Wanderer's Song / Meng Jiao, 遊子吟

Meng Jiao's wanderer's song: Text, Pinyin, and Translation

Meng Jiao's wanderer's song: Text, Pinyin, and Translation with original text, pinyin, a literal rendering, a readable translation, source location, key terms, and a careful modern reading.

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Meng Jiao Wanderer's Song original Chinese pinyin translation meaning

Wanderer's Song, Meng Jiao, 遊子吟: read "慈母手中線，遊子身上衣。臨行密密縫，意恐遲遲歸。誰言寸草心，報得三春..." before the English explanation.

Original text

慈母手中線，遊子身上衣。臨行密密縫，意恐遲遲歸。誰言寸草心，報得三春暉。

Ci mu shou zhong xian, you zi shen shang yi. Lin xing mi mi feng, yi kong chi chi gui. Shui yan cun cao xin, bao de san chun hui.

Literal layer

In the loving mother's hand is thread; on the traveling son's body is clothing. Before he leaves, she sews it closely and densely, her thought fearing that he will return late and late. Who says the heart of an inch of grass can repay the radiance of three spring months?

Readable layer

Meng Jiao's Wanderer's Song turns a mother's sewing before departure into an image of care that a child can feel but never fully repay.

Poem on reclusion from The Metropolitan Museum of Art open-access collection — **Poem on reclusion; Zhou Lianggong; Gift of Julia and John Curtis, 2020; The Metropolitan Museum of Art.**Poem on reclusion is used as a public-domain poem or landscape surface for line-order reading on Meng Jiao's wanderer's song. The fit is semantic: the page asks readers to inspect Meng Jiao, 遊子吟 and the term ci mu, while the image remains illustrative rather than proof of the exact manuscript, author portrait, or historical scene.

Reader focus

What this page helps you decide

Meng Jiao's Wanderer's Song is often quoted as a poem about maternal love, but its force comes from one small action. A mother holds thread while the traveling son wears the garment. Before he leaves, she sews closely because she fears he may return late. The final couplet enlarges that action into an impossible debt: the heart of a small blade of grass cannot repay the radiance of spring.

Watch ci mu, you zi, mi mi feng; these terms decide where the literal layer and the readable layer separate.
Compare this page with Du Fu's Moonlit Night before treating all family poems as the same kind of longing.

The Poem Before Paraphrase

This block uses Wanderer's Song, Meng Jiao, 遊子吟 as the anchor, with "慈母手中線，遊子身上衣。臨行密密縫，意恐遲遲歸。誰言寸草心，..." kept in front of the explanation.

Full Text: The page uses all six lines because the emotional turn depends on sequence. The poem begins with hands, thread, and clothing. It then shows the dense sewing before departure. Only after that does the grass and spring comparison appear. The famous final image needs the sewing scene to earn it.

Mother's Thread: Ci mu shou zhong xian places care in the mother's hand before naming emotion directly. The line is concrete: thread, hand, and clothing. That concreteness keeps the poem from becoming a general statement about love too early.

Traveler's Clothing: You zi is the traveling son, not just any child. The garment on his body carries the mother's work into his journey. The poem links distance and care through clothing, so the son remains wrapped in an action performed before departure.

Images, Sound, And Emotional Turn

Dense Sewing: Mi mi feng is the poem's central action. The repeated sound suggests tight, careful work. The mother sews densely because she fears delayed return. The care is practical, but it is also emotional, because the garment is prepared for absence.

Late Return: Chi chi gui slows the line down. The mother's fear is not only that the son leaves, but that he may come back late. The delay is imagined before it happens. That imagined delay is why a simple sewing scene carries future sorrow.

Grass And Spring: Cun cao xin and san chun hui create the final comparison. A small blade of grass has life because spring shines on it, but it cannot repay spring's radiance. The poem uses that imbalance to describe the child's relation to maternal care.

Keep the term set visible here: ci mu, you zi, mi mi feng. The reading changes if one of these terms is translated too smoothly.

Translation Choices To Keep Visible

Why Repayment Fails: The poem does not say the child should stop trying to be grateful. It says the scale of repayment cannot match the scale of received care. That is why the grass image is so exact. Grass grows because spring gives light and warmth everywhere; the small life cannot return that original abundance.

Meng Jiao's wanderer's song Translation Limit: This working translation keeps inch of grass and three spring radiance because those images are stranger and more exact than a plain paraphrase such as no child can repay a mother. The poem's power lies in the concrete metaphor, not only in the moral lesson.

Meng Jiao's wanderer's song Reading Payoff: This page differs from Yuan Zhen's grief poem because Meng Jiao builds feeling through domestic action rather than comparison to sea and clouds. It differs from Du Fu's Moonlit Night because the family bond here is shown before departure, not across wartime distance. The article gives readers a source-based way to quote the poem without losing its sewing logic.

The reading should end in one practical move: Compare this page with Du Fu's Moonlit Night before treating all family poems as the same kind of longing.

Next reading

Links chosen for reading movement

Du Fu's Moonlit Night Text, Pinyin, and TranslationFrom Meng Jiao's wanderer's song, open Du Fu's Moonlit Night Text, Pinyin, and Translation to compare ci mu with a second checked passage; the path starts from Meng Jiao, 遊子吟, so the link has a specific reading job rather than a generic recommendation.Yuan Zhen's Parting Grief Text, Pinyin, and TranslationFrom Meng Jiao's wanderer's song, open Yuan Zhen's Parting Grief Text, Pinyin, and Translation to test the translation boundary against a neighboring source; the path starts from Meng Jiao, 遊子吟, so the link has a specific reading job rather than a generic recommendation.Confucius Quotes About Filial Respect: Analects Source and MeaningFrom Meng Jiao's wanderer's song, open Confucius Quotes About Filial Respect to move from this wording to a concrete reader workflow; the path starts from Meng Jiao, 遊子吟, so the link has a specific reading job rather than a generic recommendation.Li Bai's Farewell At Yellow Crane Tower Text, Pinyin, and TranslationFrom Meng Jiao's wanderer's song, open Li Bai's Farewell At Yellow Crane Tower Text, Pinyin, and Translation to keep the next step tied to source evidence instead of a loose related list; the path starts from Meng Jiao, 遊子吟, so the link has a specific reading job rather than a generic recommendation.