Comparison of Tang and Song Poems In The Attitudes Towards Others

Comparison of Tang and Song Poems
In The Attitudes Towards Others

As history moves from Tang to Song, the Chinese view about “others” undergoes great changes. This was reflected in the poems describing warfare at that time. The literature of both Tang and Song dynasties has signs of racial chauvinism. However, the Tang poets also expressed ambivalence about fighting the other and questioned the righteousness of war, while this ambiguity is hardly found in Song literature.

The Tang was a multi-cultural and cosmopolitan dynasty. Partly because of the Xianbei ancestry of its rulers, the Tang people hold a very open-minded view toward cultural and ethnic others. They recognized that there is a shared humanity among all humans, regardless of their ethic or cultural origins. Many famous poets look on the war as a humanitarian catastrophe and wrote poems against it. Take the following poem by Du Fu:

“At the border where the blood of men spills like the sea --
And still the heart of Emperor Wu is beating for war.
...Do you know that, east of China's mountains, in two hundred districts
And in thousands of villages, nothing grows but weeds,
And though strong women have bent to the ploughing,
East and west the furrows all are broken down?
...Men of China are able to face the stiffest battle,
But their officers drive them like chickens and dogs.
Whatever is asked of them,
Dare they complain?”[1]

This piece of poem reflects the sufferings inflicted on the people by the unending wars. It is also a bold criticism on the expansionary policy of the emperor. Another poem by Wang Changling also reveals the brutality of the war:

“Through the gate and back again, all along the road,
There is nothing anywhere but yellow reeds and grasses
And the bones of soldiers from You and from Bing
Who have buried their lives in the dusty sand.
...Let never a cavalier stir you to envy
With boasts of his horse and his horsemanship”[2]

There were even poems written from the angle of the “enemy”:

“Three thousand miles without a town, nothing but camps,
Till the heavy sky joins the wide desert in snow.
With their plaintive calls, barbarian wild geese fly from night to night,
And children of the Tartars have many tears to shed;” [3]

The author of the poem sympathize with the Tartars children and questioned about the morality of waging a war against the “barbarians”. It should be noted that, in these works of Tang, there is not a "politically correct" position. Whether a person is inclined to war or peace doesn’t mean he is a patriot or a traitor. During the Song dynasty, however, the pacifists were often considered to be traitors and were demonized.
The "patriotic" themes became the mainstream of literature. Take the following poem by Yue Fei:

“Jing Kang’s shame is not yet washed away; this minister’s hate – when will it be quenched?
I’ll drive a war chariot and smash apart the Helan mountain pass!
Then with a strong spirit,
I’ll feast on the flesh of barbarian prisoners; talking and laughing,
I’ll swig barbarian blood.
Count on me – I’ll make a new beginning, gather up our ancient mountains and rivers and present them to the Emperor, at the palace gate. “[4]

In this poem Yue Fei expressed his anguish over the lose of north China to the Jurchen Jin. The phrases like “I’ll feast on the flesh of barbarian prisoners; talking and laughing, I’ll swig barbarian blood” clearly shows his hatred towards the Jurchens. Compared with the poem from Tang “And children of the Tartars have many tears to shed”, Yue Fei exhibited no attempt to reverse angles and look at thing from the view of the “barbarians”.

Before Song, China is mainly defined by culture rather than by race or borders. In Song period, conditions on the borders hardened. With Khidan Liao on the north and Xi Xia on the west, the Song people had to accept the fact that “China” was not a universal empire, that the “barbarians” also established powerful empires on equal status with Song. This led people into thinking of difference in racial terms:

“In the land of Yao, the region of Shun, the realm of Yu,
There must be a few who have felt the humiliation of serving under barbarians.
Our vast land now smells of goats and sheep.
Where are the souls of the heros of long ago?
When will we get through?
Why ask about the fate of the barbarians/
The red sun will rise in the sky.” [5]

In this poem the author uses the term “the land of Yao, the region of Shun, the realm of Yu” to distinguish Chinese from the “barbarians”. This signals the prominence of the "China" consciousness, which is a distant source of nationalism ideology in modern times.

[1] Du Fu（712－770). A SONG OF WAR-CHARIOTS. Xu, Yuan-zhong. 300 Tang Poems: a new translation, Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1987.

[2] Wang Changling（690－756). AT A BORDER-FORTRESS. Xu, Yuan-zhong. 300 Tang Poems: a new translation, Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1987.

[3] Li Qi(690-751). AN OLD WAR-SONG. Xu, Yuan-zhong. 300 Tang Poems: a new translation, Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1987.

[4] Yue Fei (1103－1142). MAN JIANG HONG .

[5] Chen Liang(1143-1194). PRELUDE TO THE WATER MELODY.