Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Odes of the Temple&Altar, Sacrificial Odes of Zhou, Min Yu Xiao Zi

[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 28.** 

ONLY 2 SHI JING WEEKS LEFT, THIS INCLUDED!   

Comments

288. 敬之 - Jing Zhi

[x_los]

敬之敬之、天維顯思、命不易哉。
無曰高高在上、陟降厥士、日監在茲。
維予小子、不聰敬止。
日就月將、學有緝熙于光明。
佛時仔肩、示我顯德行。

Let me be reverent, let me be reverent, [in attending to my duties];
[The way of] Heaven is evident,
And its appointment is not easily [preserved].
Let me not say that It is high aloft above me.
It ascends and descends about our doings;
It daily inspects us wherever we are.
I am [but as] a little child,
Without intelligence to be reverently [attentive to my duties];
But by daily progress and monthly advance,
I will learn to hold fast the gleams [of knowledge], till I arrive at bright intelligence.
Assist me to bear the burden [of my position],
And show me how to display a virtuous conduct.

Re: 288. 敬之 - Jing Zhi

[x_los]

"Let me not say that It is high aloft above me.
It ascends and descends about our doings;" so--let me not think it's remote and doesn't notice or care what I do, then the weird 'ascends and descends' again

Is this for a literal child-ruler, or is it a pose?

Re: 288. 敬之 - Jing Zhi

[superborb]

Baike says the poems 286-289 are regarded as a group-- 286 as Cheng wang has first ascended, 289 after Zhou gong returned to politics, so this should take place between the two. Cheng wang has been in power with the help of Zhou gong for a bit, and is in the transition from impulsive to mature. Baike points out that while the poems would not have been pre-planned to come as a set, it must have been arranged deliberately like so in this collection.