鸡
[清]袁枚
养鸡纵[1]鸡食，
鸡肥乃烹之。
主人计自佳，
不可使鸡知。
注释：
[1]纵：放纵，任凭。
The Chickens
Yuan Mei
The chickens eat their fill;
They’re boiled when fat they grow.
The feeder’s wise and will;
Not let the chickens know.
“Chicken” is a five-character quatrain written by Yuan Mei, a poet in the Qing Dynasty. This poem describes a chicken farmer who lets his chickens eat as much as they want, in order to fatten them up so that they can be killed. This plan is of course very clever, but the chickens must not know what he is doing. It contains a satire on the owner’s sinister “deep heart” and a pity for the chickens’ ignorance and misery. The poem conveys a deep understanding of interpersonal relationships in feudal society and contains a profound philosophy of life.
