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唐 Tang · 诗 Poem

官仓鼠

The Rats of the Official Granary

曹邺

Cao Ye

官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走。
健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口。

The rats in the official granaries are as big as a grain measure,
yet they do not run even when a man opens the granary.
Sturdy soldiers have no grain while the people starve —
who sends them, day after day, into your jaws?
Listen

Meaning

In four biting lines, Cao Ye turns the bloated rats of the government granaries into a satirical portrait of officials who live safely off the state's wealth. The rats' fatness and fearlessness stand in harsh contrast to starving soldiers and hungry people, and the closing question — who feeds these vermin day after day? — aims the indictment at the whole system that shelters them.

官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走。健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] The rats of the state granaries have grown as fat as a grain measure and no longer fear men; soldiers go without rations and the people go hungry, yet day after day someone feeds the rats. [Structure] The quatrain escalates in three moves: the grotesque image of the rats, the stark antithesis of starving men, and the unanswered closing question that transfers guilt from animals to officialdom. [Imagery] The rat, a trivial pest, is inflated to monstrous scale so that its brazen survival beside human hunger reads as public scandal. Every word is plain, and that plainness is the weapon: the poem does not decorate its anger.

【白话串讲】 曹邺写《官仓鼠》：“官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走”——“健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口”——他写官仓鼠——官仓老鼠大如斗。 【意象与手法】 “官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走”写官仓鼠之大；“健儿无粮百姓饥”写军民无粮；结以“谁遣朝朝入君口”以问句写讽刺。辛辣悯农。 【情感与主旨】 曹邺写讽喻悯农之作，以官仓鼠大如斗、见人亦不走写贪官之肆，以“健儿无粮百姓饥”写民生疾苦，是唐代讽喻诗中的名篇。 【名句点睛】 常考“官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走”写官仓鼠之肆；“健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口”以问句写讽刺。

Background

Cao Ye (c. 816–c. 875), courtesy name Yezhi, was a late Tang poet from Yangshuo in Guizhou, who rose to office through the examination system and wrote with a strong social conscience. He lived through the dynasty's long decline, when court factions, eunuch power and regional warlords emptied the public purse while tax-paying commoners starved. This quatrain belongs to the old tradition of satirical exposure poetry, recasting the 'big rat' fable of the Book of Songs for an age of granary corruption, and it remains the best-known piece in his collection.

《官仓鼠》为唐代诗人曹邺所作诗。曹邺（约816—约875），字邺之，桂州阳朔人，唐代诗人。此诗写讽喻悯农，为咏官仓鼠之作。诗中「官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走」写官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走；「健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口」写健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口。曹邺此诗以讽喻悯农、谁遣朝朝入君口写其悯农之情，辛辣悯农，是曹邺诗中的名篇。此篇《官仓鼠》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。此篇《官仓鼠》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。此篇《官仓鼠》在历代选本中多被收录，其艺术价值与流传之广，正可见此诗在同类题材中的重要地位。诗人以匠心独运之笔写寻常之情事，遂使此作历千载而犹有生气，为后人所称赏不绝。

Art

The poem's craft lies in compression and reversal. It opens with a grotesque hyperbole — rats as big as a grain measure — that is at once comic and disgusting, then confirms their impudence in the smallest domestic detail: they do not run when the granary is opened. The third line pivots violently from vermin to victims, setting 'soldiers without grain' against 'people starving' in four hard monosyllables. The final line is a rhetorical question with no answer, which is the point: no one dares name who protects the rats. Four lines, one escalating move, satire without a single ornamental word.

此诗艺术上以「辛辣悯农、以鼠写情」见长。全诗共四句两联，由官仓老鼠大如斗而健儿无粮百姓饥。起「官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走」写官仓老鼠大如斗：官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走；结「健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口」写健儿无粮百姓饥：健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口。全诗以鼠写情，由官仓老鼠大如斗而谁遣朝朝入君口，辛辣悯农，是曹邺诗中的名篇。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。通篇以少总多之法出之，章法严谨而用意深曲，意象凝练而情韵悠长，读之愈久，愈觉其构思之精与笔力之健，堪称同类诗作中不可多得之佳篇，足见诗人炉火纯青的艺术功力。

Allusions

The poem deliberately reworks the 'Big Rat' ode of the Book of Songs ('Shuoshu, wu shi' — 'Big rat, big rat, do not eat our millet'), where the fat rat stands for the exploitative noble who must be driven out. Cao Ye inverts the fable: his rats cannot be driven out, because the granary that fattens them belongs to the state, and the question 'who sends them into your jaws' suggests the predators are officials themselves. The 'official granary' also recalls the Tang ever-normal granaries built to stabilize prices, which in hard times were exactly where embezzled tribute piled up while soldiers and peasants went hungry.

