The Happy Farmer

After a hectic few months of travel around China and other places in Asia it is pleasant to be back in the autumn sunshine at my small farm in Spain.

The trees are heavy with almonds, olives and carobs and life goes on at its traditional relaxed country pace. There is good wine and coffee to drink and fruit and vegetables in abundance together with fresh baked bread.

A Tang Dynasty (618-907)poet, Chu Kwang-hi (in Wades Giles spelling), wrote a poem “The Happy Farmer.” This was translated into English by Charles Budd and appeared in his book Chinese Poems, published in 1912. At the time he worked in the Tung Wen Kwan Translation Office in Shanghai.

I´ve a hundred mulberry trees
And thirty ´mow´of grain,
With sufficient food and clothes,
And friends my wine to drain.

The fragrant grain of ´Ku-mi” seed
Provides our Summer fare;
Our Autumn brew of aster wine
Is rich beyond compare.

My goodwife comes with smiling face
To welcome all our guests;
My children run with willing feet
To carry my behests.

When work is done and evening come,
We saunter to the park,
And there, ´neath elm and willow trees
We´re blithe as soaring lark.

With wine and song the hours fly by
Till each in cloudland roams,
And then, content with all the word,
We wander to our homes.

Through lattice-window steals a breeze,
As on my couch I lie,
While overhead the ´Silver Stream´
Flows through a splendid sky.

And as I gaze it comes to mind –
A dozen jars at least
Of the aster-scented wine remain
To grace tomorrow´s feast.

The Mulberry trees would have provided food for silk worms. Chinese aster is a flower, Callistephus Chinensi, obviously used to flavour wine – probably rice wine. The “Silver Stream” is the Milky Way is the great arc of stars and dust seen in the night sky. Does anyone know what “Ku Mi seed” is? How much area in modern terms is “Thirty Mow”? What is the name of the author in Pinyin?

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©Phillip Bruce 2009