On the plain or atop the hill,
Of beauty you enjoy your fill.
You gather honey from flowers sweet.
For whom are you busy and fleet?
Original Poem:
「蜂」
罗隐
不论平地与山尖，无限风光尽被占。
采得百花成蜜后，为谁辛苦为谁甜？
Interpretation:
In 859 A.D., Luo Yin took the examination in the capital city, and this was the seventh year he failed the examination. He was disheartened, and then he saw the contrast between the people's hard work in the fields and the unearned gains of some court officials, and he was overwhelmed by a thousand thoughts, so he wrote this poem.
In the first two lines, the extremely beautiful scenery, whether on the flat land or on the peaks of the mountains, has been taken over by all.
The first two lines are about the survival of bees, which are constantly traveling and working among the flowers in the mountains, and the vast territory gives them a lot of space to show their skills. Simply written, it seems to be plain and simple, pure and straightforward, almost admiring and complimentary in tone.
The last two lines: bees, you pick all the flowers into nectar, in the end for whom to pay hard work, and who want to let the sweet taste?
Expanding the symbol of the bee as a laborer, a sigh of relief is issued, and an intriguing question is raised: the flowers that have been picked have been turned into honey, and the hard work has finally yielded a gratifying result, but for whom is this hard work actually intended? In the dark and corrupt society at that time, it was for those who did not labor, occupying high positions, holding heavy power exploiters, the irony of this is self-evident.
From another side, the poet ridiculed and flogged the unfair reality that those who work do not get and those who get do not work, and at the same time, he was also reflecting on his own situation that he had been immersed in the bureaucracy for a long time and his ambition was hard to be realized, and expressing his hatred for the social phenomenon of eunuchs' dictatorship and the lack of people's livelihood at that time.
Poem translator:
Xu Yuan-chong (许渊冲)
About the poet:
Luo Yin (罗隐), 833-909 AD, was a poet of the Tang Dynasty, a native of Hangzhou. His poems have the spirit of entering the world by facing the reality and life directly, bravely fighting against the darkness of the society with his poetic pen, attacking the bad government of the society, reflecting the hardship of the people in the society and expressing his personal hardships.
