dankodes | Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Lessons from the States, Odes Of Wei and Odes of Wang

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Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Lessons from the States, Odes Of Wei and Odes of Wang

Thanks for a nice crop of responses! Remember to check out the comments, and thank you to those who've contributed Baidu and other language insights that aren't accessible to non-Chinese speakers.

Some notes:

* Two chapters translate in pinyin into Odes of Wei. This is the first one, not the second.

* I'm posting these two chapters together because they're short. We'll drop to one chapter a week if a chapter hits 'about 20' poems rather than 'about 10'.

* 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.

* The first of our reminder emails should have gone out on Saturday. If you did not get an email but you'd like to be on the list, please let me know!

If you would like not to be on the list and there isn't an unsubscribe option in the email itself, please just respond 'unsubscribe' or something and I'll take you off the reminder roster.

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

* 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.

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'Her skin was like congealed ointment;
Her neck was like the tree-grub;
Her teeth were like melon seeds;
Her forehead cicada-like; her eyebrows like [the antenne of] the silkworm moth;
What dimples, as she artfully smiled!
How lovely her eyes, with the black and white so well defined!'

this is such an unusual description of someone being attractive, like--what? ??

'Early retire, ye great officers,
And do not make the marquis fatigued!' bc he's gonna need that energy for wife-fucking, or?

What's up with this reverse end xing?

I know tortoise shell divination was popular in ancient China. Are the reeds an i ching thing, or something else altogether?

'Ah! thou young lady,
Seek no licentious pleasure with a gentleman.
When a gentleman indulges in such pleasure,
Something may still be said for him;
When a lady does so,
Nothing can be said for her.'

eugh, fuck off

Why would the engagement be broken if she's lived with him as his wife for three years? Was the marriage somehow unofficial, or is he divorcing/abandoning her despite an official union?

"And [now] the full waters of the Qi,
Wet the curtains of my carriage." was she a ferrier, and now back in the trade rather than labouring as a housewife?

So the speaker is a young lady who's been married out or a suitor of that lady, thinking on the distance between them, the falsity of their social milieu and the comparative pleasure of unity with nature/one another/solitude but for chosen companionship?

"Caigua, also called slipper gourd or kaywa, is a very unpretentious old vegetable plant. The small but very numerous fruits can be harvested when they are the size of olives and are often pickled or eaten raw. You can also let them grow until they are about the size of short cucumbers. Caigua is used in salads, as vegetables or as stuffed gourd"

"Though he carries a spike at his girdle,
He does not know us." why are these related?

"How easy and conceited is his manner,
With the ends of his girdle hanging down as they do!" is he... sagging? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagging_(fashion)) Socially, not literally.

So some cocky kid, prickly as this gourd, is here packing archery heat/sagging, and someone wrote He Ain't Shit, Tho, the poem?

Gonna go out on a limb here and say these things are indeed wide and distant, but due to the Power of Love or Self-Respect or something, they are mere nothings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pappus_(botany)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_(genus)

Ok so basically her hair's been like dandelion fluff. Tennis shoes, don't even need to buy a new dress--if you ain't there, ain't nobody else to impress.

Rain would probably signal a change in seasons and the end of the campaigning period, the husband's return.

Is the north special? Is that the direction her husband has gone? No, he's east. Maybe a feng shui thing?

Edited 2020-12-03 15:27 (UTC)

...I assume the man is homeless and thus poorly clad but. As it stands. That man has no pants. She can see his dick. So can the fox. Nobody liked that.

Ooooh so the 'returned for it' are all types of jade.

"It was said that from Song Dynasty that some people read it as a love poem to describe the resonance between two lovers. The woman threw fruits to the man to show her love while the man took the jade off and bestowed to the woman in return. This was an ancient custom in China." er. this isn't--the loquat throwing thing, is it?

The mature millet ready for harvest and the sorrow-bent head with hair falling down--good comparison.

So the daily natural and agricultural rhythms, which involve regular returns, go on, but the social nature of war and state service asks for unnatural separations and behaviour.

are they actors? is this a ritual? is reed-organ a dick joke?

"plural noun: osiers
a small Eurasian willow which grows mostly in wet habitats. It is usually coppiced, being a major source of the long flexible shoots (withies) used in basketwork."

So do the waters instead carry these soldiers away from home?

"Motherwort is a plant. The parts that grow above the ground are used to make medicine.

Motherwort is used to prevent or stop bleeding. It is also used for heart conditions, symptoms of menopause, and other conditions, but there is no good scientific evidence to support these other uses."

so even the medicinal plants, in the shadiest places, are burning up, and comfort is getting harder and harder to find/with this coagulant gone you can't staunch the bleeding

Edited 2020-12-03 16:57 (UTC)

I mean, mood.

So I see the fucking kudzu is back again.

This another one about how girls get married off and disconnected from their families?

This one is just cute.

Sedge: "a grasslike plant with triangular stems and inconspicuous flowers, growing typically in wet ground. Sedges are widely distributed throughout temperate and cold regions."

So are they lovers married to different people, or lovers politically separated by pressure from the state?

Are those youths the previous guys, or different ones?

I think jiu stones are jade again?

All from Baidu:

Words that had clear semantic drift: 奥 now is ao4, mysterious/obscure (or like, Olympics or Austria), but in this poem is yu4, where the water edge bends. 匪 is now bandit (or literary "not"), but here is appears with literary talent (legge's translation is elegant and accomplished)

Baidu speculates a few potential people, but also says it's more of a general hope for a noble scholar-official who will be virtuous and good.

