The Ballad of Mulan

[x_los]

Just one poem this week, but it's a long and famous one. We were planning on starting Eighteen Old Poems this week and then doing the Northern Wei (circa 400 AD) Ballad of Mulan after, but because we've been going in a mostly chronological order, I wanted to flip the sequence rather than jumping to Tang poems set in a Song scroll, then doubling back on ourselves.

Because the Ballad of Mulan has been adapted so many times, I'm not going to be able to easily pull together a source-post on it. Instead, I have some links. 

The quite good wiki page for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Mulan
Some background context in English: https://mulanbook.com/pages/northern-wei/ballad-of-mulan
A meh podcast on the ballad: https://www.chineseliteraturepodcast.com/?p=285
Other translations of the text: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Ballad_of_Mulan ; https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/mulan.php

唧唧复唧唧
木兰当户织
不闻机杼声
唯闻女叹息

问女何所思
问女何所忆
女亦无所思
女亦无所忆

昨夜见军帖

可汗大点兵

军书十二卷

卷卷有爷名

阿爷无大儿

木兰无长兄

愿为市鞍马

从此替爷征

东市买骏马

西市买鞍鞯

南市买辔头

北市买长鞭

朝辞爷娘去

暮宿黄河边

不闻爷娘唤女声

但闻黄河流水鸣溅溅

旦辞黄河去

暮至黑山头

不闻爷娘唤女声

但闻燕山胡骑声啾啾

万里赴戎机

关山度若飞

朔气传金柝

寒光照铁衣

将军百战死

壮士十年归

归来见天子

天子坐明堂

策勋十二转

赏赐百千强

可汗问所欲

“木兰不用尚书郎

愿借明驼千里足

送儿还故乡”

爷娘闻女来

出郭相扶将

阿姊闻妹来

当户理红妆

小弟闻姊来

磨刀霍霍向猪羊

"开我东阁门

坐我西阁床

脱我战时袍

着我旧时裳."

当窗理云鬓

对镜贴花黄

出门看火伴

火伴皆惊惶

同行十二年

不知木兰是女郎

“雄兔脚扑朔

雌兔眼迷离

两兔傍地，

安能辨我是雄雌?”

The Ballad of Mulan (Tr. Han H. Frankel)

Tsiek tsiek and again tsiek tsiek,

Mu-lan weaves, facing the door.

You don’t hear the shuttle’s sound,

You only hear Daughter’s sighs.

They ask Daughter who’s in her heart,

They ask Daughter who’s on her mind.

“No one is on Daughter’s heart,

No one is on Daughter’s mind.

Last night I saw the draft posters,

The Khan is calling many troops,

The army list is in twelve scrolls,

On every scroll there’s Father’s name.

Father has no grown-up son,

Mu-lan has no elder brother.

I want to buy a saddle and horse,

And serve in the army in Father’s place.”

In the East Market she buys a spirited horse,

In the West Market she buys a saddle,

In the South Market she buys a bridle,

In the North Market she buys a long whip.

At dawn she takes leave of Father and Mother,

In the evening camps on the Yellow River’s bank.

She doesn’t hear the sound of Father and Mother calling,

She only hears the Yellow River’s flowing water cry tsien tsien.

At dawn she takes leave of the Yellow River,

In the evening she arrives at Black Mountain.

She doesn’t hear the sound of Father and Mother calling,

She only hears Mount Yen’s nomad horses cry tsiu tsiu.

She goes ten thousand miles on the business of war,

She crosses passes and mountains like flying.

Northern gusts carry the rattle of army pots,

Chilly light shines on iron armor.

Generals die in a hundred battles,

Stout soldiers return after ten years.

On her return she sees the Son of Heaven,

The Son of Heaven sits in the Splendid Hall.

He gives out promotions in twelve ranks

And prizes of a hundred thousand and more.

The Khan asks her what she desires.

“Mu-lan has no use for a minister’s post.

I wish to ride a swift mount

To take me back to my home.”

