View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
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180<br />
长 城 窟<br />
长 城 窟 边 多 马 骨<br />
古 来 此 地 无 井 泉<br />
赖 得 秦 家 筑 城 卒<br />
征 人 饮 马 愁 不 回<br />
43<br />
长 城 变 作 望 乡 堆<br />
The Great Wall spring,<br />
At the Great Wall spring there are many horse bones.<br />
In ancient times this place had no well or spring,<br />
It came into being when Qin troops built the wall.<br />
Campaign soldiers water their horses, sad they can't return,<br />
The Great Wall has transformed to become a pile <strong>of</strong><br />
homeward gazes.<br />
(lines 1-6)<br />
The gaze itself <strong>of</strong> the poet-narrator also expresses emotion in Cen Shen's frontier verse; more<br />
precisely, it is the spatial coordinates <strong>of</strong> focalization themselves which can be read as expressing either<br />
a longing for home or a sense <strong>of</strong> separation, and at times confusion, across immense peripheral<br />
distances. These spatial coordinates include a gaze eastwards, a gaze westwards, and a gaze which does<br />
not adhere to one specific cardinal point. The first type, an eastward gaze, is the perceptual spatial<br />
coordinate most closely aligned with expressions <strong>of</strong> homesickness. An early example 44 <strong>of</strong> this oriented<br />
gaze in Cen Shen's frontier poetry is found in the first two lines <strong>of</strong> “Encountering a Commissioner on<br />
His Way to the Capital” (“Feng ru jing shi” 逢 入 京 使 ):<br />
故 园 东 望 路 漫 漫<br />
45<br />
双 袖 龙 钟 泪 不 干<br />
Gazing east towards home, the road goes on and on,<br />
Both sleeves soaked with tears that do not dry.<br />
(lines 1-2)<br />
The poet-narrator directs his perception east in the direction <strong>of</strong> home without actually perceiving home<br />
itself; instead he is only able to directly apprehend the road which “goes on and on” (lu manman 路 漫<br />
漫 ) in the direction <strong>of</strong> home. While feelings <strong>of</strong> homesickness can be extracted from the two existents <strong>of</strong><br />
the line, home (guyuan 故 园 ) and the long, boundless road ( 路 漫 漫 ), the easterly orientation <strong>of</strong> the<br />
43<br />
YFSJ 38.561.<br />
44<br />
The CSJJZ notes that the poem was composed during Cen Shen's first frontier excursion while en route from the capital,<br />
Chang'an, to the western regions. See CSJJZ, p. 77.<br />
45<br />
CSJJZ, p. 77.