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Entry tags:
Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Greater Odes of the Kingdom, Decade of Dang
* I found the best option for the weekly reminder emails, via Gmail. The external service options are more involved than our purposes require. Does anyone know anything about how to arrange an Apps Script? Basically all it has to do is tell ten people, on Saturdays, to come and get their juice/poems.
Until someone knows what to do there, I'll send out manual messages weekly. If you'd like to receive these and are not getting them, please let me know.
* If you haven't read it yet, chapter one, on tetrasyllabic shi poetry, in How to Read Chinese Poetry is hugely useful for the Book of Odes, imo.
* Remember you can also look at How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context.
* IF YOU HAVE FRIENDS WHO MIGHT LIKE TO JOIN or have other ideas, please let me know on this post.
* Every week I search the poems' English results to see if I can find any scholarship or neat bits and pop the results in Resources. Here is this week's collection.
**NEXT BATCH JUNE 7.**
Until someone knows what to do there, I'll send out manual messages weekly. If you'd like to receive these and are not getting them, please let me know.
* If you haven't read it yet, chapter one, on tetrasyllabic shi poetry, in How to Read Chinese Poetry is hugely useful for the Book of Odes, imo.
* Remember you can also look at How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context.
* IF YOU HAVE FRIENDS WHO MIGHT LIKE TO JOIN or have other ideas, please let me know on this post.
* Every week I search the poems' English results to see if I can find any scholarship or neat bits and pop the results in Resources. Here is this week's collection.
**NEXT BATCH JUNE 7.**
259. 崧高 - Song Gao
維嶽降神、生甫及申。
維申及甫、維周之翰。
四國于蕃、四方于宣。
Grandly lofty are the mountains,
With their large masses reaching to the heavens.
From these mountains was sent down a Spirit,
Who gave birth to [the princes of] Fu and shen.
Fu and Shen,
Are the support of Zhou,
Screens to all the States,
Diffusing [their influence] over the four quarters of the kingdom.
亹亹申伯、王纘之事。
于邑于謝、南國是式。
王命召伯、定申伯之宅。
登是南邦、世執其功。
Full of activity is the chief of Shen,
And the king would employ him to continue the services [of his fathers],
With his capital in Xie,
Where he should be a pattern to the States of the south.
The king gave charge to the earl of Shao,
To arrange all about the residence of the chief of Shen,
Where he should do what was neccessary for the regions of the south,
And where his posterity might maintain his merit.
王命申伯、式是南邦。
因是謝人、以作爾庸。
王命召伯、徹申伯土田。
王命傅御、遷其私人。
The king gave charge to the chief of Shen,
'Be a pattern to the regions of the south,
And by means of those people of Xie,
Proceed to display your merit. '
The king gave charge to the earl of Shao,
To make the statutory definition of the territory and fields of the chief of Shen.
The king gave charge to the chief 's steward,
To remove the members of his family to the spot.
申伯之功、召伯是營。
有俶其城、寢廟既成。
既成藐藐、王錫申伯。
四牡蹻蹻、鉤膺濯濯。
Of the services of the chief of Shen,
The foundation was laid by the earl of Shao,
Who built first the walls [of this city],
And then completed his ancestral temple.
When the temple was completed, wide and grand,
The king conferred on the chief of Shen,
Four noble steeds,
With their hooks for the trappings of the breast-bands, glittering bright.
王遣申伯、路車乘馬。
我圖爾居、莫如南土。
錫爾介圭、以作爾寶。
往近王舅、南土是保。
The king sent away the chief of Shen,
With its carriage of state and its team of horses.
'I have consulted about your residence,
That it had best be fixed in the South.
I confer on you a great sceptre,
As the symbol of your dignity.
Go, my uncle,
And protect the country of the South.'
申伯信邁、王餞于郿。
申伯還南、謝于誠歸。
王命召伯、徹申伯土疆。
以峙其粻、式遄其行。
The chief of Shen took his departure,
And the king gave him a parting feast in Mei.
Then the chief of Shen returned, [and proceeded] to the south,
And found himself at last in Xie.
The king had given charge to the earl of Shao,
To make the statutory division of the lands,
And to lay up stores of provisions,
That the progress of the chief might be accelerated.
