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唐 Tang · 诗 Poem

农父

The Farmer

张碧

Zhang Bi

运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜。
到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子。

Hoe on shoulder, tilling the soil, he rises before the stars;
the fields are full, the whole house rejoices.
In the end the grain belongs to others —
who knows where he will cast his wife and children?
Listen

Meaning

The farmer rises before dawn to hoe and dig, and when the harvest fills the fields his whole family rejoices — yet in the end the grain belongs to someone else, and the family faces ruin and dispersion without even knowing where they will be scattered. In four lines the poem exposes the mid-Tang agrarian order in which the tiller's labor and its fruits are separated.

运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜。到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] The first couplet shows the labor and its apparent reward: the farmer rises before the stars, hoe in hand, and the full harvest brings joy to the whole household. The second couplet turns the knife: all that grain belongs to others, and the farmer's end is not prosperity but not knowing where wife and children will be cast adrift.
[Structure] The quatrain is built on a trap: the first couplet's 'the whole house rejoices' is exactly what the second couplet destroys. The phrase 'in the end' — after all that — is the hinge of the whole poem: everything hoped for, reversed in three words. The close is not an exclamation but a question ('who knows where...'), and that uncertainty is more desolate than any verdict.
[Imagery] The images are plain agricultural facts — hoe, digging, stars, field-ridges, millet — but arranged as a sequence of bitter irony: pre-dawn toil, abundant grain, rejoicing family, someone else's granary, scattered wife and children. No ornament, no scenic description: the plainness is the argument, and the argument is that the system, not the season, decides who eats.

【白话串讲】 张碧写《农父》：“运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜”——“到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子”——他写农父——到头禾黍属他人。 【意象与手法】 “运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜”写农父侵星耕作；“到头禾黍属他人”写禾黍属他人；结以“不知何处抛妻子”写抛妻子。沉痛悯农。 【情感与主旨】 张碧写农父之作，写农父侵星耕作而禾黍终属他人、不知何处抛妻儿的悲惨，是悯农讽喻诗中的名篇。 【名句点睛】 常考“运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜”写农父耕作；“到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子”写禾黍属他人。

Background

Zhang Bi (courtesy name Taibi, active around 805) was a mid-Tang poet from the Hebei region, a friend of Meng Jiao and known for an unbending, knight-errant temperament. His few surviving poems are marked by sharp social anger, and 'The Farmer' is his most famous. The poem belongs to the long 'pity-the-farmer' line running from Li Shen's 'The peasants' trousers are patched at the knee' through Bai Juyi's 'The Old Charcoal Seller' to this quatrain's concentrated indictment. Though little of Zhang Bi's life is recorded, the poem's voice — plain, indignant, unsparing — fits the tradition of mid-Tang moral protest: after the An Lushan rebellion, land concentration and crushing rents left tillers working land whose harvests belonged to others, and a poem of twenty-eight characters becomes a document of that injustice.

《农父》为唐代诗人张碧所作诗。张碧（约805年前后在世），字太碧，唐德宗时诗人，与孟郊友善。此诗写悯农讽喻，为悯农之作。诗中「运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜」写运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜；「到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子」写到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子。张碧此诗以悯农讽喻、不知何处抛妻子写其悯农之情，沉痛悯农，是张碧诗中的名篇。此篇《农父》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。此篇《农父》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。此篇《农父》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。

Art

The poem's craft is the art of the reversal. The first couplet is written in the farmer's own point of view — 'rises before the stars,' 'the whole house rejoices' — so that the reader is made to share the family's joy before the second couplet takes it away; the emotional whiplash is the poem's method. The diction is deliberately plain — 'hoe,' 'dig,' 'field-ridges,' 'millet' — refusing any poetic elevation, as if only flat words could state so flat a fact. The phrase 'in the end' does the structural work of a whole chapter: after a year of hope, three words close it. And the final question, 'who knows where he will cast his wife and children?' — instead of describing ruin, lets the family hang in uncertainty, which is the farmer's real condition under an arbitrary order. Restraint here is not politeness but precision: the poem indicts by refusing to comment.

