The Biography of Master Five Willows: Neither Distressed by Poverty nor Anxious for Wealth
Grandevity Studio presents a complete musical setting of Tao Yuanming’s Eastern Jin prose classic The Biography of Master Five Willows. The song uses 100% of the project-established Classical Chinese text, with no modern expansion, rewriting, added lyrics or repeated original lines. Melancholic Mandopop R&B, a 1990s urban groove, acoustic guitar, guzheng, sweeping strings and nostalgic vinyl texture create a contemporary path into Tao Yuanming’s world of reading, wine, poverty, writing, freedom and letting go of worldly gain and loss.
What remains of a person when name, office, wealth and social rank are taken away?
Tao Yuanming begins The Biography of Master Five Willows by removing precisely those things:
先生不知何許人也，亦不詳其姓字。
No one knows exactly where the gentleman came from, nor is his personal name known in detail.
There are simply five willow trees beside his home.
So:
宅邊有五柳樹，因以為號焉。
Because five willow trees stood beside his dwelling, he took them as his sobriquet.
That is enough.
Master Five Willows is quiet.
He speaks little.
He does not pursue worldly glory or profit.
He loves reading.
He loves wine.
He writes.
He lives in poverty.
His clothes are patched.
His food vessels are sometimes empty.
Yet Tao Yuanming writes:
晏如也。
And yet he remained completely at ease.
The work ultimately arrives at one of the most enduring statements in classical Chinese literature:
不戚戚於貧賤，不汲汲於富貴。
Neither distressed by poverty and humble status, nor anxiously pursuing wealth and rank.
Grandevity Studio’s The Biography of Master Five Willows uses the project-established version of Tao Yuanming’s original Classical Chinese prose as 100% of the sung words.
There is no modern lyrical expansion.
No vernacular rewriting.
No newly written pop chorus.
No added Chinese lyric line.
No original sentence is repeated merely to lengthen the song.
The composition moves from:
先生不知何許人也
to:
無懷氏之民歟？葛天氏之民歟？
The music is contemporary.
The words remain Tao Yuanming’s.
Watch the MV: 🎬 The Biography of Master Five Willows | Official Music Video
Headphones recommended. The film begins at dawn in the Eastern Jin countryside associated with Chaisang. Five willow trees, a humble dwelling, books, an earthen wine cup, fields and distant mountains gradually establish the world of Master Five Willows. He is not portrayed as a supernatural hermit. He reads, drinks, receives friends, lives with poverty and writes as evening falls. At the end, the human figure recedes and only the five willow trees remain moving in the wind.
Why Does a Biography Begin by Removing the Name?
A conventional biography normally begins by establishing identity:
name,
place of origin,
family background,
office,
status.
Tao Yuanming begins by withdrawing almost all of these markers.
先生不知何許人也，亦不詳其姓字。
The result is striking.
Instead of asking where the man comes from in society,
the essay asks how he lives.
Five willow trees stand beside the dwelling.
That is sufficient for a name.
Early biographical tradition surrounding Tao Yuanming describes The Biography of Master Five Willows as a work written to portray himself.
The text has therefore long been read as carrying a strong element of literary self-portraiture.
It need not be treated as a modern documentary autobiography in which every detail maps directly onto Tao Yuanming’s recorded life.
Its power comes from something more concentrated:
it creates a spiritual portrait.
“Quiet and Few of Words, Not Admiring Glory or Profit”
After removing name and origin, Tao Yuanming’s first substantial description is:
閒靜少言，不慕榮利。
He is quiet.
He speaks little.
He does not admire worldly glory or profit.
Almost everything that follows can be read as an expansion of that sentence.
How does a person who does not organise life around glory and profit actually live?
The rest of the essay answers.
“He Loved Reading, Without Seeking Exhaustive Explanation”
One of the work’s most famous lines reads:
好讀書，不求甚解； 每有會意，便欣然忘食。
He loved reading and did not seek exhaustive explanation; whenever he reached a genuine understanding, he became so delighted that he forgot to eat.
The expression 不求甚解 is sometimes taken today to mean careless or superficial reading.
The next sentence makes that interpretation inadequate.
Master Five Willows clearly values understanding.
What he does not turn reading into is a performance of scholarship.
Books are not first a way to prove how much he knows.
They are a place where genuine recognition can occur.
The reward is:
會意。
An inward meeting of meaning.
