War and the Muses - Li Po’s "Nefarious War"

A wealthy scholar and Taoist who traveled widely for pleasure, Li Po (701-762) – now more commonly known as Li Bai – is generally regarded as one of China’s greatest poets. Most of his surviving works – perhaps 1,100 in all – deal with the pleasures of life, love, art, nature, and especially drink – one of his most famous poems is “Drinking Alone by Moonlight.”   Although he never soldiered, he appears to have had at least a passing acquaintance with war and soldiering, as can be seen in his “Nefarious War.”

Nefarious War

Last year we fought by the head-stream of the So-Kan,

This year we are fighting on the Tsung-ho road.

We have washed our armor in the waves of the Chiao-chi lake,

We have pastured our horses on Tien-shan’s snowy slopes.

The long, long war goes on ten thousand miles from home.

Our three armies are worn and grown old.

 

The barbarian does man-slaughter for plowing;

On his yellow sand-plains nothing has been seen but blanched skulls and bones.

Where the Chin emperor built the walls against the Tartars,

There the defenders of Han are burning beacon fires.

 

The beacon fires burn and never go out.

There is no end to war!—

 

In the battlefield men grapple each other and die;

The horses of the vanquished utter lamentable cries to heaven,

While ravens and kites peck at human entrails,

Carry them up in their flight, and hang them on the branches of dead trees.

So, men are scattered and smeared over the desert grass,

And the generals have accomplished nothing.

 

Oh, nefarious war! I see why arms

Were so seldom used by the benign sovereigns.

Tradition has it that Li Po died while on a nocturnal boat ride, being so drunk he attempted to embrace the reflection of the moon on the water and drowned.