此诗艺术上以「沉痛悯农、以农写情」见长。全诗共四句两联，由运锄耕劚侵星起而到头禾黍属他人。起「运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜」写运锄耕劚侵星起：运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜；结「到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子」写到头禾黍属他人：到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子。全诗以农写情，由运锄耕劚侵星起而不知何处抛妻子，沉痛悯农，是张碧诗中的名篇。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。

Allusions

The poem's references are to agrarian reality rather than literary texts. 'Rises before the stars' belongs to the classical register of pre-dawn toil — the Book of Songs already sings of farmers who 'rise with the stars' — and the 'field-ridges' (longmu) are the Songs' own word for cultivated land. 'Grain and millet' carries the weight of the dynastic record: in the Book of Songs, grain is the sign of a well-governed age, and in later poetry 'grain and millet' can signify the fate of a dynasty; here, 'the grain belongs to others' inverts the promise the age once made. 'Wife and children' casts the farmer not as a solitary laborer but as the head of a household whose ruin is collective — echoing the Songs of Chu and Han yuefu tradition in which the parting of families is the extreme of sorrow. The allusions are worn into the vocabulary so invisibly that the poem reads as pure testimony — its protest felt as fact.

诗中「运锄耕劚侵星起陇亩丰盈满家喜」「到头禾黍属他人不知何处抛妻子」等语，皆含典故故实。「运锄耕劚侵星起陇亩丰盈满家喜」写运锄耕劚侵星起陇亩丰盈满家喜；「到头禾黍属他人不知何处抛妻子」写到头禾黍属他人不知何处抛妻子。诗人以禾黍、妻子等语入诗，不着痕迹，而把悯农讽喻之情写得真切可感，是善于熔铸典故的体现。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。

Commentary

The quatrain is a classic of the 'pity-the-farmer' tradition, anthologized through the centuries and placed beside Li Shen's 'Sympathy for the Peasants' and Bai Juyi's 'The Old Charcoal Seller' as the mid-Tang conscience in verse. Critics note the structural coldness of the turn: the first couplet's 'the whole house rejoices' is deliberately written warmly so that 'in the end the grain belongs to others' can fall like an ax — a technique of ironic setup rare in so short a poem. Modern scholarship reads the poem as a compact witness to mid-Tang land concentration: the farmer who works before the stars ends with neither grain nor home, and the closing question — 'who knows where he will cast his wife and children?' — makes ruin not an event but a perpetual threat. For readers today, twenty-eight characters suffice to explain why the 'pity-the-farmer' tradition remained alive for a thousand years.

这首《农父》，是张碧写悯农讽喻之作，写运锄耕劚侵星起、到头禾黍属他人、不知何处抛妻子之情，沉痛悯农。起「运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜」——运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜。写运锄耕劚侵星起：运锄耕劚侵星起、陇亩丰盈满家喜——侵星起、满家喜；结「到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子」——到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子。写到头禾黍属他人：到头禾黍属他人、不知何处抛妻子——属他人、抛妻子。这「到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子」，是全诗之结：以不知何处抛妻子写其悯农。全诗沉痛悯农，以农写情，正是张碧诗中的名篇。综观全诗，情真、景切、理深，三者浑融无迹，故能于短短数语之中寄无限深意，令人百读不厌。其含蓄蕴藉之处，正是中国古典诗歌以少总多、言有尽而意无穷的美学精神的生动体现。综观全诗，情真、景切、理深，三者浑融无迹，故能于短短数语之中寄无限深意，令人百读不厌。其含蓄蕴藉之处，正是中国古典诗歌以少总多、言有尽而意无穷的美学精神的生动体现。

Prosody

Form Seven-character quatrain (qiyan jueju)诗（七言绝句）
Rhyme The rhymes fall on xi 'rejoice' and zi 'children' — both oblique-tone finals in the zhi group (the 'Paper' rhyme section); oblique rhymes in a jueju are unusual and give the poem a compressed, pointed, unmusical close, as though the case it states admits no song.此诗为七言绝句，共四句两联。押韵：「喜」「子」押纸部韵。前两句起、后两句转合，平仄相间，正与写悯农讽喻的沉痛悯农相称，也见其以七绝写悯农的凝练。
Tone pattern The seven-character lines run heavy and flat — 'Hoe on shoulder, tilling the soil, he rises before the stars' ('rise before the stars' sets the labor down in low, weighted syllables) — and the second couplet sinks further into oblique tones, so that the poem's sound darkens as its argument turns; the close stops short, without a level-tone cadence to comfort the ear.句式上，「运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜」写运锄耕劚侵星起，音节沉实；结「到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子」写到头禾黍属他人，音节沉痛。全诗音节随情起伏，由沉实而沉痛，正合七绝「凝练」之妙，读来如悯农讽喻、不知何处抛妻子之音，沉痛而动人。
Reading note The poem's prosody serves its plainness: no ornament in diction, no smooth rhyme at the close, oblique rhymes that refuse to sing. Read it flat and factual — the first couplet in the farmer's own plain hope, the second in the flat statement of the reversal, the final question left hanging without emphasis, so that the poem ends like testimony rather than verse.此诗为七言绝句，是张碧写悯农讽喻之作，也是其诗中的名篇。全诗的艺术特色在于「沉痛悯农、以农写情」：「运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜」写运锄耕劚侵星起、「到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子」写到头禾黍属他人。全诗沉痛悯农，以农写情。尤为精妙者，是「运锄耕劚侵星起」写尽侵星起；而「不知何处抛妻子」写尽抛妻子之情，正是张碧诗「沉痛悯农」的典范，为历代选本所常收。《农父》一诗之所以读来声情并茂，正在于诗人以声韵配合情思、以节奏烘托意境，音节之长短、平仄之起伏，皆与诗意相为表里，此亦可见中国古典诗歌声律之美与匠心之工。

