I jumped on my horse and went to fight against the rampant Hulu. When I got off my horse, I was busy drafting military documents.
It comes from the work "Reflections on the View of Dasanguan Tu" by Lu You, a patriotic poet of the Song Dynasty.
The excerpt is as follows:
Mount your horse to attack Kuang Hu, and dismount your horse to write a military letter.
If you hold this ambition at twenty, you will still be a scholar at fifty.
In the scattered warehouses, the mountains and rivers are full of chaos.
A strong and righteous person can be compared with the powerful figure.
The translation is as follows:
I jumped on my horse and went to fight against the rampaging Hulu. When I got off my horse, I was busy drafting military documents.
I had such ambitions when I was twenty, but I am still a thin and poor scholar at fifty!
There are magnificent mountains and rivers between Dashanguan and Chencang, with winding rivers and sparse vegetation on the mountains.
The martyrs have a strong spirit, and you can work with them to achieve great goals.
Extended information:
Creative background
In October of the ninth year of Qiandao (1173), Lu You photographed Jiazhou and saw the map of the fortress at the junction of Song and Jin Dynasties ——This poem was written after Dashanguan Tu. Jiazhou is the place where Cen Shen, a famous frontier poet in the Tang Dynasty, served as governor. Lu You was deeply affected by the strong patriotism spirit in Cen Shen's poems.
Appreciation of Works
Lu You wrote this poem in Jiazhou. In "Reading the Collected Poems of Cen Jiazhou", he praised Cen's poems: "His writing is as powerful as that of Li Du". Ming Dynasty poet Bian Gongyun said: "It is said that he is close to Li Du. He can be said to know his words." "After the Engraving of Cen's Poems") Lu You's poem is not only full of patriotic passion and is in the same vein as Cen's poetry, but also is similar to Cen's poetry in that "his writing power pursues Li Du".
The poet thought about how to use troops against the Central Plains from looking at the Dasanguan map, and then returned from the fantasy of successful military use to the cold reality; the poet was most unwilling to talk about military affairs on paper, but in the end he couldn't help but talk about military affairs on paper. The opposition and conflict between subjectivity and objectivity infuse the whole poem with a spirit of injustice. This is very similar to Du Shi's melancholy style. The whole article is full of excitement, strong bones, powerful words, and seemingly effortless flow, which is very similar to Li Bai's poetic style.
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