It means: when you open the bow, you must shoot that arrow. The metaphor has already started, so it will continue. It also describes never back down's spirit of going forward bravely. From Gao's Spring and Autumn in a Small Town.
Bow opening: the bow opened and the arrow was shot out. Pull open the bow and arrow and shoot it, but the arrow won't return. Metaphorically speaking, once things start, there is no turning back, so we must stick to it!
The full text of this sentence is: men don't flick when they have tears, and they don't look back when they open their bows, so they cut off their grievances and their lingering feelings. Chop keeps forging iron bones, chop keeps pouring blood, but it is neither cold nor hot. Since ancient times, heroes have been loyal and brave, shouldering the sun and the moon. A gentleman doesn't waste a trip to the world, but a man doesn't flick when he has tears.
Brief introduction of Spring and Autumn in a Small Town;
This book takes the activities of Xiamen Associated Press as a clue and ends with the robbery in Xiamen prison. It truly shows the revolutionary situation and the ideological and political outlook of intellectuals in China around 1930s, and successfully depicts different types of intellectuals.
On the island of Xiamen in 1930s, a group of young people from teen wolf established Xiamen United News Agency under the leadership of the Party, calling on the people to oppose feudalism and colonialism. He Jianping and Wu Jian were successively arrested and imprisoned because of the traitors' bullying and betrayal.
Gao (19 10- 1956), formerly known as Gao Yichang, is a writer from Xiamen, Fujian. 1926 Join the Communist Youth League. 1932 joined the Shanghai "Left League". 1937 went to Malaya and Singapore to engage in anti-Japanese activities.