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Tang Dynasty Jueju Lu Lun

Border Song, VI: Honor in the Portrait Gallery

塞下曲六首·其六

Sài xià qǔ liù shǒu · qí liù

A commander is promised lasting honor in a portrait gallery. Discover why leaving his personal name unwritten becomes the poem's highest compliment.

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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.

01

亭亭七葉貴，

tíng tíng qī yè guì

Lofty nobility through seven generations;

Word meanings — Line 1
  1. 亭 tíng lofty
  2. 亭 tíng lofty
  3. 七 qī seven
  4. 葉 yè generations
  5. 貴 guì noble
02

蕩蕩一隅清。

dàng dàng yì yú qīng

a whole wide region made peaceful.

Word meanings — Line 2
  1. 蕩 dàng broad
  2. 蕩 dàng broad
  3. 一 yì one
  4. 隅 yú region
  5. 清 qīng peaceful
03

他日題麟閣，

tā rì tí lín gé

One day, when your portrait is inscribed in the Qilin Gallery,

Word meanings — Line 3
  1. 他 tā another
  2. 日 rì day
  3. 題 tí inscribe
  4. 麟 lín Qilin
  5. 閣 gé gallery
04

唯應獨不名。

wéi yīng dú bù míng

yours alone should be honored without a personal name.

Word meanings — Line 4
  1. 唯 wéi only
  2. 應 yīng should
  3. 獨 dú alone
  4. 不 bù not
  5. 名 míng name

English translation by PoemWell.

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Original

亭亭七葉貴，

蕩蕩一隅清。

他日題麟閣，

唯應獨不名。

Translation

Lofty nobility through seven generations;

a whole wide region made peaceful.

One day, when your portrait is inscribed in the Qilin Gallery,

yours alone should be honored without a personal name.

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.

  1. Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?

    亭亭七葉貴，

    Pronunciation hint

    qī

    Reveal meaning and translation

    七 — seven

    Lofty nobility through seven generations;

  2. Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?

    他日題麟閣，

    Pronunciation hint

    tí

    Reveal meaning and translation

    題 — inscribe

    One day, when your portrait is inscribed in the Qilin Gallery,

  3. Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?

    唯應獨不名。

    Pronunciation hint

    dú

    Reveal meaning and translation

    獨 — alone

    yours alone should be honored without a personal name.

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Line-by-line notes

Lines 1–2 · What is inherited and what is done

七葉 figures generations as leaves in succession. 貴 honors the family’s standing, while 一隅清 presents a region brought to peace. Listen to how the repeated 亭亭 and 蕩蕩 enlarge the opening. Their weight carries the praise from a long line of ancestors to a territory made secure in the addressee’s own time.

Lines 3–4 · An inscription that leaves out a name

他日 looks to a future day, and 題 makes honor something that could be written. 麟閣 is the Han portrait gallery invoked in that hope. 唯 and 獨 single the addressee out just before 不名 removes the personal name. The apparent reversal makes sense in light of Huo Guang’s exceptional inscription, which omitted his personal name. The English uses “honored” to bring out the distinction implied by that precedent. Book of Han, chapter 54

Form and tone

This complete five-character quatrain begins with paired reduplications, 亭亭 and 蕩蕩, and ends with an allusive paradox. The reader must understand why omission can be an honor. It is the sixth separate four-line poem in the received sequence, not the final four lines of one continuous twenty-four-line poem.

See jueju for the larger formal pattern. Pinyin gives modern Mandarin pronunciation; a historical level/oblique grid is not inferred from those modern tones.

Historical context

The Qilin Gallery allusion draws on Han historical memory. Book of Han, chapter 54 records that Huo Guang alone was not given a personal name in the portrait inscription. Lu Lun borrows that exceptional distinction to imagine a future honor for his addressee. The poem joins the language of family succession to the promise of public remembrance.

Continue with Lu Lun and the frontier reading path. Compare Border Song, I: The New Command and Jia Yi using the reading connections below.

Sources

樂府詩集/093卷 — Chinese text. Checked against the linked Wikisource transcription. The displayed traditional text follows this reading. Punctuation and line breaks are editorial. Translation, glosses, and reading notes are original to PoemWell.

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

Lu Lun. “Border Song, VI: Honor in the Portrait Gallery” (塞下曲六首·其六). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .

https://poemwell.org/poems/border-song-lu-lun-six

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.