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of the second quoted couplet by way of song, the language's immediate context, and the non-Chinese
speaker projecting its lyrics to the gathered guests. As lyrics made audible through the articulations of a
human vocal tract, the local language becomes infused with emotion; what had been a brute fact, like
white grass and elms, is humanized and no longer a curio, a linguistic specimen participating in acts of
analytical juxtaposition undertaken by the poet-narrator in “At Luntai” and “Accompanying General
Feng at a Banquet”. Language, a vital component of any local people or culture, is now a singularity
that can be represented independent of other languages.
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Of equal note is the identity of the reveller belting out the Hu song, a Chinese general.
Normally, and especially within the atmosphere of a frontier poem, men of martial position would be
issuing orders to attack the Hu, or perhaps even uttering complaints over poor government policies 247
for policing the border between China and its non-Chinese neighbours. However, this general of
Huamen is not only a human vehicle for language, he is also a non-native speaker of the language. This
second facet furthers the intimacy now afforded the local language by incorporating its being into a
character of the poem nationally aligned with the poet-narrator, and in the process making non-Chinese
languages, and, given the medium, music, less strange and alien. In stark comparison, a later poem by
Zhang Ji, “Longtou” ( 陇 头 ), uses non-Chinese languages as a synecdoche for invasion and occupation
of Chinese lands:
龙 头 路 断 人 不 行
胡 骑 夜 入 凉 州 城
汉 兵 处 处 格 斗 死
一 朝 尽 没 陇 西 地
驱 我 边 人 胡 中 去
散 放 牛 羊 食 禾 黍
The road to Longtou was cut off, people couldn't
get through,
Hu cavalry at night invaded Liangzhou city.
Han soldiers everywhere struggled to the death,
In one day they had disappeared from the lands of Longxi.
My frontier people were forced to enter the midst of
Hu lands,
Pasture cattle and sheep, eat grains and millet.
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Although not in the voice of a general, the poet-narrator of Gao Shi's “Upon the Frontier” (“Saishang” 塞 上 ), vents such
frustrations: “Frontier dust fills the northern desert/Lu cavalry are pushing south/Cycles of combat is no lasting
policy/Nor marriage alliances a permanent strategy”. Modification of Marie Chan tr., Kao Shih, 26. 边 尘 涨 北 溟 , 虏 骑
正 南 驱 . 转 斗 岂 长 策 , 和 亲 远 图 非 . See GSJJZ, p. 34.