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Appendix I: Cen Shen's “Thermal” Poems
热 海 行 送 崔 侍 御 还 京
Song of Hot Lake: Sending Off Censor Cui On His Return
to the Capital
侧 闻 阴 山 胡 儿 语
西 头 热 海 水 如 煮
海 上 众 鸟 不 敢 飞
中 有 鲤 鱼 长 且 肥
I overheard the Hu people of Yin mountain 1 say
that at the end of the Western frontier lies Hot Lake;
its waters seem to boil.
Flocks of birds don't dare fly overhead,
In the lake carp are long and fat.
岸 旁 青 草 常 不 歇 Green grasses on the shore grow for a long time
and don't wither,
空 中 白 雪 遥 旋 灭 Snow at a distance overhead swirls and then melts.
蒸 沙 烁 石 燃 虏 云 Steaming sands and shining rocks burn the Lu clouds, 2
沸 浪 炎 波 煎 汉 月 Boiling billows and heated waves boil the Han moon.
阴 火 潜 烧 天 地 炉 Fires burn underground in Heaven and Earth's furnace,
何 事 偏 烘 西 一 隅 ? why does its combustion incline towards
the Western corner?
势 吞 月 窟 侵 太 白 The force of the steam's heat swallows moon caves 3
and attacks Venus, 4
气 连 赤 坂 通 单 于 Vapours continue into the Chi Pamirs 5 and through
Xiongnu lands.
1
Zhang Hui 张 辉 notes that Yin Mountain (Yinshan 阴 山 ) actually refers to the Tian Mountain (Tianshan 天 山 ) range in
the border region of today's Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and not the Yin
mountain range traversing parts of Inner Mongolia (Zhang Hui, ed., Cen Shen Biansai shixuan, p. 56).
2
Meaning “frontier clouds”.
3
“In ancient tradition and in Tang poetry the moon was pitted and honeycombed, like a volcanic rabbit warren. From Han
times at least we hear of 'moon dens' or 'moon burrows' (yueku 月 窟 )...In one sense it refers to the dank and gloomy
hiding place of the moon at the western verges of our world...It follows naturally that the expression also symbolizes the
cold and remote lands of the western barbarians...”. See Edward H. Schafer, Pacing the Void: T'ang Approaches to the
Stars (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 187.
4
See chapter one, footnote 24. Venus was the quintessence of metal (Edward H. Schafer, Pacing the Void, p. 212) while
metal's directional equivalent has traditionally been that of the western regions. See CSJJZ, p. 92. “In general it [Venus]
was a baleful star...and the mild associations that Venus has for us are almost totally lacking in Chinese imagery, for
whom white [Venus in Chinese being “great white”(taibai, “great 太 白 )] is the colour of the ghost world and, in its most
lustrous phase, of the flash of deadly weapons” . See Edward H. Schafer, Pacing the Void, p. 214.
5
Located in Yang county 洋 县 , Shaanxi 陕 西 province. See CSJJZ, p. 170.