ChineseStudy

35. An Old Theme | Li Qi

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English translation

A man takes the long campaign for his trade; from boyhood he has been a guest of the You and Yan country.

The three words naming You-Yan give his origin: this is no local conscript but a man out of the northern borderlands, which are his birthright.

He stakes the win beneath the hooves; his own seven feet of body have never weighed much to him.

Seven feet stands for the body itself. The contest has to be settled at a gallop, and his life counts for less than the outcome.

He kills, and no one dares come closer; his beard bristles out like a hedgehog's spines.

The line before had him careless of his own life; this one has others afraid of him. The beard standing out is the shape of rage — the killing look shows on the face.

Yellow cloud lies along the ridge and white snow flies; until he has repaid what he owes he cannot go home.

All hard temper up to now; this line turns soft. Not going home is not for lack of wanting — there is a debt of gratitude unpaid, and it holds him.

A young woman of Liaodong, fifteen years old, long used to the pipa and skilled in song and dance.

The eye moves from the soldier to a woman. She is not the subject; she is the one who will later play the frontier tune, and first we are given her age and her skill.

Now she puts the Qiang flute to the out-of-the-frontier tune, and the whole army's tears come down like rain.

The poem ends in the middle of hard men, and what lands is a single tune. She uses the Qiang flute to blow out what the frontier costs, and the hard surface gives way.

赏析 · Commentary

「七尺」为什么「轻」 · Why Seven Feet Weighs Light

第二句的轻字不是看不上，是处境的实话。他把七尺之躯押在马蹄下，赢就赢在快，慢一步就没了。诗里不写他怕不怕，只说他从来看得轻。看得轻，才敢把命摆上去。这个轻字立住了，后面的杀人、须张、不归，才都顺理成章。

The word light in the second line is not contempt but the plain fact of his situation. He throws seven feet of body under the hooves; the win is in the speed, and one step slow and it is gone. The poem never says whether he is afraid, only that he has never counted his life heavy. Counting it light is what lets him put it down as a stake. Once that word stands, the killing, the bristling beard, and the refusal to go home all follow.

从硬到软的一次转身 · One Turn From Hard to Soft

前三句一路往上走：出身、胆气、杀气，全是硬的。第四句忽然拐弯——黄云白雪写环境，不能归写心事。前面的狠不解释来由，这里的软也不解释，两句并排摆着，读者自己去接。诗里最动人的地方，常藏在这种转向里。

The first three lines climb steadily — birth, daring, killing intent — all of it hard. The fourth line turns without warning: yellow cloud and white snow set the scene, and no going home sets the heart. The earlier fierceness gave no reason for itself, and this softness gives none either; the two stand side by side and the reader does the joining. The place a poem moves you most is often hidden in exactly this kind of turn.

一支曲子放倒三军 · One Tune Brings Down the Whole Army

结尾不落在将士身上，落在一支塞曲上。写曲子也不写它多好听，只写引出的结果：三军泪如雨。前面一直说他顾不得自己，这里他顾不得的还有别人——一整个军队的乡愁，由一个十五岁的女孩子吹了出来。收在软处，比收在刀上更重。

The ending does not settle on the soldiers but on a frontier tune. Of the tune it says not that it was beautiful, only what it produced: an army's tears like rain. Up to here he has been careless of himself; here he is careless about everyone else too — the homesickness of a whole army, blown out by a girl of fifteen. Ending on the soft note weighs more than ending on the blade.

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