What kind of picture emerges when children and grandchildren learn to plant melons in mulberry shade before they can solve the problem of farming and weaving

Picture: Peasant children learn to grow fruits and vegetables under mulberry trees.

It is from Fan Chengda's "Four Seasons of Pastoral Miscellaneous Prosperity, Farming in the Day and Performing Hemp at Night" in the Southern Song Dynasty. The original text:

Farming in the Day and Performing Hemp at Night, the children in the village are in charge of their own affairs.

children and grandchildren are not ready for farming and weaving, but also learn to grow melons by mulberry shade.

Translation:

Weeding in the fields during the day and rubbing hemp thread at home at night, men and women in the village have their own housework.

Although children can't plow and weave, they learn to grow melons in the shade of mulberry trees.

Extended information:

This poem describes a scene in rural summer life. The first sentence, "Going out to cultivate the fields in the daytime and getting hemp at night", means: Going to the fields to weed during the day and rubbing hemp thread at night. "Farming" means weeding. In early summer, the rice seedlings need weeding. This is what men do.

"Ji Ma" means that women rub hemp thread at night after doing other work during the day, and then weave it into cloth. This sentence directly writes about labor scenes. In the second sentence, "the children in the village are in charge of their own affairs", which means men and women. The whole poem uses the tone of the old farmer, and "children" means young people. "Being in charge" means that both men and women are not allowed to be idle, and each of them is in charge of his own affairs.

in the third sentence, "children and grandchildren are not ready for farming and weaving", and "children and grandchildren" refer to those children who can neither farm nor weave, but they are not idle. They have been exposed to and loved working since childhood, so they "learn to grow melons in the shade of mulberry trees" and learn to grow melons under the lush mulberry trees.

this is a common phenomenon in rural areas, but it is quite distinctive. The conclusion shows the naive interest of rural children. With a fresh style, the poet gave a more delicate description of the tense labor atmosphere in the early summer in the countryside, which made him interesting to read.