A Protest in the Sixth Year of Ch’Ien Fu (A.D. 879)
The hills and rivers of the lowland countryYou have made your battle-ground.How do you suppose the people who live thereWill procure “firewood and hay”?Do not let me hear you talking togetherAbout titles and promotions;For a single general’s reputationIs made out of ten thousand corpses.
Words in this poem
- lowland n.
- Land which is low with respect to the neighboring country; a low or level country; -- opposed to highland. The Lowlands, Belgium and Holland; the Netherlands; also, the southern part of Scotland.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Protest in the Sixth Year of Ch’Ien Fu (A.D. 879) is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, the Arthur Waley translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, A Protest in the Sixth Year of Ch’Ien Fu (A.D. 879), in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/a-protest-in-the-sixth-year-of-ch-ien-fu-a-d-879.html, id L18814.
Form and metre
A Protest in the Sixth Year of Ch’Ien Fu (A.D. 879) is 8 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 82% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.5 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter, other poems in blank verse.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The hills and rivers of the lowland country | 11 | ···/˘··/·/˘ |
| You have made your battle-ground. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| How do you suppose the people who live there | 11 | ···˘/·/˘··· |
| Will procure “firewood and hay”? | 8 | ·˘//˘··· |
| Do not let me hear you talking together | 11 | ······/˘˘/˘ |
| About titles and promotions; | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| For a single general’s reputation | 11 | ··/˘/˘˘·˘/˘ |
| Is made out of ten thousand corpses. | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
Notes from the edition 1
Arthur Waley's notes to A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918; Project Gutenberg #42290).
- Line 4 The necessaries of life.
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