View/Open - University of Victoria

eathtaking scene depicted not only has no correlation to the sorrows of parting, but actually serves to
alleviate, if not actually obliterate, human sentiments. The eerie natural beauty infuses the [poetnarrator]
with a feeling of wonderment rather than the traditional melancholia [associated with
parting]”. 23
Another putative parting poem set within the frontier is Cen Shen's “Parting: Song of Fire
Mountain Clouds” (“Huoshanyunge songbie” 火 山 云 歌 送 别 ). 24 In this instance, sentiments of
separation and feelings of farewell are suffocated and nearly snuffed out by the poet-narrator's awe for
the physical environment of the region; even the title of the poem itself neglects to name the person
whom the poet-narrator is sending off. After preceding lines of sustained meteorological observation, it
is only in the final couplet where a limited selection of core features of a poem about parting are
activated with the presentation of the scene of departure and a subtle gesture towards the loneliness it
engenders:
火 山 突 兀 赤 亭 口 Fire Mountain towers over the entrance to Chiting, 25
火 山 五 月 火 云 厚 Fire Mountain in the fifth month, fire clouds are thick.
火 云 满 山 凝 未 开 Fire clouds fill the mountain, dense they do not break;
飞 鸟 千 里 不 敢 来 Flying birds within a thousand li do not dare come by.
平 明 乍 逐 胡 风 断 At daybreak the clouds are suddenly dispersed, severed
by Hu winds;
薄 暮 浑 随 塞 雨 回 Near dusk they return accompanying the frontier rain.
缭 绕 斜 吞 铁 关 树 Curling, coiling and all aslant they swallow the trees
at Iron Pass, 26
氛 氲 半 掩 交 河 戍 A swarming mist half covering the garrison barracks
at Jiaohe.
113
reunion, and may offer counsel or consolation”. See Marie Chan, Cen Shen, pp. 61-62. For a diachronic examination of
notions and images informing poems on parting, see chapter eight of Hans H. Frankel The Flowering Plum and the
Palace Lady: Interpretations of Chinese Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976).
23 Marie Chan, Kao Shih, p. 116.
24 Written when the poet was stationed at Beiting 北 庭 . See CSJJZ, p. 171.
25 Refers to an area south-west of modern day Hami county 哈 密 县 , the location in Tang times of the Chiting ( 赤 亭 ,
literally “vermillion pavilion”) Defence Detachment (shouzhuo 守 捉 , “an early T'ang generic term for military units
along the northern frontier too small to be considered armies (jun 军 ), each commanded by a Commissioner (shi 使 ).
See Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China, p. 432). See also p. 93 of the CSJJZ for
background to Chiting.
26 Located between Yanqi 焉 耆 and Ku'erle 库 尔 勒 , Xinjiang Autonomous Region.