"There are similar expressions delivering the gather’s worrying mind in the Shijing. The poem"Cailu" (226) reads: ^ or the whole morning gathering lu plant, it doesnot fill my handful amount, and ^ or the whole morning gathering the indigoplant, it does not fill my skirt."
This poem thencorroborates the Yi Jing evidence of ritual in which gathering plants and placing them in the squarebasket is related plays some role in readying a woman for marriage. Arthur Waley explains thesignificance of another pre-marriage harvesting poem (albeit one not featuring baskets) thus: “In [CaiLü 采綠, “Gathering green” (Mao 226)76 ] a girl, about to be married, goes to gather plants withwhich to make green and blue dyes for her trousseau-dresses. She fails to fill her basket, which is a bad omen. Sure enough, the man does not turn up on the wedding-day.”77 Waley identifies thenegative resonance of the failed gathering and gives a literal context for the act of gathering.However, as I will go on to demonstrate, the activity of gathering plants before marriage may, at baselevel, have a less pragmatic association than collecting dyes for the wedding dress.
野 But neither are we rhinos or tigers, who navigate this windsweptwilderness哀我征夫 朝夕不暇 Alas for us campaigning soldiers, day and night we have no rest有芃者狐 率彼幽草 The bushy [tailed] fox, he navigates these thick plants有棧之車 行彼周道 But we have bamboo carts and trudge on the circuit road.The fox in this poem is presented without the details which I have previously discussed - namely,binome suisui or the location near a river. The fox (together with the rhinos and tigers), and its easein the thick plants of the wilderness, is juxtaposed with the situation of the campaigning soldiers inwhose voice the poem is spoken, they who are unaccustomed to the harsh surroundings. While theatmosphere of the poem is one of difficulty and arduousness, this is not a result of the fox image.Indeed, the fox and the other animals are seemingly able to transcend the difficulty of the situation.This treatment is significantly different from that found in either You Hu or Nan Shan, in which thefox imagery is inextricably linked to the human emotive atmospheres, not contrasted to it. He CaoBu Huang thus demonstrates that foxes do not, per se, necessitate a traditional anthropomorphicreading or symbolic association.
Foxes can evidently be exploited in the Shi Jing for figurative purposes, divorced from their ritualassociations, which are inscribed in particular accompanying phrases and scenes. In this poem, therole of the fox image is to act in juxtaposition with the human world, emphasising the differencebetween the situation of an animal which is naturally suited to the conditions and that of soldiers forwhom the harsh winter is foreign and unfamiliar. The figure, located from the initial couplet of thepoem, where xing imagery is usually found, is, if you will, an anti-analogy, a foil to the human world,which negates similitude. This is in direct opposition to the way in which the fox imagery operates inthe opening xing lines of You Hu and Nan Shan, where it is clear (and accepted) that the fox’ssituation has some sort of metaphorical or analogous connection to the human world (partly as aresult of its very presence in each poem’s opening lines).
[...]
This clear difference in treatment demonstrates that fox imagery in You Hu and Nan Shan isexploited for other implications, and that there must be other meaningful elements to the treatmentin those poems. As we have observed, that extra meaningful information is provided by a connectionto a ritual context - a contention that the negative evidence of He Cao Bu Huang would appear toconfirm, in that it provides a context which appears unconnected with ritual. Logically speaking,there would seem no obvious function for a ritual recalling the privations of a military campaign.The song does not display ritual echoes such as distinct repeatable physical actions, nor is its form(with five interrogative phrases in the first stanza and none in the second) evocative of repetitive andbalanced ritual diction. He Cao Bu Huang shows how an unadorned fox image in a poem without(actual or imitated) ritual resonances does not summon up the key notions of liminality or frustratedachievement. Those meanings are only accessible through connection to the imagery of foxes whichis found in the divinatory ritual tradition, and which is accompanied by a particular apparatus ofattendant detail (including the river and/or the suisui binome)
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Articles relating to Decade of Du Ren Shi
Date: 2021-05-11 06:31 pm (UTC)https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180525-the-book-of-songs-poems-that-helped-shape-chinese-thought
Du Ren Shi:
extensive mention in Rewriting Early Chinese Texts
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jWCMTyYjIicC&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=Du+Ren+Shi+poem&source=bl&ots=ee2nUGITOG&sig=ACfU3U0XVvTP1NGDXP302DEUNsLq2_de1g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjQl5aCksLwAhXMX8AKHQ3xBQwQ6AEwEXoECAcQAw#v=onepage&q=Du%20Ren%20Shi%20poem&f=false
THE CONCEPT OF DECADENCE IN THE CHINESE POETIC TRADITION
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40727391?seq=1
Cai Lu:
The Hong Kong Modernism of Leung Ping-kwan
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=407ADwAAQBAJ&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=Cai+Lu+poem&source=bl&ots=DD2PGqBx-L&sig=ACfU3U0rje4EvZZynGF02xQh__FUguRNAQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjYqf28k8LwAhWqgVwKHaXdCmAQ6AEwEHoECBEQAw#v=onepage&q=Cai%20Lu%20poem&f=false
Citations of the Shi Jing in Early Chinese Texts: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/29434/1/10731590.pdf
"There are similar expressions delivering the gather’s worrying mind in the Shijing. The poem"Cailu" (226) reads: ^ or the whole morning gathering lu plant, it doesnot fill my handful amount, and ^ or the whole morning gathering the indigoplant, it does not fill my skirt."