When Father and Mother hear Daughter is coming

They go outside the wall to meet her, leaning on each other.

When Elder Sister hears Younger Sister is coming

She fixes her rouge, facing the door.

When Little Brother hears Elder Sister is coming

He whets the knife, quick quick, for pig and sheep.

“I open the door to my east chamber,

I sit on my couch in the west room,

I take off my wartime gown

And put on my old-time clothes.”

Facing the window she fixes her cloudlike hair,

Hanging up a mirror she dabs on yellow flower powder

She goes out the door and sees her comrades.

Her comrades are all amazed and perplexed.

Traveling together for twelve years

They didn’t know Mu-lan was a girl.

“The he-hare’s feet go hop and skip,

The she-hare’s eyes are muddled and fuddled.

Two hares running side by side close to the ground,

How can they tell if I am he or she?”

Comments

[x_los]

The Khan is calling many troops,

It is interesting that this ruler isn’t Han, sort of calling into question narratives of a past where the country was ethnically ‘stable’ and homogenous.


The army list is in twelve scrolls,
On every scroll there’s Father’s name.

So in mechanical terms, what does this mean? What are these lists?

Is the whip for controlling the horse?

Why are these army pots coming up?

12 ranks, like the 12 scrolls?

So if she had an older sister all along, why wasn’t going to war her jiejie’s responsibility? Or is Mulan able to go because her sister is holding down the house?

‘ I open the door to my east chamber,
I sit on my couch in the west room,’ do these specific locations mean anything?

‘yellow flower powder’ ?

[superborb]

Yeah, Mulan is usually considered a Xianbei or other non-Han ethnicity. The adoption of Han aesthetics for Mulan is occasionally controversial.

Baike:

The twelve is just to mean a lot, not a definite indication. Ditto the uses later of 10 years, 12 ranks, 12 years.

No gloss on the whip, the vernacular just says horse gear.

Army pots were used in the day to cook food and at night to sound the night watch. One source says the first character (gold) refers to the soldier's copper saucepan (my dictionary glosses this term as with basically the previous sentence), and the second (watchman's rattle) to a wooden watchman's rattle.

Those rooms get no gloss, and the vernacular tl just says every room.

Yellow flower powder is glossed as the makeup decoration, where yellow paper was cut into shapes to stick to the forehead, or yellow painted on. We've discussed this one before I think, though it was red in later eras.

[x_los]

Ah, so if it says 'horse gear' then I guess it's an equestrian whip rather than something intended for usage in battle.

I was NOT gonna get that about the army pots.

Oh so like, huadians used to be yellow before they were red, and could sometimes be paper plaisters (https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/sexy-face-stickers/).

[pengwern]

That's so interesting that it might be her older sister's responsibility - I hadn't thought about it before! The usual assumption I saw in the... uh, stories/webnovels are that Mulan is the one who is interested in martial stuff, as opposed to 'this particular society being one where on the distaff side military obligation also goes by age' since it's more unfortunately probable that women would be pulled into the army for other purposes, but I don't know enough facts here to be sure. (I've skimmed a bit into the webnovel 木兰无长兄 but it didn't seem like too much fun in those first few chapters, of course obviously novels are never to be used for actual history facts etc.)

(And hello there, I followed this blog because I came across your dreamwidth meta posts! I'm kind of interested in reading classical chinese texts but have been reading them really sporadically without any kind of framework, which doesn't seem ideal.)

[x_los]

Welcome! We're really happy to have interested participants. :)

[phnelt]

“The he-hare’s feet go hop and skip,
The she-hare’s eyes are muddled and fuddled.
Two hares running side by side close to the ground,
How can they tell if I am he or she?”
that's a devastating thing to say about these war comrades, blind as hares

[x_los]

Mm, and you could also read it as--'you can't tell the gender of the two rabbits in motion/distinguish between them, and you also can't actually say shit about me either when I'm at work and not Performing Gender at you.'