Line by line

运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜。

Hoe on shoulder, tilling the soil, he rises before the stars; the fields are full and the whole house rejoices.

运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜。

He takes up the hoe and plows, rising before the stars; when the fields are rich, the whole house is glad.

起句写运锄耕劚侵星起，起笔即见其锄。「运锄耕劚侵星起」写运锄耕劚侵星起，「运锄耕劚」写运锄耕劚、「侵星起」写侵星起；「陇亩丰盈满家喜」写陇亩丰盈满家喜，「陇亩丰盈」写陇亩丰盈、「满家喜」写满家喜。一句写运锄耕劚侵星起陇亩丰盈满家喜，以运锄耕劚侵星起写侵星起、以陇亩丰盈满家喜写满家喜，写尽运锄耕劚侵星起、陇亩丰盈满家喜之情。以锄起兴，沉痛而悯农，是「以锄起兴」的妙笔。

The opening line writes the farmer rising before the stars to plow. 'He takes up the hoe and plows, rising before the stars' — the hoe and the plow, rising before dawn; 'when the fields are rich, the whole house is glad' — the rich fields, the glad house. Rising through the hoe, bitter and compassionate, the start of the pity for the farmer.

到头禾黍属他人，

In the end, the grain belongs to someone else —

到头禾黍属他人，

At last, the grain and sorghum belong to another.

此句写到头禾黍属他人，是全诗写禾黍之态的关键。「到头禾黍」写到头禾黍，「到头」写到头、「禾黍」写禾黍；「属他人」写属他人，「属」写属、「他人」写他人。一句写到头禾黍属他人，以到头禾黍写禾黍、以属他人写属他人，写尽到头禾黍属他人之情。以黍写情，沉痛而悯农，是「以黍写情」的点睛之笔。此句以寥寥数语写尽深意，情韵兼胜，正是全诗点睛之笔。其于字句之间暗藏波澜，于平易之中寄寓曲折，尤当反复涵泳，方能得其三昧。

This line writes the grain at last belonging to another, the key image. 'At last, the grain and sorghum belong to another' — the long year's toil ending, the harvest not his own. Through the grain it writes the feeling, bitter and compassionate, the turning point: the toil of the stars-out rising, the gladness of the rich fields, all ending for another's granary.

不知何处抛妻子。

who knows where he will cast his wife and children?

不知何处抛妻子。

Who knows where he has thrown away his wife and children?

结句写不知何处抛妻子，是全诗立意的落点。「不知何处」写不知何处，「不知」写不知、「何处」写何处；「抛妻子」写抛妻子，「抛」写抛、「妻子」写妻子。一句写不知何处抛妻子，以不知何处写何处、以抛妻子写抛妻子，写尽不知何处抛妻子之情。以妻写情，沉痛而悯农，是全诗最动人处，也是「以妻写情」的点睛之笔。此句以寥寥数语写尽深意，情韵兼胜，正是全诗点睛之笔。其于字句之间暗藏波澜，于平易之中寄寓曲折，尤当反复涵泳，方能得其三昧。

The closing line writes he knows not where he has thrown away his wife and children, the poem's landing. 'Who knows where he has thrown away his wife and children?' — ruined at last, the family scattered, the farmer gone. Through the family it writes the feeling, bitter and compassionate, the poem's most moving point: the man who rose before the stars, whose fields grew rich, is at last a refugee, his wife and children cast away, nowhere to be found.

