CHU CH'EN VILLAGE (A.D. 811)

Through this beautiful prose, Po Chu-i writes of simple villagers living an ideal, uncomplicated life.

Title: CHU CH'EN VILLAGE (A.D. 811)
Poet: Po Chu-i
More Translations From The Chinese

"In Hsii-chou, in the District of Ku-feng

There lies a village whose name is Chu-ch'en ―

A hundred miles away from the county-town,

Amid fields of hemp and green of mulberry-trees.

Click, click goes the sound of the spinning-wheel;

Mules and oxen pack the village-streets.

The girls go drawing the water from the brook;

The men go gathering fire-wood on the hill.

So far from the town Government affairs are few;

So deep in the hills, man's ways are simple.

Though they have wealth, they do not traffic with it;

Though they reach the age, they do not enter the Army.

Each family keeps to its village trade;

Grey-headed, they have never left the gates.

Alive, they are the people of Ch'en Village;

Dead, they become the dust of Ch'en Village.

Out in the fields old men and young

Gaze gladly, each in the other's face.

In the whole village there are only two clans;

Age after age Chus have married Ch'ens.

Near or distant, they have kinsmen in every house;

Young or old, they have friends
wherever they go.

On white wine and roasted fowl they fare

At joyful meetings more than " once a week."

While they are alive, they have no distant partings;

To choose a wife they go to a neighbour's house.

When they are dead,― no distant burial;

Round the village graves lie thick.

They are not troubled either about life or death;

They have no anguish either of body or soul.

And so it happens that they live to a ripe age

And great-great-grandsons are often seen."