Forgetting to Eat, and Having Nothing to Eat
Later, Tao Yuanming writes:
簞瓢屢空。
His simple vessels for food and drink are often empty.
Earlier, however, reading can make him:
欣然忘食。
Joyfully forget to eat.
The contrast is subtle.
One absence of food comes from poverty.
The other comes from intellectual delight.
The essay never pretends that material deprivation is unreal.
It simply refuses to treat material wealth as the only form of abundance.
Wine Without Luxury
Then:
性嗜酒，家貧不能常得。
He loves wine.
But poverty means that he cannot obtain it regularly.
Friends and relatives understand him:
親舊知其如此，或置酒而招之。
Sometimes they prepare wine and invite him.
When he arrives:
造飲輒盡，期在必醉。
He drinks freely and intends to become drunk.
When drunk:
既醉而退，曾不吝情去留！
he leaves without anxiously managing the social ritual of whether to remain or depart.
Wine is not presented as elite luxury.
It becomes part of an unforced temperament.
Drink when there is wine.
Leave when the drinking is done.
“The Bare Walls Could Not Keep Out Wind or Sun”
The material reality is unmistakable:
環堵蕭然，不蔽風日；
The dwelling is bare and cannot fully protect him from wind and sunlight.
His clothes:
短褐穿結。
are coarse and patched.
His food vessels:
簞瓢屢空。
are repeatedly empty.
Then Tao Yuanming writes only:
晏如也。
And yet he remained at ease.
This Is Not a Celebration of Poverty
The essay does not claim that deprivation is intrinsically noble.
A leaking or exposed dwelling does not automatically make a person virtuous.
Hunger does not become beautiful simply because a recluse experiences it.
The force of:
晏如也
comes from a different point.
External scarcity has not been given complete authority over his inner condition.
Master Five Willows still reads.
Drinks when he can.
Writes.
Finds pleasure.
Maintains a sense of self that poverty has not entirely colonised.
Writing for One’s Own Enjoyment
Tao Yuanming says:
常著文章自娛，頗示己志。
Master Five Willows often writes for his own enjoyment and to reveal something of his aspirations.
Writing is not first a ladder toward official advancement.
Nor is it presented as a strategy for fame.
It is part of living.
That leads directly to:
忘懷得失，以此自終。
He lets go of gain and loss and in this manner reaches the end of his life.
“Forgetting Gain and Loss”
Gain still exists.
Loss still exists.
The phrase does not magically abolish either.
The deeper question is whether gain and loss must govern the entire self.
If every success proves one’s worth,
and every loss destroys it,
then one’s measure of life always belongs to something outside oneself.
Master Five Willows represents another possibility.
“Neither Distressed by Poverty nor Anxious for Wealth”
In the concluding appraisal, Tao Yuanming quotes the wife of Qian Lou:
不戚戚於貧賤，不汲汲於富貴。
Neither distressed by poverty and humble status,
nor anxiously pursuing wealth and rank.
The sentence does not necessarily command everyone to reject wealth.
Its more radical idea is that wealth and rank need not become the sole measures of a life.
Poverty need not erase dignity.
Prosperity need not become an obsession.
Wine and Poetry Meet Again
The final lines include:
銜觴賦詩，以樂其志。
Holding a cup, he composes poetry and delights in his aspirations.
Wine,
writing,
and personal inclination
finally meet.
Master Five Willows is therefore not someone who wants nothing.
He has clear pleasures.
Clear preferences.
Clear values.
What he refuses is to allow glory and profit to become everything.
“A Person of Wuhuai? A Person of Getian?”
The work ends with two questions:
無懷氏之民歟？ 葛天氏之民歟？
Could he be one of the people of Wuhuai?
One of the people of Getian?
These legendary names evoke an imagined ancient world associated with simplicity, naturalness and relatively little competition for worldly advantage.
Tao Yuanming does not close the biography with a fixed definition.
He opens it outward.
What might human life look like if status,
wealth,
recognition,
winning,
and loss
were no longer its only measures?
That question survives the man.
Music: Do Not Turn the Recluse into a Myth
The musical core is:
Melancholic Mandopop R&B / 90s Urban Groove / Chinese Fusion
This is not formal classical recitation.
Nor does the production treat Tao Yuanming as a remote figure who can only exist beside a solitary guqin.
Master Five Willows is first of all human.
He reads.
Gets hungry.
Drinks.
Gets drunk.
Writes.
