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