申伯番番、既入于謝、徒御嘽嘽。
周邦咸喜、戎有良翰。
不顯申伯、王之元舅、文武是憲。
Martial-like, the chief of Shen,
Entered into Xie.
His footmen and charioteers were numerous,
And throughout the regions of Zhou all rejoiced.
'You have got a good support:
Very distinguished is the chief of Shen,
The great uncle of the king,
The pattern of the officers, both civil and military. '
申伯之德、柔惠且直。
揉此萬邦、聞于四國。
吉甫作誦、其詩孔碩、其風肆好、以贈申伯。
The virtue of the chief of Shen,
Is mild, and regulated, and upright.
He will keep all these countries in order,
And be famed throughout the kingdom.
[I], Ji-fu, made this song,
An ode of great excellence,
Of influence good,
To present to the chief of Shen.
Re: 259. 崧高 - Song Gao
"hooks for the trappings of the breast-bands" ?
So the king is sending his vassal uncle south on some errand?
Re: 259. 崧高 - Song Gao
Yeah, it seems he was sent to consolidate power of the Zhou dynasty in the south?
Re: 259. 崧高 - Song Gao
Curiously, the most visible statements on authorship in these songs are not in the “Airs of the States” (guofeng) that speak intensely, and often emotionally, of personal experience. Instead, they are found mostly in the “Major Court Hymns” (daya) that arose within the ritual institutions of the Zhou royal court. In particular, songs 259 (“Song gao”) and 260 (“Zheng min”) both conclude with a statement that “Jifu made a recitation” in order to influence a named historical figure. These two songs are understood as compositions by Yin Jifu (“Overseer Jifu”), a high Western Zhou official and military leader from around 900 BC who is briefly mentioned also in other sources. In each song, the final quatrain that mentions Jifu as the “reciter” is taken to define the entire text as Jifu’s personal expression. In addition, since Han times the next two songs in the Shijing – 261 (“The Jiang and the Han”) and 262 (“Han yi”) – have been likewise attributed to him. While the authorship of songs 261 and 262 was questioned by later imperial scholars, that of “Song gao” and “Zheng min” remains universally accepted.3A close analysis of the four texts raises doubts about Jifu as the author of any of the four songs. With regard to “Song gao” and “Zheng min,” one observes: first, in both songs, the concluding claim about Jifu is formally distinct from the preceding text, separated by a different rhyme; second, in each song, the concluding claim about Jifu as “reciter” (not to mention author) is not related to anything else in the preceding lyrics; third, the songs have no coherent voice but are composite structures of different voices and idioms, including direct royal speech, proverbs, language from administrative documents, poetic phrases found elsewhere in the Shijing, and narrative prose; fourth, while each text is a composite structure of such different voices, the two texts are also considerably different in nature and do not suggest a common author; fifth, both songs show a number of parallels especially to “The Jiang and the Han” and “Han yi”, two texts that are even more densely modeled on administrative documents; sixth, while quotations of “Song gao” and “Zheng min” abound in early texts, these quotations never include the final quatrains; seventh, no early reference to the texts mentions Jifu as author; eighth, when Jifu is mentioned in other sources, he appears as a military leader but never as an author of texts; and ninth, self-referential notions of authorship are exceedingly rare in Shijing – and in pre-imperial sources altogether – suggesting that authorship was not an integral property of such poetry.4Taken together, these observations make a compelling case against Jifu as the author of “Song gao” and “Zheng min,” not to mention “The Jiang and the Han” and “Han yi.” But what do they tell us about the raison d’être for the final quatrains in “Song gao” and “Zheng min”? First, it may be that “Jifu has made a recitation” does not refer at all to authorship but to the mere recitation (song) of the text. Second, the final quatrains are most likely later (if still pre-imperial) additions to the two songs: instead of marking authorship, they merely connect exemplary – and highly non-individual – court compositions with the voice of an exemplary official of high status. As such, the final quatrains of the two songs are retrospective constructions of remembrance and interpretation; they reveal how a later audience imagined the performance of ritual communication at the Western Zhou royal court.
Re: 259. 崧高 - Song Gao