Oracle Poems:Ritual Awareness, Symbolism and Creativity in Shi Jing Poetics
https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/handle/2123/1527/02whole.pdf?sequence=2
This poem thencorroborates the Yi Jing evidence of ritual in which gathering plants and placing them in the squarebasket is related plays some role in readying a woman for marriage. Arthur Waley explains thesignificance of another pre-marriage harvesting poem (albeit one not featuring baskets) thus: “In [CaiLü 采綠, “Gathering green” (Mao 226)76 ] a girl, about to be married, goes to gather plants withwhich to make green and blue dyes for her trousseau-dresses. She fails to fill her basket, which is a bad omen. Sure enough, the man does not turn up on the wedding-day.”77 Waley identifies thenegative resonance of the failed gathering and gives a literal context for the act of gathering.However, as I will go on to demonstrate, the activity of gathering plants before marriage may, at baselevel, have a less pragmatic association than collecting dyes for the wedding dress.
Shu Miao:
Written at Imperial Command: Panegyric Poetry in Early Medieval China
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZZtfynSaBgcC&pg=PA226&lpg=PA226&dq=Shu+Miao+poem&source=bl&ots=xlANwHn627&sig=ACfU3U3pAIFswniaKrcIEmwEJF0BXr-rsw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi235-NlcLwAhWJSsAKHYjjAZIQ6AEwEHoECBUQAw#v=onepage&q=Shu%20Miao%20poem&f=false
The Sinitic Civilization Book Ii: A Factual History Through the Lens of Archaeology, Bronzeware, Astronomy, Divination, Calendar and the Annals
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Nay8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=Shu+Miao+poem&source=bl&ots=MDjDdrDmGe&sig=ACfU3U1uY5-GQseQECczJVeqa8N3Xkt9xQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi235-NlcLwAhWJSsAKHYjjAZIQ6AEwEnoECBIQAw#v=onepage&q=Shu%20Miao&f=false
Comments on the Poetry (Shilun) and the Poetry (Shi)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2753/CSP1097-1467390401?needAccess=true&journalCode=mcsp20
Xi Sang:
The Book of Songs
http://www.readchina8.com/2009/1109/5.html
There are also love poems, let’s take “隰桑，xi sang, Mulberry on the Lowland”:
Beautiful mulberry trees on the low land,
Its leaves full and round.
Now I see my man,
I’m filled with delight.
Beautiful mulberry tres on the low land,
Its leaves fertile and soft.
Now I see my man,
With joy I feel wild.
Beautiful mulberry trees on the low land,
Its leaves deeply green.
Now I see my man,
When talk about love there is no end.
I love you by heart,
Why I dare not mention it?
I burry it deep in heart,
On which day can I forget?
I think you would agree that the feeling this poem projected is very sincere and we know that the girl will never forget her love.
The Hong Kong Modernism of Leung Ping-kwan(ibid.)
