“your job is to protect your family & your family is everyone/power to the people: give it a chance”

Another follow-on from an previous translation. This is the earliest surviving literary retelling of the Mulan story, by mid-Tang scholar-official Wei Yuanfu (701-771). It adds a few details missing from the original ballad, such as why her father can’t serve, that have become canon. (If you’re interested in how the Mulan story has evolved over the centuries, this website is All About That, including source texts in translation.)

Song of Mulan, Wei Yuanfu

    Mulan is holding the shuttle and sighing.
    “I ask again, because of whom?
    I want to hear from whence these woes.”
    The feelings stirred are forced to her face.
( Father is on the army rolls, / Yet every day his strength declines )

Can’t say I’m fond of the patriotic moralizing conclusion, especially compared to the gender interrogation of the original ballad. Overall I prefer the original, folk-process gaps in the narrative and all, though I do appreciate giving her a clear motivation.

---L.

Index of Chinese translations

Subject quote from A Pragmatist’s Guide to Revolution, Kyle Tran Myhre aka Guante.