View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
75<br />
赤 亭 道 口 行 人 绝<br />
The junction at Vermilion pavilion 127 cuts <strong>of</strong>f travellers.<br />
知 君 惯 度 祁 连 城 I know that you <strong>of</strong>ten travel across to Qilian, 128<br />
岂 能 愁 见 轮 台 月 ? Do you not look sorrowfully upon the moon at Luntai? 129<br />
脱 鞍 暂 入 酒 家 垆 Unsaddle your horse and enter this inn a short while,<br />
送 君 万 里 西 击 胡 I will send you <strong>of</strong>f west ten thousand li to attack the Hu.<br />
功 名 只 向 马 上 取 Success and fame is only attained on horseback,<br />
真 是 英 雄 一 丈 夫 ! 130 You are indeed a brave, heroic man!<br />
While still a place <strong>of</strong> intense military conflict which also held promise for <strong>of</strong>ficial<br />
advancement, the frontier <strong>of</strong> the Tang dynasty, particularly the northwestern portion, with its vibrant<br />
trades routes flooded with all manner <strong>of</strong> luxury goods and exotica stretching to the Middle East,<br />
“ceased to be just [a] barren and unappealing battleground depicted in earlier poetry. [Even while]<br />
Tang poetry repeats [this] traditional view...it is <strong>of</strong>ten conjoined with lively descriptions <strong>of</strong> the vigorous<br />
frontier life, heady Central Asian wine, and spirited music... [which] by the Tang, [especially that <strong>of</strong><br />
Cen Shen's time], [had become] humanized...and an enriched ingredient for the alembic <strong>of</strong> the poetic<br />
imagination” 131 . In the writing <strong>of</strong> frontier poetry, practised conventionality would now have to contend<br />
with personal experiences on China's borderlands as an ever growing number <strong>of</strong> poetically talented<br />
individuals employed in secretarial positions on the staff <strong>of</strong> frontier military governors 132 were<br />
beginning to blend customary renditions <strong>of</strong> the frontier with their own immediate encounters to portray<br />
an alien spatial expanse infused with unfamiliar peoples and customs. 133<br />
127<br />
Shengjin pass ( 胜 金 口 ) <strong>of</strong> Huoyan mountain; the pass is part <strong>of</strong> a transportation route between modern day Shanshan<br />
county 鄯 善 县 and Turpan.<br />
128<br />
South west <strong>of</strong> Zhangye county 张 掖 县 , Gansu province.<br />
129<br />
The implication being that with the extended time Vice Commissioner Li must spend travelling about the northwestern<br />
region, gazing upon the frontier moon would certainly have caused him to feel homesick. See CSJJZ, p. 95.<br />
130<br />
CSJJZ, p. 95.<br />
131<br />
Marie Chan, Cen Shen, p. 73.<br />
132<br />
Ibid., p. 73.<br />
133<br />
By the High Tang, the frontier landscape would no longer exclusively serve as a background prop for scenes <strong>of</strong> battles<br />
nor as an objective correlative for the pains <strong>of</strong> homesickness, those bitters feelings <strong>of</strong> separation which were difficult to<br />
avoid while away campaigning. Geographic entities were instead becoming independent foci, objects <strong>of</strong> poetic attention<br />
whose characteristics were unravelled by writers directly perceiving the frontier. The environs <strong>of</strong> many Tang frontier<br />
poems were an admixture <strong>of</strong> tradition and experience, impressions gleaned not only from history, literature or<br />
geographic texts but also from personal encounters tempered by the frontier subgenre's tradition <strong>of</strong> portraying such