218 t He tang Dy na s t y
east wind not give Zhou man advantage 東風不與周郎便 (dōng fēng bù yŭ zhōu láng biàn)
bronze small bird spring deep lock two Qiao 銅雀春深鎖二喬 (tóng què chūn shēn suŏ èr qiáo)
[Tonal pattern IIa, see p. 171]
The final years of the Han dynasty coincided with a great power struggle for domi-
nance. Eventually only three great warlords were left: Cao Cao (155–220) of Wei to
the north, Sun Quan of Wu to the southeast, and Liu Bei of Shu Han to the south-
west. When Cao Cao invaded the south, Wu and Shu Han allied to fight him. The
site of the climactic battle in 208 between the two forces was at Red Cliff, on the
Yangtze River in modern Puqi, Hubei Province. Confident of victory, Cao Cao had
chained his troopships together, bow to stern, and sailed east downriver to meet his
foes. Making use of a fortunate change in the direction of the wind, the general of
the allied forces, Zhou Yu, dispatched a wave of fireships and succeeded in annihi-
lating the enemy fleet. Thus the fate of the empire depended on a turn of the wind.
Du Mu’s focus is, however, not the battle but the two daughters of the Han official
Qiao Xuan, who were acknowledged as great beauties of the empire. The elder had
been the wife of Sun Ce, Sun Quan’s deceased elder brother, and the younger was
the wife of Zhou Yu. One of the goals of Cao Cao’s invasion was, reputedly, to claim
the Qiao sisters for himself; he planned to remove them to Bronze Bird Tower, his
pleasure palace at a site in modern Linzhang, Hebei Province. Cao Cao had also
ordered that, after his death, all his palace ladies and dancing girls were to reside
there and maintain sacrifices to his memory. What a pity, Du Mu suggests, if Cao
Cao had succeeded and the Qiao girls had been taken from the world!
In “Dispelling Sorrow,” an older and wiser Du Mu looks back on his life of plea-
sure and does not like what he sees:C 1 0. 1 6
Dispelling SorrowI sunk my soul in the river lands, wandered with wine,
Broke the hearts of Chu girls dancing lightly in my hands
Ten years on, I wake from a Yangzhou dream—
All I’ve won: a callous name in the green mansions
[QTS 16:524.5998; QSTRJJ, 684–685]遣懷 (qiăn huái)
sink soul river south carry wine travel 落魄江南載酒行 (luò pò jiāng nán zài jiŭ xíng)
Chu waist intestine break hand/palm within light 楚腰腸斷掌中輕 (chŭ yāo cháng duàn zhăng zhōng qīng)
ten year one wake Yang -zhou dream 十年一覺揚州夢 (shí nián yì jué yáng zhōu mèng)
win obtain green/blue tower heartless — name 贏得青樓薄倖名 (yíng dé qīng lóu bó xìng míng)
[Tonal pattern IIa, see p. 171]
“Dancing lightly in my hands” (zhangzhong qing) is a glancing allusion to the great
Han beauty Zhao Feiyan, who, it was said, was so light that she could dance on