We
may have heard of, or even read, Sunzi?s Art
of War, but this anthology
is the first opportunity that the majority of English-language
readers will have to read first-hand accounts from those involved,
one way or another, in the on-going conflicts in ancient China. The
bleak and barren terrain, the inclement weather ? icy blasts of
wind, snow-blizzards one moment and sandstorms the next ? the music
of the steppes, reed-pipes sounding strange melodies across the
frozen wasteland, troops setting out from some barracks on the Wall,
never to return, the whitened piles of bones they leave behind after
their deaths in battle, the widows and orphans pining for them
thousands of miles away? these are recurring themes in this
anthology which spans more than sixteen centuries and includes the
work of 50 poets. Conventional ?border poems? (poems about
heroism and the lot of the common soldier thousands of miles away
from home) sit side by side with eyewitness accounts, and the
majority of these poems are translated into English for the first
time, which is what make s this anthology so important. The
anthology?s title is inspired by a famous painting of a poet who
fashioned a sweet-sounding flute from an iron sword. As the
translator, Kevin Maynard, says: ?Out of the discord of war we
humans can still conjure up sweet music.?