孟郊 (Mèng Jiāo) · Meng Jiao, Tang dynasty poet

Meanings

1 Meng Jiao, Tang dynasty poet

About Meng Jiao

751–814 · 诗人 poet

Poor scholar who passed the exams only in his forties and wrote spare, bitter verse. His 游子吟, a son remembering his mother sewing his clothes, is the best-known Chinese poem on a mother's love.

Also called 东野

Characters

Examples

HSK 6

孟郊的《游子吟》写的是母爱。

Mèng Jiāo de 《 Yóuzǐ yín 》 xiě de shì mǔ'ài.

Meng Jiao's 'Song of the Wandering Son' is about a mother's love.

HSK 7-9

孟郊是唐朝诗人，四十六岁才考中进士。

Mèng Jiāo shì Tángcháo shīrén, sìshíliù suì cái kǎozhòng jìnshì.

Meng Jiao was a Tang poet who did not pass the jinshi examination until he was forty-six.

Tips

culture

《游子吟》 opens 慈母手中线, 'the thread in a loving mother's hand', and ends by asking how a blade of grass could repay the spring sun: 谁言寸草心，报得三春晖.

history

Su Shi paired him with 贾岛 as 郊寒岛瘦, 'Meng Jiao cold, Jia Dao thin'. His one joyful poem, on passing the exam at 46, gave 春风得意 and 走马观花, from riding past all the flowers of 长安 in a single day.