The east family has a son of fifteen,
Toiling alone in the fields.
At night he channels water around rice paddies,
At dawn he drives oxen to plow barren soil.
The west family has a son just of tender age,
With elegant features like a crane among clouds.
He delves into books and history day and night,
Awaiting high office as if picking greens.
East and west families mock each other,
The west son laughs at the east, not the other way.
West speaks of nurturing ambition and fame,
Each disparaging the other, no harmony.
The east family says though hard,
Farming morning and night supports kin.
Men pound grain, women cook for twenty years,
Elders at home not yet aged.
Weaving at dawn and dusk clothes the body,
Surplus goes to brothers.
All year long staying home for rituals,
Not allowing wife or servants to breach rites.
You, now twenty, just begin to study,
Ten years to pass exams, over thirty.
Long separations on the road coming and going,
How many in summer ride the official carriage?
Even if you gain office, you'll be old,
To whom can you tell lifelong grief?
In a hundred years, flesh returns to earth,
Miles of elm spears grow autumn grass.
I now farm to serve my heaven,
Weeding, hoeing, reaping like a youth.
A smile adds to today's joy on my face,
Firewood on shoulder feeds the kitchen smoke.
Even if my hair turns snow white,
There are sons and grandsons to continue farming.
At home we keep an ancient Classic of Filial Piety,
Handed down through generations, all gain strength.
To tell the west family, do you know or not?
Why needlessly mock the east family's son?
In life you cannot offer fine fare,
Posthumous fame is but an empty endeavor.