorals are different from the European pastoral, however, which were often constructed from an aristocratic perspective. In China the farmer was the quintessential representative of the “min,” the “people,” citizens who paid taxes to the state, not some nobleman, and whose condition ultimately reflected the legitimacy of the political order.  This poem thus begins by aligning itself with a tradition of poems which have something to say about the national condition. The second stanza turns to the family, the children. The two elder kids are dutifully helping with farming chores, as farm children were supposed to do in China (or in Europe or, later, America as well). Xin, however, likes best the youngest who lies near the creek aimlessly popping lotus seeds and watching the water flow by. Of course not all educated men at that time would have agreed with Xin’s attitude, but this poem shows us that the range of opinion on such matters extended even as far as this.

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