Put the world's woes before enjoyment of earthly indulgences
Fan Zhongyan (AD 989-1052) was a great poet, politician, philosopher, writer and military strategist of the Song Dynasty (AD 960-1279).
Fan’s most famous literary work is a descriptive prose entitled “On Yueyang Tower.” The tower in central China’s Hunan Province has long been regarded as one of the three most magnificent of its kind south of the Yangtze River. The other two are the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, and the Pavilion of Prince Teng in Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi Province in east China.
In the autumn of 1046, Fan was invited by his friend Teng Zijing (AD 990-1047), then a local prefect, to write a preface for the newly renovated Yueyang Tower.
Both Fan and Teng were then experiencing some setbacks in their careers as politicians, so Fan wrote the prose not only to praise the tower, but also to express his feelings and euphemistically advise his friend to be more broad-minded and resilient.
Today, nearly every educated Chinese speaker remembers the two most famous lines from Fan’s prose. They read xiantianxia zhi you’eryou, houtianxia zhi le’erle, or “to be the first to worry about the world’s woes, and the last to enjoy the universal weal.”
先天下之忧而忧
xiān tiān xià zhī yōu ér yōu
后天下之乐而乐
hòu tiān xià zhī lè ér lè
Obviously, the saying advocates both self-denial and loyal service to the people of the world.
Fan concludes his prose by saying: “Ah! Without people with this in mind, whom could I go along with?”
Today, these two lines have become a very popular Chinese proverb, frequently quoted to encourage people, especially the social elite, to dedicate themselves to a greater cause and to urge them not to feel sad for personal losses or be pleased by worldly gains.
