Ethan McGuire

A Translation of Three Poems from the Chinese of  Yue Fei

A Poem at Galloping Horse Hill

On a wooded ridge, I stand up in my stirrups, battle eyes fixed

Upon the clouds of troops below, all parting at a stream

Where an islet mill still pounds the water—like advancing Jin.

The millet grows in nearby palace courtyards, dark and sad.

Down South, the Northerners wear mourning clothes today, disgraced.

Who will drive our chariots back to the North, divine?

Oh, holy gods! I vow to ride in honor of the emperor.

I won’t restrain my tears of rage here at our world’s horizon.

Red River

To all my comrades battle weary,

      To all our soldiers lost in war,

To my Song brothers, sisters living

      Harmoniously with the Tao:

You’re gone, so I recite these lyrics

      For you—alone.¹

My helmet rattles furiously

As I lean against the parapet—

The rain stops… for a moment.

I turn to face the clouds

And hiss strong curses, toward the gods,

From deep within my aching breast.

At thirty years of age, my deeds and fame mean nothing—dust.

My journey—cruel—brought me eight thousand li² beneath the moon.

“Fool, sit ye not by idly,” mocks the sage, “and let black hair grow gray!

Young men grow white despairing.”

Yet the crushing Jingkang Shame³

Still lingers—winter snow.

When will oppressive hearts

Melt and bring on spring?

No more waiting! Let’s break out our chariots and ride for Helan Pass!⁴

There we shall carve out freedom from those slopes—ambitious hunger!

There we shall laugh and drink red Jurchen wine—drink to our fills!

Let us restore these mountains and these rivers for ourselves, anew,

And here rebuild our thrones.

¹The first stanza of this poem is my own and serves as an introduction to reflect, contextualize, and replace a subtitle that was originally included with “Man Jiang Hong” but is now lost except for one line: “Xie Huai,” or “Writing What I Thought.” With this I am hearkening back to the Song Dynasty Chinese cí poetry tradition, of which Yue Fei was a part, of sometimes including a subtitle, which could run as long as a full paragraph, that would serve as a brief commentary on the poem between the title and the poem’s contents.

²An ancient Chinese distance measurement, equaling approximately one half of one kilometer or one third of one mile.

³“The Jingkang Shame” or “The Humiliation of Jingkang” refers to the Jin Dynasty’s conquering of the northern Song Dynasty territory, including the Jurchen capture of the Song Dynasty capital, Kaifeng.

⁴A pass in the Helan Mountains near the Yellow River, in northern China and what had been northern Song territory. Around these lies the traditional Chinese heartland.

A Song of Drums

The orders of the yellow drums resound,

The fluttering white flags are hoisted high.

Among great heaven’s gods, these may be found;

The army—mighty power!—scrapes the sky.

We fly across the miles of desert sand;

We gallop past the sun and through the clouds.

Our banners cast huge shadows on the land;

Our spirits cover mountains in vast shrouds.

Facing our enemies, the morning frost

Drapes whitened silk on everyone at once...

Then one hundred thousand men are tossed—

Colliding in two angry black storm fronts.

Men roar, swords shriek, the mighty dragons sing;

The heavens fill with deadly, spinning darts.

The armored warriors fall before their king;

They never shall return, those bloody hearts.

Chinese folk hero Yue Fei (AD 1103-1142) was a warrior poet of the highest order—a master and founder of multiple martial arts, dedicated Confucianist, Taoist student, great military strategist, successful Song Dynasty general, and literary writer. However, Yue Fei began to experience bouts of depression and rage after the 1127 “Humiliation of Jingkang,” a turning point of the Jin-Song Wars in which Jurchen forces from the Jin Dynasty conquered the northern Song Dynasty capital of Kaifeng, captured two Song emperors, and isolated the remaining emperor and his armies to the south. Yue Fei fought a long campaign against the invading Jurchens to protect the Southern Song people and to recapture northern Song territory, but just before he retook Kaifeng, the Emperor called him back to seek peace with the Jin Dynasty. In the name of preventing civil war and to avoid exile, Yue Fei returned to the southern Song capital of Lin’an, where the Emperor imprisoned him in compliance with Treaty of Shaoxing requirements and eventually had him executed on false charges. Amidst these troubles, Yue Fei wrote some of the Song Dynasty’s most memorable poems, including “Red River” (“Man Jiang Hong”) which is still beloved throughout China today.

Ethan McGuire is a writer and a healthcare cybersecurity professional whose essays, fiction, poetry, reviews, song lyrics, and translations have appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, Blue Unicorn, The Dispatch, Emerald Coast Review, Literary Matters, The New Verse News, The University Bookman, and VoegelinView, among other publications, and he is the author of an art and poetry chapbook, Songs for Christmas. Ethan lives with his wife and their two children in Fort Wayne, Indiana.