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superborb ([personal profile] superborb) wrote in [community profile] dankodes 2020-12-06 03:31 am (UTC)

Re: 57. 碩人 - Shuo Ren

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.




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