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

商頌 - Sacrificial Odes Of Shang: 302. 烈祖 - Lie Zu

[x_los]

嗟嗟烈祖、有秩斯祜。
申錫無疆、及爾斯所。
既載清酤、賚我思成。
亦有和羹、既戒既平。
鬷假無言、時靡有爭。
綏我眉壽、黃耇無疆。
約軧錯衡、八鸞鶬鶬。
以假以享、我受命溥將。
自天降康、豐年穰穰。
來假來饗、降福無疆。
顧予烝嘗、湯孫之將。

Ah! ah! our meritorious ancestor!
Permanent are the blessings coming from him,
Repeatedly conferred without end:
They have come to you in this place.
The clear spirits are in our vessels,
And there is granted to us the realization of our thoughts.
There are also the well-tempered soups,
Prepared beforehand, the ingredients rightly proportioned.
By these offerings we invite his presence, without a word,
Nor is there now any contention [in any part of the service].
He will bless us with the eyebrows of longevity,
With the grey hair and wrinkled face, in unlimited degree.
With the naves of their wheels bound with leather, and their ornamented yokes,
With the eight bells at their horses' bits all tinkling,
[The princes] come and assist at the offerings.
We have received the appointment in all its greatness,
And from Heaven is our prosperity sent down,
Fruitful years of great abundance.
[Our ancestor] will come and enjoy [our offerings],
And confer [on us] happiness without limit.
May he regard our sacrifices in summer and winter,
[Thus] offered by the descendant of Tang!

Re: 商頌 - Sacrificial Odes Of Shang: 302. 烈祖 - Lie Zu

[x_los]

"Ah! ah! our meritorious ancestor!
Permanent are the blessings coming from him," I am BEGGING the Shi Jing to stop sounding like weird porn

"And there is granted to us the realization of our thoughts." answer to our prayers?

"well-tempered soups" I get what they mean but this is an odd way of phrasing it

Re: 商頌 - Sacrificial Odes Of Shang: 302. 烈祖 - Lie Zu

[superborb]

Baike says that some believe the Shang Odes originated during the Shang dynasty, others by Weizi of Song; the author of the Baike article thinks it was during the Shang and then polished until the Song. (To clarify, this is Song, the state during the Zhou dynasty, and not the later Song dynasty.)