Beyond the Frontier: After the Battle
出塞二首（其二）
Chū sài èr shǒu · qí èr
A newly mounted horse, continuing drums, and an unwashed blade hold Wang Changling’s frontier scene just after combat.
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Read the original and its translation together. Open a line’s word meanings for a closer look.
About the text and pronunciation
The simplified view changes character forms, not the edition. Notes and sources retain the cited text.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Word by word, in the order of the line. A gloss is a crib. It is not the translation.
Word meanings — Line 1
- 騮 liú bay
- 馬 mǎ horse
- 新 xīn newly
- 跨 kuà mount
- 白 bái white
- 玉 yù jade
- 鞍 ān saddle
Word meanings — Line 2
- 戰 zhàn battle
- 罷 bà finished
- 沙 shā sand
- 場 chǎng field
- 月 yuè moon
- 色 sè light
- 寒 hán cold
Word meanings — Line 3
- 城 chéng city
- 頭 tóu top
- 鐵 tiě iron
- 鼓 gǔ drums
- 聲 shēng sound
- 猶 yóu still
- 振 zhèn resounds
Word meanings — Line 4
- 匣 xiá case
- 裏 lǐ inside
- 金 jīn metal
- 刀 dāo blade
- 血 xuè blood
- 未 wèi not yet
- 乾 gān dry
English translation by PoemWell.
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Original
騮馬新跨白玉鞍，
戰罷沙場月色寒。
城頭鐵鼓聲猶振，
匣裏金刀血未乾。
Translation
Newly astride a bay horse's white-jade saddle,
battle over, the field cold in moonlight.
Iron drums still resound above the city wall;
inside its case, the bright blade's blood is not yet dry.
Try it from memory
After reading, recall the underlined word or phrase in each line. Say its meaning before opening the answer. These prompts use the text edition printed above.
-
Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?
騮馬新跨白玉鞍，
Pronunciation hint
kuà
Reveal meaning and translation
跨 — mount
Newly astride a bay horse's white-jade saddle,
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
城頭鐵鼓聲猶振，
Pronunciation hint
gǔ
Reveal meaning and translation
鼓 — drums
Iron drums still resound above the city wall;
-
Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
匣裏金刀血未乾。
Pronunciation hint
dāo
Reveal meaning and translation
刀 — blade
inside its case, the bright blade's blood is not yet dry.
One more question: what changes?
Compare the opening and closing lines. What changes in the scene, the speaker’s attention, or the feeling? Choose a Chinese word as evidence, then compare your reading with the notes. More than one answer may be reasonable.
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Line-by-line notes
Lines 1–2 · The rider and the field
騮馬 is a bay horse. 新 puts the mounting just behind the reader’s present, and 白玉 makes the saddle conspicuously bright. 戰罷 then places the fighting further back, already ended. 沙場 is the battlefield, where the cold moonlight spreads beyond the single mounted figure.
Lines 3–4 · Sounds and traces that outlast the fight
猶 and 未 give the final pair two ways to say something continues. The iron drums still sound at the wall, and the blood inside the blade’s case is not dry yet. 匣裏 narrows the scene from the sound over the wall to something enclosed. 金刀 becomes “bright blade” in English, keeping the sheen of metal without specifying pure gold. Read 猶 and 未 after 罷. The fighting is over, but the ear and eye keep encountering its immediate effects.
Form and tone
The seven-character jueju rhymes 鞍, 寒, and 乾. 新, 罷, 猶, and 未 establish four different relations to time: just begun, finished, still continuing, not yet complete. Modern pinyin accompanies the text; no historical tone grid is supplied.
Historical context
Read Wang Changling's close frontier scene beside The Old Pass, which spans dynasties. Wang Han's luminous-cup song makes mortality a direct question; this poem leaves violence in the visible details of an aftermath. The restraint is part of its force.
Sources
《全唐詩》, juan 143, Wang Changling; checked against the Wikisource transcription, retaining the main reading and identifying the individual poem within its sequence. Punctuation is editorial.
English translation, gloss, and notes by PoemWell. The translation is original to this site.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Updated .
Cite this reading
Wang Changling. “Beyond the Frontier: After the Battle” (出塞二首（其二）). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/beyond-the-frontier-two
Credit the poet for the Chinese original and PoemWell for this translation and commentary. Use the permanent page link above; source editions are listed separately.