Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Odes of the Temple and the Altar, Sacrificial Odes of Zhou, Qing Miao

[x_los]

   * 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 14.** 

ONLY 4 SHI JING WEEKS LEFT, THIS INCLUDED!   

Comments

274. 執競 - Zhi Jing

[x_los]

執競武王、無競維烈。
不顯成康、上帝是皇。
自彼成康、奄有四方、斤斤其明。
鐘鼓喤喤、磬筦將將、降福穰穰。
降福簡簡、威儀反反。
既醉既飽、福祿來反。

The arm of king Wu was full of strength;
Irresistable was his ardour.
Greatly illustrious were Cheng and Kang,
Kinged by God.
When we consider how Cheng and Kang,
Grandly held all within the four quarters [of the kingdom],
How penetrating was their intelligence!
The bells and drums sound in harmony;
The sounding stones and flutes blend their notes;
Abundant blessing is sent down.
Blessing is sent down in large measure;
Careful and exact is all our deportment;
We have drunk, and we have eaten, to the full;
Our happiness and dignity will be prolonged.

Re: 274. 執競 - Zhi Jing

[x_los]

'ardour' this is not the sense I think of 'ardour' as

'sounding stones' this must be some kind of stone based instrument?

Re: 274. 執競 - Zhi Jing

[ann712]

I see our political, social, economic history as a mark of how how much or how little we have progressed. These poems see it as the blue print for a happy today. Suggests little social change was happening.

Re: 274. 執競 - Zhi Jing

[douqi]

Quick Google search suggests this is the instrument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bianqing

Re: 274. 執競 - Zhi Jing

[x_los]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKWqZLQDuKo

Here's a video about this, for the curious

Re: 274. 執競 - Zhi Jing

[superborb]

Baike's vernacular TL of the second line is "no one could compare to his martial arts"