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Zhao's work intersects with the second line of Cen Shen's quatrain:
九 月 天 山 风 似 刀
城 南 猎 马 缩 寒 毛
将 军 纵 博 场 场 胜
98
赌 得 单 于 貂 鼠 袍
In the ninth month the wind on Tian mountain is like a
knife,
Hunting horses 96 south of the city wall have stiff cold
coats.
The general's fervent bets 97 are winners every round,
Getting him a Xiongnu chief's marten skin coat.
Three central characters 99 from Cen Shen and Bao Zhao's aforementioned poems form a nexus
where the thermal quality of the frontier, as it affects horses, is expressed: 缩 (suo, constrict), 马 (ma,
horse) and 毛 (mao, hair). However, this intertextual instance is not a slavish imitation by Cen Shen.
Bao Zhao's cold-constricted horse hair (mao 毛 ) is described through simile, “like a hedgehog's spine”,
a potent visual image 100 not adopted by Cen Shen who instead activates the thermal quality of the coldconstricted
hair with the modifier 寒 (han, cold). However, the temperature of the frontier landscape
had already been indicated in Bao Zhao's poem with the “frost” (shuang 霜 ) on the soldiers' armour,
meaning the thermal quality was already echoing when the density of the horse's coat was focused
upon in Bao Zhao's line. This constant presence of snow and frost allows for the tactility of both horses'
hairs to include a quality of coldness.
Another area of imagistic modification centres on the utilization of the horses themselves. Both
poems' animals are on the frontier but their overt human designated purposes do not match: Bao Zhao's
horse has a martial association, but it lacks preceding nouns or adjectives which could emphasize the
96 As in horses ridden for hunting and not the objects of the hunt.
97 The “bet” here is a competition to determine whose mounted archery skills are superior. See Zhang Hui 张 辉 , ed.,
Censhen biansaishixuan, p. 76.
98 CSJJZ, p. 173
99 Chinese characters (hanzi 汉 字 )
100 The term is here being used to denote “a mental event peculiarly connected with sensations” . See I.A. Richards, quoted
in Ronald Miao, “T'ang Frontier Poetry: An Exercise in Archetypal Criticism” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies Vol.
10 No. 2 (1974), pp. 114-140, especially p. 128. Such a usage releases “image” from visual limitations and allows aural,
thermal, static and kinetic qualities of nouns (i.e. things) to be discussed under the “image” rubric.