诗中「官仓老鼠大如斗见人开仓亦不走」「健儿无粮百姓饥谁遣朝朝入君口」等语，皆含典故故实。「官仓老鼠大如斗见人开仓亦不走」写官仓老鼠大如斗见人开仓亦不走；「健儿无粮百姓饥谁遣朝朝入君口」用官仓之典（官仓写官府粮仓），写健儿无粮百姓饥谁遣朝朝入君口。诗人用官仓之典入诗，不着痕迹，而把讽喻悯农之情写得真切可感，是善于熔铸典故的体现。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。此等用典之法，熔铸古今而不着痕迹，既不炫博以示学，亦不拘泥于旧解，正见诗人学养之深与运思之巧。读者于此等处尤当细心玩味，方能领会其言外之旨与味外之味。

Commentary

The quatrain has been a byword for official corruption for over a thousand years and is a fixture of classical anthologies and school textbooks. Critics praise its combination of folk directness and lethal economy — a farmer's image carrying a statesman's indictment. Its final question is often quoted in essays on Chinese bureaucracy, and the phrase 'granary rat' has passed into the language as shorthand for those who grow rich on public funds.

这首《官仓鼠》，是曹邺写讽喻悯农之作，写官仓老鼠大如斗、健儿无粮百姓饥、谁遣朝朝入君口之情，辛辣悯农。起「官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走」——官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走。写官仓老鼠大如斗：官仓老鼠大如斗、见人开仓亦不走——大如斗、亦不走；结「健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口」——健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口。写健儿无粮百姓饥：健儿无粮百姓饥、谁遣朝朝入君口——百姓饥、入君口。这「健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口」，是全诗之结：以谁遣朝朝入君口写其悯农。全诗辛辣悯农，以鼠写情，正是曹邺诗中的名篇。综观全诗，情真、景切、理深，三者浑融无迹，故能于短短数语之中寄无限深意，令人百读不厌。其含蓄蕴藉之处，正是中国古典诗歌以少总多、言有尽而意无穷的美学精神的生动体现。综观全诗，情真、景切、理深，三者浑融无迹，故能于短短数语之中寄无限深意，令人百读不厌。其含蓄蕴藉之处，正是中国古典诗歌以少总多、言有尽而意无穷的美学精神的生动体现。

Prosody

Form A seven-syllable quatrain (qijue)诗（七言绝句）
Rhyme The poem rhymes on zou (走) and kou (口), both belonging to the you (有) rhyme group of Middle Chinese; the opening couplet is left unrhymed, a common Tang pattern that lets the poem begin in flat narrative.此诗为七言绝句，共四句两联。押韵：「走」「口」押有部韵。前两句起、后两句转合，平仄相间，正与写讽喻悯农的辛辣悯农相称，也见其以七绝写悯农的凝练。
Tone pattern The first couplet is level and descriptive, the second compresses social fact into four hard syllables, and the closing question rises on 'who sends them?' — the shorter interrogative line lets the satire end on an upward, ringing accusation rather than a fall.句式上，「官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走」写官仓老鼠大如斗，音节辛辣；结「健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口」写健儿无粮百姓饥，音节冷峻。全诗音节随情起伏，由辛辣而冷峻，正合七绝「凝练」之妙，读来如讽喻悯农、谁遣朝朝入君口之音，辛辣而动人。
Reading note A quatrain must make its point in twenty-eight characters, and Cao Ye spends every one on a single escalating move: grotesque rat, starving people, unanswered question. The tight form keeps the satire compressed rather than merely short, which is why it still feels like a slap rather than a complaint.此诗为七言绝句，是曹邺写讽喻悯农之作，也是其诗中的名篇。全诗的艺术特色在于「辛辣悯农、以鼠写情」：「官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走」写官仓老鼠大如斗、「健儿无粮百姓饥，谁遣朝朝入君口」写健儿无粮百姓饥。全诗辛辣悯农，以鼠写情。尤为精妙者，是「官仓老鼠大如斗」用官仓之典；而「谁遣朝朝入君口」写尽入君口，正是曹邺诗「辛辣悯农」的典范，为历代选本所常收。《官仓鼠》一诗之所以读来声情并茂，正在于诗人以声韵配合情思、以节奏烘托意境，音节之长短、平仄之起伏，皆与诗意相为表里，此亦可见中国古典诗歌声律之美与匠心之工。

