桃花庵歌
[明]唐寅
桃花坞里桃花庵，
桃花庵里桃花仙；
桃花仙人种桃树，
又摘桃花换酒钱。
酒醒只在花前坐，
酒醉还须花下眠；
半醉半醒日复日，
花落花开年复年。
但愿老死花酒间，
不愿鞠躬车马前；
车尘马足富者趣，
酒盏花枝贫者缘。
若将富贵比贫者，
一在平地一在天；
若将贫贱比车马，
他得驱驰我得闲。
别人笑我忒疯癫，
我笑他人看不穿；
不见五陵豪杰墓，
无花无酒锄作田！
Song of Peach Blossom Cottage
Tang Yin
In the Peach Blossom Land there is a peach blossom plot;
A peach blossom lover lives in Peach Blossom Cot.
The peach blossom lover plants peach trees in days fine;
He sells his peach blossoms for money to buy wine.
When he is not drunk, he would sit before the flowers;
He would lie beneath them to spend his drunken hours.
From day to day half-drunk, half-sober he’d appear;
The peach flowers blossom and fall from year to year.
I would grow old and die among flowers and wine,
Rather than bow before the steed and carriage fine.
The rich may love their dust-raising carriages and bowers;
The poor only enjoy their cup of wine and flowers.
If you compare the poor with the rich low and high,
You’ll find the one on earth, the other in the sky.
If you compare the poor with the carriage and steed,
The poor have leisure while the rich gallop with speed.
Others may pity me so foolish and so mad;
I laugh at them for those who can’t see through are sad.
Can you find where the tombs of gallant heroes stand?
Without flowers or wine they turn into ploughland.
“Song of Peach Blossom Cottage” is a seven-character ancient poem written by Tang Yin, a writer in the Ming Dynasty. In this poem, the poet compares himself to a peach blossom fairy, and uses “dying old among flowers and wine” and “bowing before carriages and horses” to represent two completely different lifestyles. He also uses the losses of wealth and poverty to form a sharp contrast, expressing his true heart with a vulgar and negative side in his ordinary reality, and a cynical spirit. The whole poem has clear levels and simple language, but it contains infinite artistic tension, giving people a continuous aesthetic enjoyment and a strong sense of identity.
