Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Odes of the Temple&Altar, Praise-Odes Of Lu & Sacrificial Odes Of Shang

[x_los]

LAST WEEK OF SHI JING!!

Get your comments in on what we do next here, and I'll put up the poll on Saturday!

* 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.

Comments

魯頌 - Praise-Odes Of Lu: 298. 有駜 - You Bi

[x_los]

有駜有駜、駜彼乘黃。
夙夜在公、在公明明。
振振鷺、鷺于下。
鼓咽咽、醉言舞。
于胥樂兮。

Fat and strong, fat and strong,
Fat and strong, are the chestnut teams.
Early and late are the [officers] in the court,
In the court, discriminating and intelligent.
[They are as] a flock of egrets on the wing,
Of egrets anon lighting on the ground.
The drums emit their deep sound;
They drink to the full and then dance; -
Thus rejoicing together.

有駜有駜、駜彼乘牡。
夙夜在公、在公飲酒。
振振鷺、鷺于飛。
鼓咽咽、醉言歸。
于胥樂兮。

Fat and strong, fat and strong,
Fat and strong are the teams of stallions.
Early and late are the [officers] with the prince,
With the prince drinking.
[They are as] a flock of egrets on the wing,
Of egrets flying about.
The drums emit their deep sound;
They drink to the full and then return home; -
Thus rejoicing together.

有駜有駜、駜彼乘駽。
夙夜在公、在公載燕。
自今以始、歲其有。
君子有殼、詒孫子。
于胥樂兮。

Fat and strong, fat and strong,
Fat and strong are the teams of iron-greys.
Early and late are the [officers] with the prince,
With the prince feasting.
'From this time forth,
May the years be abundant.
May our prince maintain his goodness,
And transmit it to his descendants! ' -
Thus they rejoice together.

Re: 魯頌 - Praise-Odes Of Lu: 298. 有駜 - You Bi

[x_los]

The officials are like healthy horses, well suited to the work, efficient and pulling in tandem.

"[They are as] a flock of egrets on the wing,
Of egrets anon lighting on the ground." ?

So they are diligent in their work, and then, at the appropriate time (state/ritual occasions), they celebrate.

Re: 魯頌 - Praise-Odes Of Lu: 298. 有駜 - You Bi

[superborb]

Per Baike:

Does Legge know words other than fat, or does that just Sound Nice? Baike glosses to stout and strong anyway.

This poem praises Lu Xi gong, thought to be either when he, Qi Huan gong, and Song Huan gong attacked Chu, or in 657 BC (the third year of his rule) when there was a long drought that had broken. When Lu Xi inherited the throne, the country as in a precarious state, so after he made efforts to overcome the natural and man-made calamities, the country was finally having a good harvest.

Baike's gloss for the egrets points out that their feathers are used as dance equipment and later the article describes the poem as set during a banquet and the dancers as using the egret feathers.