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This sense of estrangement, as expressed through imagery and subjective comments, on the frontier
permeates the much later “Impromptu Poem about Luntai 60 ” (“Luntai jishi” 轮 台 即 事 ), a work in
which the weird and strange is also described at a near torrential pace. Furthermore, in this excerpt
from Cen Shen's “Written After Getting Drunk at a Banquet Held By the Prefect of Jiuquan” (“Jiuquan
taishou xishang zuihouzuo” 酒 泉 太 守 席 上 醉 后 作 ), a poem in which the immediately unfamiliar
similarly dominates the text as in “Impromptu Poem About Luntai” and the Yuefu “Song of the Wusun
Princess”, the gastronomy of the frontier also ushers the poet-narrator towards a now familiar longing
for home associated with being on the frontier, a feeling which in this instance cannot even be assuaged
by the thick luxuriance of a hefty and exotic repast:
浑 炙 犁 牛 烹 野 驼
交 河 美 酒 归 叵 罗
三 更 醉 后 军 中 寝
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无 奈 秦 山 归 梦 何
There's also barbequed ox and steamed camel,
Fine Jiaohe 61 wine poured into round shallow cups.
Late at night after getting drunk, sleeping the army camp,
How can I not return to Qin mountain 63 through my
dreams? 64
(lines 3-6)
Gao Shi, on the other hand, in “Accompanying Censor Dou on a Cruise on Ling Yun Lake” (“Pei Dou
shiyu fan lingyunchi” 陪 窦 侍 御 泛 灵 云 池 ) exorcises the frontier of its inhospitable associations of
sword-sharp winds and inscrutable temperatures, a place where in “The Song of Yan” (“Yange xing” 燕
abbreviated as YFSJ
60 See earlier translation in this thesis
61 Modern Tulufan 吐 鲁 番 , Xinjiang province. “Jiaohe wine” is spirits produced by the especially delectable grapes of
China's western region.
62 CSJJZ, p. 188
63 Located in modern Zhejiang province. Cen Shen spent a significant portion of his pre-frontier days there.
64 Ai Lihui 艾 丽 辉 and Kang Yanyan 康 燕 燕 in “Lun censhen biansai shi de yiyu fengqing 论 岑 参 边 塞 诗 的 异 域 风
情 ”Yuwen xuekan 语 文 学 刊 2010.4, pp. 93-94, segregate a short selection of Cen Shen's frontier poetry under the
rubric of “Distinct Cultural Characteristics of Minority Peoples” (Xianming shaoshumingzu wenhuatesu 鲜 明 少 数 民 族
文 化 特 色 ), poems which include scenes of frontier cuisine, as noted above; non-Chinese interior furnishings of abodes
(“Beginning of Autumn at Luntai” 首 秋 轮 台 ); music (“Night Time Gathering With Administrative Assistants at
Lodgings in Liangzhou” 凉 州 馆 与 诸 判 官 夜 集 ) and dance (“Song of Prefect Tian's Lovely Lady Dances 'Like the
Lotus' Northern Spear Dance” 田 使 君 美 人 舞 如 莲 花 北 金 鋋 歌 ). The juxtapositions of Ai and Kang's arrangement
exposes both a curiosity for the new as well as nostalgia for home engendered within the poet-narrator when
encountering elements of frontier culture, the former response being relatively new by Cen Shen's time.