122 t He siX Dy na s t i e s
sion for a literatus schooled in Confucian ethics, since his withdrawal would mean
renouncing aspirations to serve state and society, social respect, and stability of
income. After retiring from his last post in 405, Tao spent the rest of his life as a
farmer-recluse. He experienced both the joys of material self-sufficiency and the
hardships of agrarian life. Tao’s life in reclusion, however, was not one of total
deprivation or isolation. His love of wine was famous, and while he often drank
alone, he was also a convivial drinker who frequently socialized with local officials
and other members of the elite. During his lifetime, he acquired local fame as a
recluse. It is in this period that most of his surviving works were composed.
Among the poetic subgenres represented in Tao’s extant corpus are poems writ-
ten on official duty, social or exchange poems, poems on historical figures, and
farmstead poems based on various meditations and events during his retirement,
the last of which constitute the majority of his oeuvre. His farmstead works speak
of the joys of rustic life, such as drinking wine, observing nature, playing the zither,
reading books, and writing poetry for his own pleasure. And, although many of his
later admirers often seem to forget this, he sometimes writes about the tedium of
farm life, professing the toils of farmwork and trials of poverty, such as cold and
hunger, which, in one instance, are memorably conveyed by these lines, which
express the hope for the swift passage of time: “At dusk we would think of the
cock crow, / At dawn we hoped the crow would cross quickly.”1 Even in his plaints,
however, one can still marvel at a tenacious gesture that punctuates many of his
works: a reaffirmation of his resolve to remain in reclusion and a declaration of his
integrity. But one may also argue that Tao was not consistently at perfect ease with
his choice of reclusion, hence the need to frequently reaffirm his resolve.
Farmstead poetry as defined by Tao’s works and interpreted by most later practi-
tioners of the genre (notably in the Tang dynasty) nonetheless typically focuses on
the idyllic aspects of rustic life: leisure, calm, and freedom. Accordingly, simplicity
and ease characterize its poetic style and diction. This genre is generally indisso-
ciable from the context of withdrawal from office (actual or fancied, permanent
or temporary), as farmstead poems are born in rustic experience. I have selected
four of Tao’s best-known works in the genre to illustrate the ways in which he rep-
resents rustic life and reflects on nature, reclusion, and himself.
The following poem is the first of a series of five, probably written shortly after
Tao’s retirement from office. The mood is sanguine and the tone, celebratory:C 6. 1
Returning to Live on the Farm, No. 1 歸園田居 其一 (guī yuán tián jū qí yī)Since youth out of tune with the vulgar world, 少無適俗韻 (shào wú shì sú yùn)
2 My nature instinctively loves hills and
mountains. 性本愛丘山 (xìng bĕn ài qiū shān)
By mishap I fell into the dusty net, 誤落塵網中 (wù luò chén wăng zhōng)
4 Once gone, thirteen years went by. 一去三十年 (yí qù sān shí nián)
The caged bird longs for its grove of old, 羈鳥戀舊林 (jī niăo liàn jiù lín)