The ear-stoppers are: 充耳：挂在冠冕两旁的饰物，下垂至耳，一般用玉石制成 decorations hung from the two sides of a guanmian (official hat), reaching the level of the ears

A little weird to say pebbles when it's made of precious stone, but ok Legge

Baidu's gloss on the gold or tin line is 金：黄金。一说铜。闻一多《风诗类钞》主张为铜，还说：“古人铸器的青铜，便是铜与锡的合金，所以二者极被他们重视，而且每每连称。”
Jin: gold, one source says copper. [this source] advocates copper, saying, "Ancient cast tools of bronze, made precisely of an alloy of copper and tin. Therefore, they placed importance on the two and linked them together"
The line by itself is literally something like: "as gold, as tin"
Baidu's vernacular translation is 青铜器般见精坚, which is something like "with a manner as resolute as bronzeware"

The jade line: 圭：玉制礼器，上尖下方，在举行隆重仪式时使用。璧：玉制礼器，正圆形，中有小孔，也是贵族朝会或祭祀时使用。圭与璧制作精细，显示佩带者身份、品德高雅。
Gui: a ritual object made of jade, sharp/pointed on top, square on bottom, used in grand ceremonies. Bi: a ritual object made of jade, perfectly round, with a small hole in the center, also used in aristocratic courts or offerings. Gui and bi are meticulously crafted, displayed/worn as an accessory (on the belt) to show the identity and elegance of the wearer.
The line is literally "as gui, as bi"
Baidu's vernacular translation is 玉礼器般见庄严, "with a manner as solemn/stately as a jade ritual object"

Hilariously, the whole chariot line makes 0% sense in Chinese to me bc of meaning drift. But Baidu just describes the chariot, which I guess is used to transport ancient high ranking officials.

This hermit is in seclusion and loving it

It is interesting the number of words where a variant character was used? Like, the 槃 in the title; the Baidu gloss is that it's short for 盘桓, which is a different character. Of course, my dictionary says that 槃 is just a variant of 盘 as its first definition, so...

The line that Legge translates to "that large man, so much at his ease": ⑶硕人之宽：隐士宽阔的居处。硕人，大人，美人，贤人。本指形象高大丰满的人，不仅指形体而言，更主要指人道德高尚。此指隐者。宽，心宽。一说貌美。
[the line]: the hermit's dwelling is expansive. [the first two words], adult [also used as title of respect towards superiors], beautiful person, venerable forebear. Indicates the image of a large, ample person, not only indicates the physique, but mainly that the virtues/morals of the person are noble. This refers to the hermit. [the last word] a broadminded heart, one source says appearance.

So this is a poem about a actual lady upon her marriage: Zhuang Jiang (paintings here: https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BA%84%E5%A7%9C) of the Qi state, upon marriage to Wei state's Zhuang gong. She was a poet -- some of the other poems in Bei Feng are hypothesized to have been written by her. Her Baidu article is hilariously longer than her husband's lol. Suitable bc her husband had a violent temper and was indifferent to her (bc of childlessness?), rude. She was also known as Jiang Ruoxi (her father's surname was Jiang), and called Zhuang Jiang post marriage (? having trouble parsing the last bit, bc everyone has a zillion names).

Translations from Baidu as always, in the format of Legge's descriptor: Baidu's gloss
Grass: buds of cogon grass, used as thatching material
Ointment: congealed fat, means her skin is glossy and lustrous
Grub: larva of the longhorn beetle, means her neck is long and white
Melon seeds: bottle gourd seeds, means her teeth are white and arranged orderly
Cicada: small like a cicada, with a broad and square head. The forehead is ample and wide
Moth: [actually, 蛾眉, which is lit. moth eyebrow means fig. a beautiful woman] silkworm antenna, slender and curved; this indicates the eyebrows are slender and curved.

Yeah, the reeds are I Ching

I think (?) Baidu is saying that the theme is that women who fall in love stay in love, while men easily fall out of love. General agreement is that the three years is literal, but one source says that it just means that after a few years, the marriage gradually breaks down.

The carriage curtains getting wet is just that she is now returning to her natal home (and crossing the Qi river again)

Baidu says it's about a married woman feeling homesick / nostalgia for her hometown

Basically yeah, this boy is immature and pretending to be all grown up.

Baidu says the interpretation is that the female poet and the boy were once friends, but suddenly the boy is wearing adult clothing and now behaves differently.

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Page 2 of 3

Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Lessons from the States, Odes Of Wei and Odes of Wang

Re: 57. 碩人 - Shuo Ren

Re: 58. 氓 - Mang

Re: 59. 竹竿 - Zhu Gan

Re: 60. 芄蘭 - Wan Lan

Re: 61. 河廣 - He Guang

Re: 62. 伯兮 - Bo Xi

Re: 63. 有狐 - You Hu

Re: 64. 木瓜 - Mu Gua

Re: 65. 黍離 - Shu Li : START OF WANG

Re: 66. 君子于役 - Jun Zi Yu Yi

Re: 67. 君子陽陽 - Jun Zi Yang Yang

Re: 68. 揚之水 - Yang Zhi Shui

Re: 69. 中谷有蓷 - Zhong Gu

Re: 70. 兔爰 - Tu Yuan

Re: 71. 葛藟 - Ge Lei

Re: 72. 采葛 - Cai Ge

Re: 73. 大車 - Da Che

Re: 74. 丘中有麻 - Qiu Zhong You Ma

Re: 55. 淇奧 - Qi Yu

Re: 55. 淇奧 - Qi Yu

Re: 56. 考槃 - Kao Pan

Re: 57. 碩人 - Shuo Ren

Re: 58. 氓 - Mang

Re: 59. 竹竿 - Zhu Gan

Re: 60. 芄蘭 - Wan Lan