276. The Red Cliff | Du Mu
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
折戟沉沙铁未销，自将磨洗认前朝。
English translation
A broken halberd sinks in the sand, its iron not yet rusted away; I pick it up, wash and polish it, and recognize it as a relic of an earlier age.
A broken halberd is a snapped weapon; to rust away is to wear down with corrosion. I pick it up means he takes it in hand himself. The earlier age points to the Three Kingdoms period around the Battle of Red Cliffs, but the line does not identify which side the weapon belonged to. From a single weapon buried in river sand the poet links the present to events centuries old.
Original Chinese text
东风不与周郎便，铜雀春深锁二乔。
English translation
Had the east wind not favored Lord Zhou, the deep spring on the Bronze Bird Terrace would have held the two Qiaos.
Lord Zhou is Zhou Yu, commander of the allied Sun-Liu forces at Red Cliff. The Bronze Bird Terrace was built by Cao Cao, and the two Qiaos—elder and younger—were the wives of Sun Ce and Zhou Yu. The poet poses a supposition: without the east wind to carry Zhou Yu's fire attack, Wu would have fallen and even its commanders' wives might have been carried off to Cao Cao's terrace. Making the fate of the two Qiaos stand for the fate of the state is the poem's celebrated device.
赏析 · Commentary
从一支断戟进入历史 · Entering History Through a Broken Halberd
赤壁之战发生在数百年前，诗人偏从沙滩里一支断兵器写起。磨洗之后认出它是旧物，历史就不再是书上的名词，而成了握在手里的一件实物。有了这个具体的小物件，后面的假设才不显得空泛。
The battle of Red Cliff took place centuries earlier, yet the poet begins with a broken weapon in the sand. Once it is washed and recognized as old, history is no longer a word in a book but a thing held in the hand. With that small concrete object in place, the supposition that follows does not feel empty.
翻案式的假设 · A Supposition That Overturns the Verdict
一般人写赤壁，会赞美周瑜的胜利；杜牧却问：若是没有那阵东风呢？他把胜负归因于偶然的天时，语气冷静，甚至带点调侃。末句不写军队的存亡，只写两个女子的下落，却比直接议论兴亡更让人心惊。（“铜雀锁二乔”是诗人的想象，并非史实。）
Most poems on Red Cliff praise Zhou Yu's victory; Du Mu asks instead: what if that east wind had failed? He traces the outcome to a chance turn of weather, coolly and even wryly. The closing line names not the fate of armies but the fate of two women, and it chills the reader more than any direct talk of rise and fall. (That the Bronze Bird Terrace held the two Qiaos is the poet's imagination, not history.)