Qiánrén zhòng shù, hòurén xiǎngshòu xiānbèi liú xià de yìnbì.
One generation plants the trees, the next enjoys the shelter left to them.
Tips
usage
This yìn reading covers 'shady and cool' and the figurative 'to shelter or shield': 荫凉, 荫蔽, 荫庇. For plain tree shade the character is read yīn (树荫).
history
In imperial China, 荫 named the privilege of inheriting official rank because of an ancestor's merit, called 恩荫. It let high officials' descendants enter office or study without the usual examinations.
Grass radical at the top marks 荫 as vegetation-related: tree shade is cast by leafy plants overhead. Even though tree shade conceptually involves 木, the leafy-canopy aspect made 艹 the indexing radical.
阴 supplies both sound and meaning: it itself means shaded, the sunless north side of a hill. Combined with the grass radical, 荫 is leafy shade. The same phonetic also yields 茵 (mat).