Bai Hua:
Reading Philosophy, Writing Poetry: Intertextual Modes of Making Meaning in Early Medieval China
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9fYFEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=Bai+Hua+poem+shi+jing&source=bl&ots=4T9yIXw0Ve&sig=ACfU3U0VTiz0vvpMfTYlM3Xm1oLUFb9_qQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjw07GfmMLwAhWVoFwKHVQoB_YQ6AEwEnoECAcQAw#v=onepage&q=Bai%20Hua%20poem%20shi%20jing&f=false
Tiao Zhi Hua:
From Skin to Heart: Perceptions of Emotions and Bodily Sensations in Traditional Chinese Culture
https://www.google.com/search?q=Tiao+Zhi+Hua+poem&safe=off&rlz=1C5CHFA_enGB728GB731&sxsrf=ALeKk01AuJwVVKzgtftWum5ivaykxTFZtw%3A1620757046077&ei=NsqaYNeuBM_4gQampKjwCw&oq=Tiao+Zhi+Hua+poem&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EANQ7fQEWN35BGD0-wRoAHAAeACAAbABiAHlApIBAzEuMpgBAKABAqABAaoBB2d3cy13aXrAAQE&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwjXof6_nsLwAhVPfMAKHSYSCr4Q4dUDCA4&uact=5
He Cao Bu Huang:
Oracle Poems: Ritual Awareness, Symbolism and Creativityin Shi Jing 詩經 Poetics
https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/handle/2123/1527/02whole.pdf?sequence=2
野 But neither are we rhinos or tigers, who navigate this windsweptwilderness哀我征夫 朝夕不暇 Alas for us campaigning soldiers, day and night we have no rest有芃者狐 率彼幽草 The bushy [tailed] fox, he navigates these thick plants有棧之車 行彼周道 But we have bamboo carts and trudge on the circuit road.The fox in this poem is presented without the details which I have previously discussed - namely,binome suisui or the location near a river. The fox (together with the rhinos and tigers), and its easein the thick plants of the wilderness, is juxtaposed with the situation of the campaigning soldiers inwhose voice the poem is spoken, they who are unaccustomed to the harsh surroundings. While theatmosphere of the poem is one of difficulty and arduousness, this is not a result of the fox image.Indeed, the fox and the other animals are seemingly able to transcend the difficulty of the situation.This treatment is significantly different from that found in either You Hu or Nan Shan, in which thefox imagery is inextricably linked to the human emotive atmospheres, not contrasted to it. He CaoBu Huang thus demonstrates that foxes do not, per se, necessitate a traditional anthropomorphicreading or symbolic association.
Foxes can evidently be exploited in the Shi Jing for figurative purposes, divorced from their ritualassociations, which are inscribed in particular accompanying phrases and scenes. In this poem, therole of the fox image is to act in juxtaposition with the human world, emphasising the differencebetween the situation of an animal which is naturally suited to the conditions and that of soldiers forwhom the harsh winter is foreign and unfamiliar. The figure, located from the initial couplet of thepoem, where xing imagery is usually found, is, if you will, an anti-analogy, a foil to the human world,which negates similitude. This is in direct opposition to the way in which the fox imagery operates inthe opening xing lines of You Hu and Nan Shan, where it is clear (and accepted) that the fox’ssituation has some sort of metaphorical or analogous connection to the human world (partly as aresult of its very presence in each poem’s opening lines).
[...]
This clear difference in treatment demonstrates that fox imagery in You Hu and Nan Shan isexploited for other implications, and that there must be other meaningful elements to the treatmentin those poems. As we have observed, that extra meaningful information is provided by a connectionto a ritual context - a contention that the negative evidence of He Cao Bu Huang would appear toconfirm, in that it provides a context which appears unconnected with ritual. Logically speaking,there would seem no obvious function for a ritual recalling the privations of a military campaign.The song does not display ritual echoes such as distinct repeatable physical actions, nor is its form(with five interrogative phrases in the first stanza and none in the second) evocative of repetitive andbalanced ritual diction. He Cao Bu Huang shows how an unadorned fox image in a poem without(actual or imitated) ritual resonances does not summon up the key notions of liminality or frustratedachievement. Those meanings are only accessible through connection to the imagery of foxes whichis found in the divinatory ritual tradition, and which is accompanied by a particular apparatus ofattendant detail (including the river and/or the suisui binome)
Philosophy and Religion in Early Medieval China
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RkOJ_3tjp8IC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=He+Cao+Bu+Huang+poem&source=bl&ots=MFw0zvac9P&sig=ACfU3U1jlYKOBUTj3z2hPsLb4KBBshoFaw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj6r53en8LwAhWUFMAKHdQqClUQ6AEwEnoECA0QAw#v=onepage&q=He%20Cao%20Bu%20Huang%20poem&f=false