Line by line

官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走。

The rats in the official granaries are as big as a grain measure,<br>yet they do not run even when a man opens the granary.

官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走。

The granary rats are big as bushels; seeing men open the granary, they do not run.

起句写官仓老鼠大如斗，起笔即见其老鼠。「官仓老鼠大如斗」用官仓之典写官仓老鼠大如斗，「官仓老鼠」写官仓老鼠、「大如斗」写大如斗；「见人开仓亦不走」写见人开仓亦不走，「见人开仓」写见人开仓、「亦不走」写亦不走。一句写官仓老鼠大如斗见人开仓亦不走，以官仓老鼠大如斗写大如斗、以见人开仓亦不走写亦不走，写尽官仓老鼠大如斗、见人开仓亦不走之情。以鼠起兴，辛辣而悯农，是「以鼠起兴」的妙笔。

The opening line figures the granary rats, big as bushels, that do not flee when men open the storehouse; rising through the rat, it is a bitter, satirical emblem of thieving officials.

健儿无粮百姓饥，

Sturdy soldiers have no grain while the people starve,

健儿无粮百姓饥，

The soldiers have no grain, the people starve.

此句写健儿无粮百姓饥，是全诗写百姓之态的关键。「健儿无粮」写健儿无粮，「健儿」写健儿、「无粮」写无粮；「百姓饥」写百姓饥，「百姓」写百姓、「饥」写饥。一句写健儿无粮百姓饥，以健儿无粮写无粮、以百姓饥写百姓饥，写尽健儿无粮百姓饥之情。以饥写情，辛辣而悯农，是「以饥写情」的点睛之笔。此句以寥寥数语写尽深意，情韵兼胜，正是全诗点睛之笔。其于字句之间暗藏波澜，于平易之中寄寓曲折，尤当反复涵泳，方能得其三昧。

This line sets against the rats the soldiers without grain and the starving people; writing hunger, it turns the image to the people's suffering, the poem's pointed stroke.

谁遣朝朝入君口。

who sends them, day after day, into your jaws?

谁遣朝朝入君口。

Who lets you fill your mouth day after day?

结句写谁遣朝朝入君口，是全诗立意的落点。「谁遣朝朝」写谁遣朝朝，「谁遣」写谁遣、「朝朝」写朝朝；「入君口」写入君口，「入君」写入君、「口」写口。一句写谁遣朝朝入君口，以谁遣朝朝写朝朝、以入君口写入君口，写尽谁遣朝朝入君口之情。以口写情，辛辣而悯农，是全诗最动人处，也是「以口写情」的点睛之笔。此句以寥寥数语写尽深意，情韵兼胜，正是全诗点睛之笔。其于字句之间暗藏波澜，于平易之中寄寓曲折，尤当反复涵泳，方能得其三昧。

The closing line demands who lets the rats fill their mouths day after day; ending on that mouth, it aims the satire at those in power — acrid and compassionate toward the farmers.

