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also the non-militaristic interaction between non-Chinese and Chinese involved in its propagation, an
encounter between peoples that moves emotions rather than remove heads from shoulders on
battlefields:
此 曲 胡 人 传 入 汉 The Hu people transmitted this tune to the Han, 230
诸 客 见 之 惊 且 叹 All the guests watch, are surprised and sigh.
(lines 5-6)
The remainder is devoted to the dance and dancer herself, and the poet-narrator's fusion of the frontier
environs and literature of frontier themes from the yuefu into his exalted description of local musical
culture:
曼 脸 娇 娥 纤 复 秾 Fine faced sweet beauty, hourglass figure, 231
轻 罗 金 缕 花 葱 笼
回 裙 转 袖 若 飞 雪
Diaphanous silk gauze with golden threads
and embroidered flowers.
The turn of her skirt and spinning her sleeves
are like flying snow,
左 旋 右 旋 生 旋 风 A twirl to the left and a twirl to the right produces a
whirlwind. 232
琵 琶 横 笛 和 未 匝
花 门 山 头 黄 云 合
忽 作 出 塞 入 塞 声
The pipa and horizontal flutes join in, though before
they are finished
Yellow clouds close over the summit of Huamen
mountain. 233
Suddenly the sounds of “Beyond the Frontier” and
“Entering the Frontier”, 234
230
The “Han” being the Chinese people
231
“Hourglass” may be anachronistic here. The sense is that the dancer is well-proportioned, both slim (xian 纤 ) and buxom
(nong 秾 )
232
The repetition of 旋 in the original, twice as “twirl” and then in the compound 旋 风 (xuanfeng, whirlwind),
dramatically conveys the sense that a vortex of snow and gauzy cloud is gradually building until it fully strengthens and
whiplashes into the accompanying strings and flutes. The following two run-on lines stylistically transmit a similar sense
of uncontrollable, rapturous winds.
233
The mountain is located about three hundred miles north of Juyan Lake 居 延 海 , Inner Mongolia. In the context of the
poem it signifies a prototypical frontier scenery. The line should be read as a personification of the music where the tune
causes the aforementioned weather patterns to occur.
234
Not the original yuefu tunes themselves; they were long lost by the Tang period. Rather, the music expresses the
sentiment of these sets of yuefus poems, a mood visualized in the succeeding line's desert of desolation.