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7<br />
万 里 不 惜 死 Ten thousand li, no concern for death;<br />
一 朝 得 成 功 In a single morning he achieved success.<br />
画 图 麒 麟 阁 Portrait hung in the Unicorn Pavilion 24<br />
入 朝 明 光 宫 The emperor met in Ming Guang palace 25<br />
大 笑 向 文 士 Laughing heartily at the scholars<br />
一 经 何 足 穷 What use is it to spend a life time poring over<br />
one single classic 26 ?<br />
古 人 昧 此 道 The ancients were in the dark regarding this truth<br />
27<br />
往 往 成 老 翁 And more <strong>of</strong>ten than not they only amounted to old, grey men<br />
In the poem, committing oneself to study as a route to <strong>of</strong>ficial recognition is forthrightly repudiated,<br />
even mocked; eternal acclaim (so long as the portraits' paint does not peel nor pavilions within which<br />
they hang crumble) is derived from battle and not books.<br />
When the road to <strong>of</strong>ficial success by becoming a scholar was blocked, an opportunity remained<br />
through employment in a military related role. For those Tang poets ostensibly pursuing the military<br />
(wu 武 ) path to imperial service as opposed to the scholastic (wen 文 ), the borderlands presented<br />
themselves as not only a new world <strong>of</strong> opportunity but also a realm <strong>of</strong> the geographically and culturally<br />
unfamiliar. 28 These places beyond the environs <strong>of</strong> central China exerted no small amount <strong>of</strong> creative<br />
influence upon the poets' aesthetic and ideological visions while they devoted their intellectual powers<br />
to martial causes. The mountainous snowy wilds and endlessly meandering deserts <strong>of</strong> these territories<br />
<strong>of</strong>ten infused those works later to be classified as frontier poems with an intensity <strong>of</strong> imagery and<br />
complexity <strong>of</strong> heroic spirit. 29<br />
24 Built during the rule <strong>of</strong> Han Xuandi 汉 宣 帝 . Noteworthy <strong>of</strong>ficials had their portraits painted on the pavilion's walls.<br />
25 A palace which stood during the Han dynasty. Here it refers to the imperial court.<br />
26 “Classic” here referring to scholarly texts studied by Confucian academics.<br />
27 GSJJZ, pp. 242-244.<br />
28 See Krzyszt<strong>of</strong> Gawlikowski's “The Origins <strong>of</strong> the Martial Principle (Wu) Concept”, Cina No. 22 (1988): 105-122 for a<br />
comprehensive explanation <strong>of</strong> 武 in its relation to 文 , a dichotomy which “constituted a backbone <strong>of</strong> social<br />
archetypes[:] scholars and warriors”. James Liu's Chinese Theories <strong>of</strong> Literature also cites numerous sources in the<br />
Chinese tradition <strong>of</strong> the semantics constituting 文 over the centuries, including its Confucian association with<br />
“scholarship [and] learning” . See James Liu, Chinese Theories <strong>of</strong> Literature (Chicago: <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Chicago Press,<br />
1975), p. 7.<br />
29 Ren Wenjing, Tangdai biansaishi de wenhua chanshi, p. 21.