View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
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166<br />
西 行 殊 未 已<br />
东 望 何 时 还<br />
终 日 风 与 雪<br />
91<br />
连 天 沙 复 山<br />
This westward travelling has yet to cease,<br />
Gazing east; when will I return?<br />
All day wind and snow<br />
Sands and mountain stretch into sky.<br />
The snow in the following first four lines <strong>of</strong> “Staying at the Western Hostel <strong>of</strong> Metal Pass” (“Su tieguan<br />
xiguan” 宿 铁 关 西 馆 ) is also simply a minor existent <strong>of</strong> the cold setting within which an event –<br />
travelling to what seems to be the end <strong>of</strong> the earth – occurs:<br />
马 汗 踏 成 泥<br />
朝 驰 几 万 蹄<br />
雪 中 行 地 角<br />
92<br />
火 处 宿 天 倪<br />
Horse sweat trampled into mud,<br />
At morning galloping tens <strong>of</strong> thousands <strong>of</strong> hooves.<br />
In the midst <strong>of</strong> snow travelling to the corner <strong>of</strong> the earth,<br />
Staying overnight where it is illuminated at the edge <strong>of</strong><br />
the sky.<br />
Aside from states <strong>of</strong> vagueness or inertia, snow can behave as an active existent on the hibernal<br />
frontier. For example, there is the geographic locale “sea <strong>of</strong> snow” (xuehai 雪 海 ) in “Song <strong>of</strong> Luntai”,<br />
“Seventh Month at Luntai” and “Ballad <strong>of</strong> Running Horse River”, a name which conjures an image <strong>of</strong><br />
snow in constant, cold flux. Snow also displays its kinetic qualities by being focalized as flying<br />
throughout the frontier sky and falling over the main gate <strong>of</strong> a military camp in “Song <strong>of</strong> White<br />
Snow”, 93 and piling thick throughout the night before later falling on Tian mountain in “Song <strong>of</strong> Snow<br />
on Tian Mountain”. 94<br />
Typologically opposite to existents that are innately cold, such as snow and the somewhat<br />
common “railings <strong>of</strong> ice”, 95 are existents which in the hibernal setting both signify and emphasize cold<br />
not through any innate cold qualities but instead through the effects <strong>of</strong> the surrounding cold<br />
91 CSJJZ, p. 86.<br />
92 CSJJZ, p. 81.<br />
93 “In the eighth month snow already flies throughotu the Hu sky” 胡 天 八 月 即 飞 雪 and “Evening snow falls pell-mell<br />
over the military camp's main gate” 纷 纷 暮 雪 下 辕 门 (“Song <strong>of</strong> White Snow”).<br />
94 “As night passes, the snow is thicker on Tian Mountain” 一 夜 天 山 雪 更 厚 and “Just when it snows on Tian mountain,/<br />
I send you <strong>of</strong>f as you set forth for the capital” 正 是 天 山 雪 下 时 , 送 君 走 马 归 京 师 (“Song <strong>of</strong> Snow on Tian Mountain”).<br />
95 See “Song <strong>of</strong> White Snow” and “Song <strong>of</strong> Snow on Tian Mountain”.