Border Songs 3, Wang Changling

He received his command in Ganquan Palace,
Gathered his army, troops from all under heaven—
The morning court prepared the rites of departure—
The peaceful lands and districts greeted them.
Scattered, dispersed, those many thousands of men:
Those who departed didn’t keep their lives …
Officials desire use of the palace stables—
It’s granted to those bestowed with border towns.

塞下曲 之三
奉诏甘泉宫，
总征天下兵。
朝廷备礼出，
郡国豫郊迎。
纷纷几万人，
去者无全生。
臣愿节宫厩，
分以赐边城。

Bopping back to a couple yuefu. This is third of a four-poem set, the first two of which were included in 3TP as #36-37 and I’m translating the other two because curiosity: why didn’t the original editor include them? —nor subsequent editors, even though they supplied additional poems for other partial sequences (see for ex #39-42).

Ganquan (“sweet spring”) was Han Emperor Wu’s resort palace away from Chang’an—a historical fig-leaf necessary for political satire. “All under heaven” is a poetic phrase for “all the empire” (because, of course, there aren’t any real lands ‘under heaven’ outside the empire). It’s just as abrupt in the original, but my reading is that the officials callously sent out all those men to die as part of maneuvering for perks of office.

In conclusion … I don’t have enough knowledge of the cultural/political nuances to judge. It’s not like there aren’t other Confucian critiques of indifferent governance. Maybe because the last couplet is not only disconnected but compact enough the lines are difficult to read? But that doesn’t affect the fourth poem (tomorrow). So, yeah, IDK.

(Source parts 5-6)

---L.