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temperature, effects which transform typically temperature-neutral existents into cold existents. A
common example of one such “cold-by-effect” existent found in the frontier sub-genre is flags. In Cen
Shen's poems, the cold environment has multiple effects on these emblems of battle and allegiances.
One such effect, and certainly the more conventional of the two, is that of flags freezing in the
hyperborean environment to such an extent that even the strongest of winds cannot force them to flap:
纷 纷 暮 雪 下 辕 门
风 挚 红 旗 冻 不 翻
Evening snow falls pell-mell over the military camp's
main gate,
The wind pulls the red flag; frozen it does not flap.
(“Song of White Snow”, lines 13-14)
When focalized by the poet-narrator as frozen, static flags, and not just “flags”, the flags are able to
reiterate the harshness of the landscape. 96 Similarly, in lines five to eight of “Six Paeans Presented to
Military Commissioner Feng On His Victory at Boxian”, the flagpole becomes the object of a snowy
rage concluding a series of hibernal images:
官 军 西 出 过 楼 兰 The government's army sets out west passing Loulan, 97
营 幕 傍 临 月 窟 寒 Tents pitched near moon caves 98 are cold.
蒲 海 晓 霜 凝 马 尾 Early frost at Puchang lake freezes horse tails,
葱 山 夜 雪 扑 旗 竿 Evening snow on Cong 99 mountain beats the flagpoles.
The poet-narrators of both “Song of Snow on Tian Mountain” and “Song of White Snow”
96 This image is not without its forerunners. For example Zhang Zhengjin's 张 正 见 (d. 575) “Song of Rain and Snow”
(“Yu xue qu” 雨 雪 曲 ): “Hu pass, a land of hardships;/Snow roads stretch on and on./Infused with ice horse hooves
stomp,/Snow mixed with rain freezes flags on their poles” 胡 关 辛 苦 地 , 雪 路 远 漫 漫 . 含 冰 踏 马 足 , 杂 雨 冻 旗 竿 . See
YFSJ 24.358. There is also Yu Shiji's 虞 世 基 (d. 618) “Beyond the Frontier (second of two)” (“Chusai er shou” 出 塞 二
首 ): “Snow covers the road to Tian mountain,/An icy frontier at the headwaters of Jiao river./Beacon towers cloaked in
fog, dark and shapeless;/Frozen frost covered flags do not flap” 雪 暗 天 山 道 , 冰 塞 交 河 源 . 雾 烽 黯 无 色 , 霜 旗 冻 不 翻 .
See YFSJ 21.320.
97 Name of a country in the western territories of the Han dynasty located northeast of modern day Ruoqiang county 若 羌
县 Xinjiang Autonomous Region.
98 “Moon caves” (yueku 月 窟 ) are a kenning for China's western region. See note to “Song of Hot Lake”.
99 Literally “Onion” mountain.