Lives with worn clothes and an exposed house.
The musical palette includes:
- a 1990s Chinese urban R&B groove
- mature, clear Mandarin male vocals
- controlled falsetto
- acoustic guitar
- guzheng melodic lines
- sweeping strings
- nostalgic vinyl texture
- layered vocal harmonies
The music is melancholic without becoming miserable.
That distinction is essential.
Material poverty is real.
Spiritual emptiness is not.
The line:
晏如也
therefore does not function as collapse.
It functions as stillness.
And:
不戚戚於貧賤，不汲汲於富貴
should not become a shouted inspirational slogan.
It is better understood as a measure of life quietly and deliberately chosen.
The MV: One Ordinary Day in the Eastern Jin Countryside
The visual world is grounded in the Eastern Jin setting associated with Tao Yuanming and the Chaisang countryside.
The repeated visual anchors are modest:
five willow trees,
a humble dwelling,
books,
a wooden writing table,
earthen wine vessels,
fields,
country paths,
distant mountains,
oil lamps,
and changing natural light.
The protagonist is not treated as an immortal or mythical sage.
He remains recognisably human.
During:
每有會意，便欣然忘食
the film does not need a dramatic gesture.
A small smile while continuing to read is enough.
Friends appear during the wine section.
The gathering remains modest rather than luxurious.
When the text reaches:
環堵蕭然
the material poverty is visible.
The dwelling is genuinely simple.
The clothing is genuinely worn.
Yet at:
晏如也
the figure remains composed.
By late afternoon:
常著文章自娛
moves the visual narrative toward evening.
At:
不戚戚於貧賤， 不汲汲於富貴
the film does not cut away to fantasies of courts, gold or wealth.
It stays with the same modest house.
That is precisely the point.
The line matters because he can remain himself without those things.
Finally:
無懷氏之民歟？ 葛天氏之民歟？
The human figure gradually recedes.
The five willow trees remain.
Evening wind moves through their branches.
📜 Complete Sung Text / Original Chinese with English Translation
Tao Yuanming, The Biography of Master Five Willows
100% project-established original text・No modern expansion・No rewriting・No added lyrics・No repeated original lines
【Five Willows as His Name・No Desire for Glory】
先生不知何許人也，亦不詳其姓字，
宅邊有五柳樹，因以為號焉。
No one knows exactly where the gentleman came from, nor is his personal name known in detail.
Five willow trees stood beside his dwelling, and so he took them as his sobriquet.
閒靜少言，不慕榮利。
好讀書，不求甚解；
每有會意，便欣然忘食。
He was quiet and spoke little, with no admiration for worldly glory or profit.
He loved reading without seeking exhaustive explanation;
whenever he reached a genuine understanding, he became so delighted that he forgot to eat.
【Love of Wine・Intending to Become Drunk】
性嗜酒，家貧不能常得。
親舊知其如此，或置酒而招之；
He had a natural love of wine, but because his household was poor, he could not obtain it regularly.
Friends and relatives knew this about him and would sometimes prepare wine and invite him.
造飲輒盡，期在必醉。
既醉而退，曾不吝情去留！
Whenever he went to drink, he drained the wine, intending to become drunk.
Once drunk he departed, without anxiously concerning himself over whether to stay or leave.
【Bare Walls・Yet Completely at Ease】
環堵蕭然，不蔽風日；
短褐穿結，簞瓢屢空，晏如也。
His surrounding walls were bare and could not fully keep out wind or sunlight;
his coarse clothing was torn and patched, his simple food vessels often empty, yet he remained completely at ease.
【Writing for Pleasure・Forgetting Gain and Loss】
常著文章自娛，頗示己志。
忘懷得失，以此自終。
He often wrote for his own enjoyment, and in doing so revealed something of his aspirations.
He let go of gain and loss, and in this manner brought his life to its end.
【The Appraisal・Neither Distressed nor Anxious】
贊曰：黔婁之妻有言：
The appraisal says: the wife of Qian Lou once said:
「不戚戚於貧賤，不汲汲於富貴。」
“Neither distressed by poverty and humble status, nor anxiously pursuing wealth and rank.”
其言茲若人之儔乎？
Do these words not describe one of this very kind?
【Wine and Poetry・Wuhuai and Getian】
銜觴賦詩，以樂其志。
無懷氏之民歟？葛天氏之民歟？
Holding a wine cup, he composed poetry and delighted in his aspirations.
