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

289. 小毖 - Xiao Bi

[x_los]

予其懲 。
而毖後患。
莫予荓蜂。
自求辛螫。
肇允彼桃蟲。
拚飛維鳥。
未堪家多難。
予又集于蓼。

I condemn myself [for the past], and will be on my guard against future calamity.
I will have nothing to do with a wasp,
To seek for myself its painful sting.
At first, indeed, the thing seemed but a wren,
But it took wing and became a [large] bird.
I am unequal to the many difficulties of the kingdom;
And I am placed in the midst of bitter experiences.

Re: 289. 小毖 - Xiao Bi

[x_los]

what wasp, and why would you think a wasp was a wren and then a giant bird? this metaphor is really Going Places

Re: 289. 小毖 - Xiao Bi

[x_los]

Rhetoric in Ancient China, Fifth to Third Century, B.C.E
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=72QURrAppzkC&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=Xiao+Bi+poem+shi+jing&source=bl&ots=lOdODwmTq9&sig=ACfU3U1C36BoXwAi8plq1qStLzDecgbttg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjtwdKu2KjxAhUGDWMBHRcbCe8Q6AEwEXoECB4QAw#v=onepage&q=Xiao%20Bi%20poem%20shi%20jing&f=false

Mentions that this and songs like it are about "portraying the king as a noble, virtuous and moral ruler, were sung by the king himself expressing his determination to ward off evil and self-corruption as well as his sincerity in seeking wise counsel from his ministers and officials."

Re: 289. 小毖 - Xiao Bi

[ann712]

I don’t think it should be interpreted that he thinks the wasp is a wren. I read it that he doesn’t want to grasp the nettle (so to speak) which is the wasp thing.
Then he says that the challenges he faced seemed small ( wren) at first but then proved to be a large bird when it took off.

Re: 289. 小毖 - Xiao Bi

[superborb]

Baike:

I cannot quite parse the gloss for 'wasp': a tiny grass bee; there is disagreement about the explanation, some say it has the meaning of shi [to make; to cause]?????

The 'sting' is glossed as a loan character for 'imperial orders', hardworking/industrious

The wren (a small bird) -> large bird metaphor is for Wu Geng, who started out weak but colluded with Guanshu and Caishu to rebel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellion_of_the_Three_Guards)

The bitter experiences uses a bitter plant to carry the meaning; it was commonly used by the ancients as a metaphor for hardships.

So this is now Zhou Cheng wang as a mature adult, having passed the rebellion.