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红 旆 插 狼 头 Red banners pierced by wolf heads. 49
日 暮 天 山 下 The sun sets below Tian mountain, 50
鸣 笳 汉 使 愁
51
A flute sounds; the Han envoy 52 is saddened. 53
“Tribal Song” illustrates further the deflation of pride-pumped chests beating their way to the frontier.
Juxtaposed against an enemy who is able to dress his wife in resplendent garb and adorn his weapons
with carvings and pennants is a Chinese general and court envoy, the former barely capable of carrying
his aged frame and the latter only able to make a weak and dispirited emotional response to the musical
sounds of the frontier. From this comparison, two movements seem to rise from the poem: a downward,
haggard motion found in the old general, setting sun and depressed envoy, and an upward, vital gesture
of the Xiongnu whose flags and pennons one might imagine are confidently billowing in the autumnal
wind 54 as their bearers threaten to harass the Tang border. 55
Unlike many earlier works in which attitudes towards frontier war were often rigidly confined
to one particular alignment or another, such as support for or questioning of frontier war, High Tang
frontier poems with a focus on war were attuned to, and poignantly expressed, a dichotomy of
sentiment towards frontier service. Gao Shi, for example, could unleash a flood of enthusiasm for
martial adventure and its concomitant success and fame in one poem, such as the earlier cited “Below
49
The wolf head banners and leopard pennons indicated different houses among the Xiongnu. See GSJJZ, p. 244.
50
Located in modern Xinjiang province, and often called “T'ien-shan” in English.
51
GSJJZ, p. 244.
52
Reference is to an envoy of the Tang court.
53
An amalgam of my own translation and Marie Chan's in Marie Chan, Kao Shih, p. 57.
54
The image of recession often connected with autumn on the frontier appears in “Tribal Song” as only affecting those of
Chinese background on the frontier: they are the ones withering and weeping as the season, archetypal or otherwise,
nears death. The Xiongnu, however, seem impervious to the season of decline. Wrapped in warm furs and strutting
strong along the frontier, they are somehow immune to the effects of what Miao, using Northrop Frye's terminology,
characterizes as “[t]he dominant imagery of the frontier...the death and dissolution phases of the seasonal cycle”. See
Ronald Miao, “T'ang Frontier Poetry”, p. 135
55
Cen Shen's “Song of Hu” (“Hu ge” 胡 歌 ) operates within an uncannily corresponding juxtaposition, one which
highlights the pathetic circumstances of men continuously engaged in martial services by contrasting their long, silent
suffering with the material riches of non-Chinese royalty: “The Fan king of the Heixing tribe wears marten furs/and a
royal headscarf embroidered with grapevine patterns/The old general at the western pass endures bitter wars/and at
seventy commands his troops still without any rest” 黑 姓 蕃 王 貂 鼠 裘 , 葡 萄 宫 锦 醉 缠 头 . 关 西 老 将 能 苦 战 , 七 十 行 兵
仍 未 休 . CSJJZ, p. 172.