Study

Word focus

耕劚 Tilling and digging (geng zhu): a compound of hoeing and grubbing the soil — the hardest words of farm labor piled together, naming the farmer's pre-dawn work with no poetic softening; the double verb makes the toil itself the poem's first fact. 「耕劚」写运锄耕劚侵星起，是写耕劚之态的关键。「运锄耕劚侵星起」着一「耕劚」，写耕劚——着一「耕劚」，写运锄耕劚侵星起，见其劚之耕。两字写尽耕劚之态，是「以词写耕」的妙笔。「耕劚」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
陇亩 Field-ridges and plots (long mu): the classical word for farmland since the Book of Songs; 'the fields are full' is the sight of abundance that raises the family's hope — and that hope is precisely what the poem will destroy. 「陇亩」写陇亩丰盈满家喜，是写陇亩之态的关键。「陇亩丰盈满家喜」着一「陇亩」，写陇亩——着一「陇亩」，写陇亩丰盈满家喜，见其亩之陇。两字写尽陇亩之态，是「以词写田」的点睛之词。「陇亩」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
禾黍 Grain and millet (heshu): standing grain, the harvest itself, and in the classical register a word that can signify the fate of a dynasty; here 'the grain belongs to others' separates the fruit of a year's labor from the hands that grew it. 「禾黍」写到头禾黍属他人，是写禾黍之态的关键。「到头禾黍属他人」着一「禾黍」，写禾黍——着一「禾黍」，写到头禾黍属他人，见其黍之禾。两字写尽禾黍之态，是「以词写黍」的点睛之词。「禾黍」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
妻子 Wife and children (qizi): the household — the farmer is not a solitary laborer but the head of a family; that the ruin reaches 'wife and children' turns an economic injustice into a human catastrophe, and the closing question makes their dispersal the poem's final image. 「妻子」写不知何处抛妻子，是写妻子之态的关键。「不知何处抛妻子」着一「妻子」，写妻子——着一「妻子」，写不知何处抛妻子，见其子之妻。两字写尽妻子之态，是「以词写家」的点睛之词。「妻子」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。

Related Reading

水调歌头·明月几时有 Prelude to Water Melody: When Will the Moon Be Clear and Round? (Shuidiao Getou) 苏轼 · 同写悯农感怀、沉痛旷达，一写人有悲欢离合、一写到头禾黍属他人不知何处抛妻子，皆于悯农之中见沉痛 Two faces of hardship — one resigned and philosophical, one indignant and plain

Su Shi's 'Men have sorrow and joy, parting and reunion; the moon has its dark and clear, its waxing and waning — such has it ever been' accepts life's inequities with philosophical calm. Zhang Bi's 'In the end the grain belongs to others' gives the inequity no philosophy at all — only the farmer's scattered family. Read together: one is the consolation of letters, the other the cry of those the letters cannot console.

苏轼《水调歌头·明月几时有》「人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，此事古难全」，写悯农感怀、沉痛旷达，是宋词长调的名篇；张碧《农父》则以「到头禾黍属他人，不知何处抛妻子」「运锄耕劚侵星起」写抛妻子、侵星起。两诗同写悯农感怀、沉痛旷达：一写人有悲欢离合、以悲欢写离合，一写到头禾黍属他人不知何处抛妻子、以禾黍写悯农；一为苏轼之旷达、一为张碧之沉痛，并读正可见诗写「悯农感怀」的两种笔法，皆于悯农之中见沉痛。

 八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天 Eight Beats of the Song of Ganzhou: Facing the Dusk Rain over the River (Basheng Ganzhou) 柳永 · 同写田间凝望、沉痛清丽，一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、一写运锄耕劚侵星起陇亩丰盈满家喜，皆于田间之中见凝望 Two kinds of autumn looking — one the lyric poet's, one the farmer's

Liu Yong's 'Facing the dusk rain pouring over the river — a washing of clear autumn' turns the fields into a scene of lyrical melancholy. Zhang Bi's 'the fields are full, the whole house rejoices' sees the same fields as pure labor and its confiscation. One looks at the landscape, the other at who owns it — the same autumn, two irreconcilable visions.

柳永《八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天》「对潇潇暮雨洒江天，一番洗清秋」，写田间凝望、沉痛清丽，是宋词写羁旅的名篇；张碧《农父》则以「运锄耕劚侵星起，陇亩丰盈满家喜」「到头禾黍属他人」写满家喜、属他人。两诗同写田间凝望、沉痛清丽：一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、以暮雨写清秋，一写运锄耕劚侵星起陇亩丰盈满家喜、以陇亩写悯农；一为柳永之清丽、一为张碧之沉痛，并读正可见诗写「田间凝望」的两种笔法，皆于田间之中见凝望。