An Elegy for General Dai Anlan1
(March 1943)2
One must resist the foreign insults,
The General composes an ode of war.3
The commander says “Mechanize!”
And brave men wrest away the might of the beasts.
Soaked in blood, protecting Toungoo
Driving the [Japanese] dwarves back to Taunggyi.4
On the battleground then, you sacrificed your life
Yet our noble purpose was accomplished.
Notes
Our copy of this source is from Mao Zedong shici ji (Beijing: Zhonggong wenxian chubanshe, 1996), pp. 177–
79.
1. For Dai Anlan (1904–1942), see above, note to the text “Elegy for Dai Anlan” (May 1942).
2. This poem is the 1943 version published in the registry book Elegiac Poems and Couplets from the
Memorial Service for General Dai Anlan. The first unofficial version appeared on December 28, 1983, in
Renmin zhengxie bao in an essay interpreting the classical allusions in the poem.
3. That is, “Cai zheng,” a poem on the suffering of war from the Shijing (Book of Odes).
4. Toungoo and Taunggyi are towns in southern Burma [Myanmar].