Wang Wei channels The Boss
Hometown (On the River Wei) Wang Wei The slanting sun shines on the village lanes as cattle and goats drift in, An old man leans on the brushwood fence, looking out for the kid, While the chickens kok kok, the silkworms bed down in the mulberry trees, The farmers come with their grub hoes slung, chattering in from the fields, I feel jealousy They live how they please I sing the ancient ode, It’s late, go home I sing it painfully. 王维 渭川田家 斜阳照墟落，穷巷牛羊归。 野老念牧童，倚杖候荆扉。 雉雊麦苗秀，蚕眠桑叶稀。 田夫荷锄至，相见语依依。 即此羡闲逸，怅然吟式微。
It seems like there’s a seam of sympathy that could run from the Chinese poets to a certain breed of American rocker. The Chinese poets felt compelled to sing the praises of the village: How beautiful it is, how real, how uncorrupt. Similarly, the Boss knew all about blind celebrations of his Americana childhood. But they both had reason not to believe the hype: in rural China, Tang peasants worked themselves to the bone (“they live how they please” is bitterly ironic); and in Hometown, Springsteen talks about racial violence and economic decline. Moreover, they were both attracted by the bright lights. Tang poets protested how much they loved the countryside precisely because everyone was flooding into the corrupt, sophisticated, seductive capital; and Bruce wanted to get out to be a rock star in the big city. But the draw of childhood (and childhood innocence) remained real.
The way the poets present it, career choices in Tang China usually came down to a stark binary: stay or go. There was only one employer: the empire. You didn’t have any say in where you were assigned. The only choice you could make was to stay in Chang’an and accept whatever commission came your way; or leave Chang’an, withdraw to the countryside, and no longer compete for office. But in reality, leaving represented a career failure too painful to think about, so leaving was mythologised as a moral victory. You left because the ruler was not good enough for you to serve. You left because the corrupt court had failed to recognise your brilliance, or had been wary of your bold honesty. You left because you preferred the simple joys of rural life.
Wang keeps up the innocent front all through this verse. Only a single word in the last line - painfully - lets us know that this is not the simple bucolic carol that it claims to be.
The ode is in the Book of Songs. It says, It’s getting dark, it’s getting dark, why aren’t you home? The song was used as a call to withdraw from the city back to your rural home.
Here is the reliable Cinix with a version in reconstructed Tang Dynasty Chinese:
And here is The Boss.