ChineseStudy

253. Song of Liangzhou | Wang Han

Contents

Text

English translation

Fine grape wine gleams in luminous cups. Just as we are about to drink, the pipa sounds from horseback, urging us on.

The phrase does not mean that the instrument itself sits on a horse and commands the men. Music is played in the mounted camp, whether to hasten departure or press the drinking forward. Wine, music, and impending action crowd into the same moment.

If I fall drunk upon the battlefield, do not laugh. Since ancient times, how many who went to war have ever returned?

The battlefield turns the feast's exuberance toward mortality. The final question does not cancel the bravado of the drinking; it reveals what lies beneath it. Men drink freely because none can be certain of coming back.

赏析 · Commentary

热闹与死亡只隔两句 · Two Lines Between Revelry and Death

前两句颜色明亮、声音急促：葡萄酒、夜光杯、琵琶都带着异域军营的华丽。后两句没有换场，酒席仍在沙场，只是诗人突然问起有多少人能回来。热闹不是为了遮住死亡，恰恰因为死亡近在眼前，饮酒才显得这样痛快。

The opening is bright in color and quick in sound: grape wine, luminous cups, and pipa create the splendor of a frontier camp. The scene does not change in the last two lines; the feast was on the battlefield all along. The sudden question about return shows that revelry does not conceal death. Because death is near, the drinking becomes so unrestrained.

“豪迈”里为什么有悲凉 · Why Defiance Also Contains Sorrow

把这首诗只读成慷慨豪迈，会漏掉最后的“几人回”；只读成反战哀歌，也会抹去夜光杯和“君莫笑”的昂扬。它把两种感受放在一起：将士不回避危险，也没有假装危险不存在。笑声、醉意和死亡意识共同构成边塞生活的强度。

To read the poem only as heroic bravado is to miss how few return; to read it only as a lament against war is to erase the luminous cups and do not laugh. The poem holds both responses together. The soldiers do not shrink from danger, nor do they pretend it is absent. Laughter, intoxication, and awareness of death give frontier life its force.

Feedback