Nineteen Old Poems: Week 2 of 2

[x_los]

 * There were two votes in favour of East Asia Student's translations, so that's what I've gone with. If you prefer or would like to bring another translation into the discussion, please feel free. 

* Chapter Five of How to Read Chinese Poetry is specifically about the Nineteen Old Poems.

* 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.

* Remember you can also look at How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context, though it doesn't specifically treat this collection.

* IF YOU HAVE FRIENDS WHO MIGHT LIKE TO JOIN or have other ideas, please let me know on this post.

* 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.

* Next batch of poems, the first half of Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute, MONDAY, AUGUST 30th.

 

Comments

Re: 13. 驅車上東門 – I Ride My Chariot from the Upper East Gate

[superborb]

Really shows that people were critical of the alchemical practices contemporaneously.

Additional Baike tidbits:

Turmoil of late Eastern Han Dynasty, etc etc so intellectuals are criticizing society, as they cannot achieve a stable life or occupation.

In ancient times, trees like poplar, pine, cypress, etc were planted on tombs as a sign to make it easy for the descendants to sacrifice and sweep.

"Of the wise and the sage, there are none who can hold it back." -- 'it' here is death.

Re: 13. 驅車上東門 – I Ride My Chariot from the Upper East Gate

[x_los]

It's really interesting you get this diversity of opinion at the time, because often our attempts to explain worldview flatten and universalise practice into The Opinion of the Time.

That's really interesting environmental engineering re the trees, and acknowledgement that environments change and grave markers might not last as long as the trees.