Wagons rumble,
Horse neigh,
Marching men, each with bow and arrows at the waist.
Fathers and mothers, wives and children
rush to bid them farewell
Till Hsien-yang* bridge disappears in the dust.
Stumbling and clutching at their clothes,
they bar the way in tears:
The sound of wailing rises into the clouds.
A bystander on the roadside questions a soldier:
The soldier merely replies, "Another conscription".
"Some of us at fifteen went north to guard the River;
Reaching forty, sent west to work the farms.
When we left, the village Elder bound our heads;
White-haired we return, still on border duty --
That border where blood has flowed to fill a sea,
And the Emperor's craving for territory is still unsatisfied.
Have you not heard, Sir, about the two hundred districts
east
of our mountains,
How thistle and medlar are creeping over thousands of
villages?
Even where the women are sturdy, able to hoe and
plough,
The grain grows anywhere -- boundaries are all broken
down.
It is even worse for the soldiers from Ch'in region,
enduring
the bitterness of battle,
Driven this way and that, no better than dogs or fowls.
Even though a local elder may question us,
Humble soldiers, dare we express resentment?
Only look at the present winter --
Still no relief for the Kuan-hsi forces,
Local officials urgently pressing for taxes:
Where are the taxes to come from?
It seems that bearing sons is a bad business,
Better to have borne girls instead.
Girls can marry in the neighborhood;
Boys will lie buried among common grasses.
This is story being told about the armies in China during the Han dynasty. It
depicts people marching on to military camps to progress the expansion of China The title gives you some detail on what might be going on. It begins a narration by a third person telling about the departure of the men in the village.Families being split apart by the conscription. Young boys having to go into the army and fight for their country. The main characters in the story are a bystander from the village and a soldier marching off to the camps. The bystander asks them a question about their duty in the army, and the soldiers responds in a meaningful way. Telling you about what they think about the orders they are given. They explain why it is better to have a daughter than a son. They hint on how they do not want to leave their homes and go to war. It tells about the turmoil which is going on in China in their quest for more land.
I greatly enjoyed this poem and the meaning it gets across. It told about the
conscription of men from villages and I felt like I was really there. My favorite part was
when the soldiers are telling the bystander about what they think of the situation they and their country are in. I think that Tu Fu has in detail written the events of men going off to serve in the army. The soldiers even not wanting to go still understand their duty to their country. This poem does not have a section I do not like. The first section can be alittle hard to understand. If I could change something I would like to add more to the poem continuing the story of the men and their village. Possibly create another poem called “The Ballad of the Marching Men.” I would recommend this work to anyone who enjoys poetry. It is also by one of the greatest poets in Chinese history. I believe a person who enjoys hearing stories from past cultures would like this. Someone who enjoyed reading Tu Fu poetry would also take an interest. His stories are telling what the country went throughout the rule of the Han family.