THE RED CLIFF Du Mu Having been buried in the sand for long, the broken halberd doesn't rust out After washing-rubbing it shows it's a relic of the dynasty former. If east wind didn't facilitate the commander Zhou Yu's attack with fire,Would be under house arrest in the Wei Kingdom's court his wife and her sister. This poem was written by the author who passed the ancient battlefield Red Cliff that is Chiji Mountain today located in the southwest to the Wuchang County, Hubei Province of China. In the four-line rhymed poem with seven Chinese characters in every line the author expressed his impressions about the success or failure of historical heroes implicitly. According to the annals, Cao Cao led his superior warships and forces against the combined forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei. The chief commander of Sun Quan's forces Zhou Yu, using Zhu-Ge Liang's suggestion,destroyed Cao Cao's warships with fire attack on the Red Cliff Battlefield. The direction of east wind was not same to that of the fire attack, Cao Cao would be a victor. It is clear that there is author's subconsciousnessin the last two lines of the original, so I manifested the latent meanings in author's artistic conception properly in my four-line rhymed English version with 19 syllables in every line. Besides, zhou lang in the third line ofthe original is the commander Zhou Yu. Tong que in the last line of the original is tong que tai (Brass Sparrow Platform) located in the west to Linzhang County, Hebei Province of China today which was the capital of the Wei Kingdom where Cao Cao's palace was built. Er qiao were two famous belles in the Wu Kingdom and sisters from the same family, the elder of which was married to the former king of the Wu Kingdom Sun Ce and the younger was married to the commander Zhou Yu. In order that the readers, especially the foreign readers easily understand author's artistic conception I reappeared their real meanings lurking in the original.