Was he perhaps one of the people of Wuhuai? One of the people of Getian?
What Remains When Name, Rank and Wealth Are Removed?
Tao Yuanming begins by taking away the name.
He then tells us:
what this person loves,
what he does not pursue,
how he reads,
how he drinks,
how he writes,
how he lives with poverty,
and how he thinks about gain and loss.
Modern life gives us even more external labels:
job title,
income,
degrees,
followers,
rankings,
assets,
recognition,
performance metrics.
The Biography of Master Five Willows leaves behind an unusually durable question.
If all those measurements were temporarily removed,
would we still know who we were?
💿 Credits
- Song Title: The Biography of Master Five Willows
- Chinese Title: 五柳先生傳
- Romanised Title: Wuliu Xiansheng Zhuan
- Classical Source: Tao Yuanming, Wuliu Xiansheng Zhuan
- Author: Tao Yuanming
- Period: Eastern Jin Dynasty
- Literary Form: Biographical prose / literary self-portrait
- Original Text / Complete Sung Words: Tao Yuanming
- Lyrics Format: 100% project-established original text, with no modern expansion, vernacular rewriting, added lyrics or repeated original lines
- Text Order: Strictly follows the version adopted for the finished song
- Music Style: Melancholic Mandopop R&B / 90s Urban Groove / Chinese Fusion
- Vocals: Suno AI Mandarin male vocal
- Main Musical Elements: Acoustic Guitar / Guzheng / Sweeping Strings / Vinyl Texture / Layered Vocal Harmonies / Controlled Falsetto
- Composition / Arrangement: Suno AI / Grandevity Studio
- Music Production: Grandevity Studio
- AI-Assisted Visuals: ChatGPT Images
- Video Editing / Art Direction / Creative Production: Grandevity Studio
- Released by: Grandevity Limited
- Production Year: 2026
- Official MV: https://youtu.be/c9YNYGiozzc
Music Style and Mood:
Melancholic Mandopop R&B / 90s Urban Groove / Chinese Fusion. A mature, clear Mandarin male vocal carries Tao Yuanming’s original prose over acoustic guitar, guzheng lines, sweeping strings, nostalgic vinyl texture and layered vocal harmonies. The sound acknowledges material poverty without making Master Five Willows a tragic figure. “Yet he remained at ease” becomes a moment of internal stability; “forgetting gain and loss” gradually removes worldly tension; and “neither distressed by poverty nor anxiously pursuing wealth and rank” forms the spiritual centre before the music leaves the final questions about Wuhuai and Getian unresolved.
⚖️ Copyright Notice
Tao Yuanming’s The Biography of Master Five Willows is a public-domain classical literary work.
This musical production uses 100% of the project-established original Classical Chinese text adopted for the finished song. No modern lyrical expansion, vernacular rewriting, newly added lyrics or other newly written lyric sections have been introduced, and no original sentence is repeated merely to extend the work.
The music production, recorded master, arrangement, mix, master, MV visuals, cover artwork, video editing, subtitles, shot design, art direction, promotional writing and overall creative production were produced by or lawfully licensed to Grandevity Limited / Grandevity Studio. Relevant rights are retained and administered subject to applicable law and the terms of the platforms and production tools used.
© 2026 Grandevity Limited / Grandevity Studio. All Rights Reserved.
Unauthorized re-uploading, redistribution, reproduction, editing, sampling, commercial use, platform distribution, AI training, dataset use, remixing, or incorporation into another audiovisual work is prohibited except where otherwise permitted by applicable law or license. This notice does not restrict lawful use of Tao Yuanming’s public-domain original text.
Licensing Contact:
About This Project
The Biography of Master Five Willows is part of Grandevity Studio’s Classical Literature Reimagined in Music series.
The purpose is not to write a modern answer for Tao Yuanming.
Nor is it to turn his prose into a different contemporary lyric.
The original text remains the song.
Contemporary music provides another way to enter it.
Tao Yuanming did not leave Master Five Willows a conventional identity.
What he left instead was a way of living:
reading,
wine,
writing,
poverty without self-humiliation,
freedom from obsessive gain and loss.
More than sixteen centuries later,
the sentence remains:
不戚戚於貧賤， 不汲汲於富貴。
Perhaps the most difficult question is no longer what those words mean.
It is whether our own lives would still make sense
if the measurements of wealth,
status,
recognition,
success,
and loss
stopped speaking for us.