Going out of the fortress Wang Changling of the Tang Dynasty
The bright moon of the Qin Dynasty and the Pass of the Han Dynasty, and the people who marched thousands of miles have not returned.
But the flying generals of Dragon City are here, and Huma is not taught to cross the Yin Mountains.
Wang Changling (690-756 AD), courtesy name Shaobo, was Han nationality and a native of Taiyuan, Shanxi. A famous frontier poet in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, he was known as the "Seven Masters" by later generations.
Translation
On the long border line, the war has never stopped, and the soldiers who went to fight on the border line have not returned yet. If the general Wei Qing and the flying general Li Guang who attacked Dragon City were still alive today, they would never have allowed the enemy's army to cross Yinshan.
Appreciation
This poem is known as: "The first of the seven masterpieces of the Tang Dynasty".
This is a frontier fortress poem lamenting the constant wars on the border and the lack of good generals in the country. The first line of the poem is the most intriguing. It is about Hanguan here, the sigh of the Mingyue Qin Dynasty, which has undergone great historical changes and the battles have not stopped. The second sentence describes how many men died on the battlefield before the conscripts were returned, and how many tragedies were left behind. Three or four sentences express the common will of the people for thousands of years, hoping that the "Dragon City Flying General" will appear to calm the chaos and stabilize the border defense. The whole poem uses ordinary language to sing a powerful and open-minded theme. The momentum is smooth and it is completed in one go. Everyone who sings it is amazed. Li Panlong, a man of the Ming Dynasty, once praised it as the masterpiece among the seven masterpieces of the Tang Dynasty, which is not an exaggeration.
It is regarded as a way to gain fame. Some intellectuals, most of whom had lived in frontier fortresses, wrote poems mainly describing frontier fortress life, which formed the so-called "frontier fortress poetry school". Wang Changling is an important member of this school.
The poem starts with describing the scenery. "The bright moon of Qin and the pass of Han", the bright moon in the sky, shines on the pass on the thousands of miles of border, showing the outline of the border and the depression of the scenery. Modifying "Qin and Han Dynasties" in front of "Moon" and "Guan" makes the artistic conception more lofty, leading us to the distant ancient times, and is more thought-provoking: since the Qin and Han Dynasties, border wars have been continuous and continue to this day. It is really protracted. Too long! This describes the history of the frontier fortress in terms of time.
Faced with such a scene, the people nearby were moved by the scene, and naturally thought of the countless people who dedicated themselves to the frontier since the Qin and Han Dynasties and never returned until death. "The people who marched thousands of miles have not yet returned", which also points out the remoteness of the border fortress from a spatial perspective. The "people" here refer to both the soldiers who have died in the battle and the soldiers who are still guarding and unable to return. "The people have not returned", firstly, it shows that the border defense is not strong, and secondly, it expresses sympathy for the soldiers. These are two aspects of the same problem, the former is the cause and the latter is the effect. This is a big problem that has not been solved from the Qin to the Han and even the Tang Dynasty. How to solve this problem? The third and fourth sentences are the poet's answer.
"But the flying generals in Dragon City are here, and Huma is not taught to cross the Yin Mountains" directly expresses the border guards' desire to consolidate border defense and their ambition to defend the country: as long as there are famous generals like Wei Qing and Li Guang, the enemy's The cavalry will not survive the Yinshan Mountains. These two sentences are so well written that the meaning goes beyond the words. This means that because the imperial court improperly employed people, the generals were not able to recruit them, which resulted in a situation where the war was burning and the people who were recruited were not returned.
Although this poem only has four short lines, it expresses complex content through the description of the border scenery and the psychology of conscripts. It not only expresses strong sympathy for the soldiers who have been garrisoned for a long time and the desire to end this situation of indifference in border defense; it also reveals dissatisfaction with the imperial court's inability to select talents. At the same time, it focuses on the overall situation and recognizes the justice of war, so personal interests are subordinated. In order to meet the needs of national security, he issued a vow to "not teach Huma to cross the Yinshan Mountains", which was filled with patriotic passion.
The poet did not describe the scenery of the frontier in detail. He just selected a typical scene from the conquest life to reveal the inner world of the soldiers. Scenery description is just a means to depict the characters' thoughts and feelings. Han, Guan, Qin and Yue are all integrated into the scenery and soaked with the characters' emotions. The complex content is cast into four lines of poetry, which is deep, implicit and thought-provoking. This poem has a powerful artistic conception, high-spirited style, and concise and bright language.