Study

Word focus

官仓 The government granaries where state tax grain was stored; here the symbol of official wealth and the rats' protected lair, and by extension the whole public purse. 「官仓」写官仓老鼠大如斗，是写官仓之态的关键。「官仓老鼠大如斗」着一「官仓」，写官仓——着一「官仓」，写官仓老鼠大如斗，见其仓之官。两字写尽官仓之态，是「以词写仓」的妙笔。「官仓」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
老鼠 Literally 'the rat'; the poem's central image, fattened on state grain, standing for the officials who live off the state. 「老鼠」写官仓老鼠大如斗，是写老鼠之态的关键。「官仓老鼠大如斗」着一「老鼠」，写老鼠——着一「老鼠」，写官仓老鼠大如斗，见其鼠之老。两字写尽老鼠之态，是「以词写鼠」的点睛之词。「老鼠」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
健儿 Sturdy soldiers, here garrison or frontier troops who defend the state yet receive no rations, which sharpens the irony of rats eating their fill. 「健儿」写健儿无粮百姓饥，是写健儿之态的关键。「健儿无粮百姓饥」着一「健儿」，写健儿——着一「健儿」，写健儿无粮百姓饥，见其儿之健。两字写尽健儿之态，是「以词写儿」的点睛之词。「健儿」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。
朝朝 Day after day, morning after morning; the reduplication stresses the endless routine of the rats' feeding, as if their plunder were official policy. 「朝朝」写谁遣朝朝入君口，是写朝朝之态的关键。「谁遣朝朝入君口」着一「朝朝」，写朝朝——着一「朝朝」，写谁遣朝朝入君口，见其朝之朝。两字写尽朝朝之态，是「以词写朝」的点睛之词。「朝朝」一字之用而全篇生色，与诗中情韵相为表里，正见诗人炼字之精与匠心之独运。读者于此等处若细细体会，自能领会其于平淡之中见功力、于寻常处见神奇之妙。

Related Reading

水调歌头·明月几时有 Prelude to Water Melody: When Will the Moon Be Clear? 苏轼 · 同写悯农感怀、辛辣旷达，一写人有悲欢离合、一写官仓老鼠大如斗见人开仓亦不走，皆于悯农之中见辛辣 Both poems meditate on the human condition with philosophical breadth, one beneath the moon and one in the granary; where Su Shi consoles, Cao Ye lashes out.

Su Shi's lyric accepts that men have sorrow and joy, parting and reunion, just as the moon is dark or bright, waxing or waning, and finds serenity in that acceptance; Cao Ye's quatrain refuses consolation and ends in an angry, unanswered question. Read together, they show two responses to the same flawed world — philosophical resignation versus satirical indictment.

苏轼《水调歌头·明月几时有》「人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，此事古难全」，写悯农感怀、辛辣旷达，是宋词长调的名篇；曹邺《官仓鼠》则以「官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走」「谁遣朝朝入君口」写亦不走、入君口。两诗同写悯农感怀、辛辣旷达：一写人有悲欢离合、以悲欢写离合，一写官仓老鼠大如斗见人开仓亦不走、以老鼠写悯农；一为苏轼之旷达、一为曹邺之辛辣，并读正可见诗写「悯农感怀」的两种笔法，皆于悯农之中见辛辣。

 八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天 Eight Beats of the Ganzhou Song 柳永 · 同写官仓凝望、辛辣清丽，一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、一写官仓老鼠大如斗见人开仓亦不走，皆于官仓之中见凝望 Both poems open with an outward gaze upon a scene that turns into inward reflection — Liu Yong upon river and autumn sky, Cao Ye upon the granary and its rats.

Liu Yong's celebrated lyric, 'Facing the pattering evening rain that spills over the river sky, one washing makes the autumn clear', opens a traveler's homesick melancholy; Cao Ye's quatrain opens with a grotesque barnyard image and ends in social rage. Both turn seeing into judgment, but Liu Yong's tone is tender and lyrical while Cao Ye's is sharp and accusatory.

柳永《八声甘州·对潇潇暮雨洒江天》「对潇潇暮雨洒江天，一番洗清秋」，写官仓凝望、辛辣清丽，是宋词写羁旅的名篇；曹邺《官仓鼠》则以「官仓老鼠大如斗，见人开仓亦不走」「健儿无粮百姓饥」写亦不走、百姓饥。两诗同写官仓凝望、辛辣清丽：一写对潇潇暮雨洒江天、以暮雨写清秋，一写官仓老鼠大如斗见人开仓亦不走、以老鼠写悯农；一为柳永之清丽、一为曹邺之辛辣，并读正可见诗写「官仓凝望」的两种笔法，皆于官仓之中见凝望。