View/Open - University of Victoria

commanders whose selfish behaviour ignored the sacrifices made by the common soldier. The crux of
this second response to frontier warfare is lines eleven and twelve, “soldiers at the front lines between
life and death/beautiful women within a tent still sing and dance”. Through a naked juxtaposition of
soldiers approaching oblivion against military officials in a cozy tent surrounded by carnal titillation, a
sense of raw injustice slithers in and out of the sacrifice and loyalty displayed on the battlefield. 102 The
frontier landscape itself seems to change in sympathy as optimism collapses into despair: 103 place
names and allusions fade and yield to the devastation of a rampaging enemy who leaves in his wake
beneath a setting twilight sun the exhausted bodies of soldiers who nevertheless still seek nothing for
themselves. This second division of the poem, in addition to containing an indictment against higher
ranked officials' lack of concern for the lowest of subordinates, also includes oblique reference to
strands of the third response to frontier warfare found in the poem: an expression of sympathy for those
affected by the ravages of frontier war. 104 It is the third division of “Song of Yan”, lines seventeen to
twenty-four, which develops this response to frontier war.
70
Earlier, in chapter two of this thesis, “My Lord is in Service” (“Junzi yuyi” 君 子 于 役 ) was
cited as a poetic ancestor of one variation of responses to frontier warfare. In that poem, far distant war
was rendered through a filter exposing the separation military conflict forces between husband and
102
For another scene of frontier carousel juxtaposed against the impolite realities of frontier warfare, there is Cen Shen's
“At Wuwei, Sending Off Administrative Assistant Liu Dan On His Way to the Encampment at Anxi, Also to be Shown
to Commander Gao” (“Wuwei song Liu Dan panguan fu anxi xingying biancheng Gao kaifu” 武 威 送 刘 单 判 官 赴 安 西
行 营 便 呈 高 开 府 ). Gao Shi's restrained vitriol, however, is absent in Cen Shen's poem in which the latter's movement
from morbidity to excess is a shift without any ideological urgency, a mere, if beautiful, description of two diverse
frontier realities: “The night is still, the sky is gloomy/Sobbing ghosts line both sides of the road/Skulls litter the
ground/Ancient battlefields are everywhere/Setting out wine in the tall guest quarters at sunset/The moon over the
frontier town is a deep blue/In the army camp they slaughter plump cows/In the hall they array wine goblets/The red
tears are candles dripping in their holders/The mellow, moving songs are sung by girls in dazzling fresh make-up” 夜 静
天 萧 条 , 鬼 哭 夹 道 旁 . 地 上 多 髑 髅 , 皆 是 古 战 场 . 置 酒 高 馆 夕 , 边 城 月 苍 苍 . 军 中 宰 肥 牛 , 堂 上 罗 羽 觞 . 红 泪 金 烛 盘 ,
娇 歌 艳 新 妆 ”See CSJJZ, p. 91. Cen Shen's repast and revelry seems more reflective of the frontier barrack life of highranking
military officials where the poetic reproduction of dancing and fine dining is not necessarily a clarion call for
criticism of effete authority figures.
103
Marie Chan, “Kao Shih's 'Yen Ko-Hsing”, p. 214.
104
The final two lines of the second thematic division, “when graciously recognized they always look down on the
enemy/their strength exhausted, the siege at the mountain pass still unbroken” 身 当 恩 遇 常 轻 敌 , 力 尽 关 山 未 解 围 ,
signals a shift to the sympathetic treatment of those abused, be it emotionally or physically, by the realities of frontier
warfare. These lines seem to suggest that the uplifting support of the emperor in line four is but a memory; now only a
depletion of verve and enthusiasm surrounds the martial enterprise.