唧(jī)唧复唧唧，木兰当户织。不闻机杼(zhù)声，惟闻女叹息。 问女何所思，问女何所忆。女亦无所思，女亦无所忆。昨夜见军帖（tiě），可汗（kè hán）大点兵。军书十二卷，卷卷有爷名。阿爷无大儿，木兰无长兄。愿为(wèi)市鞍(ān)马，从此替爷征。
东市买骏马，西市买鞍鞯（jiān），南市买辔（pèi）头，北市买长鞭。旦辞爷娘去，暮宿黄河边。不闻爷娘唤女声，但闻黄河流水鸣溅溅（jiān jiān）。旦辞黄河去，暮至黑山头。不闻爷娘唤女声，但闻燕山胡骑(jì)鸣啾啾(jiū jiū)。
万里赴戎(róng)机，关山度若飞。朔（shuò)气传金柝（tuò），寒光照铁衣。将军百战死，壮士十年归。
归来见天子，天子坐明堂。策勋十二转，赏赐百千强(qiáng)。可汗问所欲，木兰不用尚书郎，愿驰千里足，送儿还故乡。
爷娘闻女来，出郭相扶将（jiāng）；阿姊（zǐ）闻妹来，当户理红妆；小弟闻姊来，磨刀霍霍(huò huò）向猪羊。开我东阁门，坐我西阁床。脱我战时袍，著（zhuó)我旧时裳（cháng）。当窗理云鬓(bìn)，对镜帖(tiē)花黄。出门看火伴，火伴皆惊惶。同行十二年，不知木兰是女郎。
雄兔脚扑朔，雌兔眼迷离；双兔傍(bàng)地走，安能辨我是雄雌？
—One version of the original poem
The Ballad of Mulan (木蘭辭, Mùlán cí) is a Chinese poem written in (probably) the fifth or sixth century AD. It is the origin of the Mulan character, later known as Hua Mulan.note
The story opens with Mulan at her loom. She is sad that her father has been drafted and has no grown son to serve in his place. She leaves home to take his place in the army herself. After fighting for ten/12 note years, Mulan is honored by the Khannote and offered a high position, but she turns it down. She then returns home and resumes living the life of an ordinary woman. Seeing this, her old wartime comrades are shocked to discover that she was female all along. The poem ends by asking how you would be able to distinguish between two running rabbits which was male and which was female.note
Adaptations of the story can be found here. Entries from the Disney franchise can be found here.
The Ballad of Mulan contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Mulan, presumably. Her time at war is not described in any detail, but she does get honored by the Khan himself after spending at least ten years at war, so she can't have done too badly.note
- Ambiguous Time Period: There is no explicit mention of the time period or what war Mulan is fighting in. Due to the geographic and cultural references, it's traditionally assumed that the poem is set during the Northern Wei dynasty, in which case the war would be fought against the Rouran tribes, whom the Wei regarded as barbarians. By extension, Mulan's ethnicity is very likely to be Xianbei as in Northern Wei, only the Xianbei people could become soldiers. The location reference also tells us that the campaign was the same one Tuoba Buri (AKA Tuoba Tao, posthumously known as Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei) led against the Rouran Khaganate in 429.
- Ballad of X: The English title is translated as the "Ballad of Mulan".
- Barbarian Hero: Mulan, on a technicality. While composed in the Northern Wei, it was first transcribed in the southern Chen dynasty, who saw the Northern Wei as "plaited barbarians" and thus, to them Mulan would have been a barbarian hero by the traditional Han Chinese standards of the Imperial era.
- The Dutiful Daughter: Mulan is seen as an important historical/legendary figure in traditional Chinese culture for being this and upholding the principles of "filial piety" (孝), as her entire story revolves around this — taking her father's place in the army because he had no sons that were old enough to fight, and declining a position in the Khan's court, while requesting a camel with great endurance to carry her home to her family (a request that the Khan honours).
- Humble Hero: The Khan offers Mulan a government position for her service but she refuses, desiring to go home and reunite with her family after being away for twelve years.
- Mounted Combat: Mulan was very likely a cavalry(wo)man, given that the items she bought in preparation were either the horse itself, or various ancillaries such as a bridle and a whip.
- Nameless Narrative: Aside from Mulan herself, no characters are named.
- No Woman's Land: Implied. When the army draft is given to her family, Mulan laments that neither her elder father nor younger brother is eligible for war. Then, when she returns back home from the war and resumes her civilian life, her comrades express shock that Mulan is really a woman despite fighting with her for over 12 years. Alternately, Heroic Lineage may apply, given the context of Mulan's homeland of Northern Wei.note
- Officer and a Gentleman: One possible interpretation of the poem was that Mulan's persona during the war was this. This would explain why she survived relatively unscathed for at least ten years, note her role as a cavalry(wo)man.note and why her comrades didn't know her true sex.note
- Open-Minded Parent: Contrary to many future adaptations, Mulan's parents support her decision to take her father's place and even help her buy the supplies she needs before heading off to the army.
- Only One Name: Due to the standards of the day only referring to women by their surname, "Mulan" was her surname and she had no established given name. It was centuries later, during the Ming dynasty, that her surname was first given as "Hua" (or "Fa", in Cantonese pronunciation) by the playwright Xu Wei and her given name became "Mulan". Other sources have given her surname as "Zhu" or "Wei".
- Samus Is a Girl: The ending, from the perspective of Mulan's comrades.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Possibly, a Downplayed Trope or even an Unbuilt Trope. While her comrades are surprised to discover that she's female at the end, there is no explicit mention that Mulan tried to disguise her gender. For all we know, they were just really unobservant.
- Work Info Title: Would you guess that this is a ballad?