dankodes | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

碩人其頎、衣錦褧衣。
齊侯之子、衛侯之妻、東宮之妹、邢侯之姨、譚公維私。

Large was she and tall,
In her embroidered robe, with a [plain] single garment over it:
The daughter of the marquis of Qi.
The wife of the marquis of Wei,
The sister of the heir-son of Qi
The sister-in-law of the marquis of Xing,
The viscount of Tan also her brother-in-law.

手如柔荑。
膚如凝脂。
領如蝤蠐。
齒如瓠犀。
螓首蛾眉。
巧笑倩兮。
美目盼兮。

Her fingers were like the blades of the young white-grass;
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!

碩人敖敖、說于農郊。
四牡有驕、朱幩鑣鑣、翟茀以朝。
大夫夙退、無使君勞。

Large was she and tall,
When she halted in the cultivated suburbs.
Strong looked her four horses,
With the red ornaments so rich about their bits.
Thus in her carriage, with its screens of pheasant feathers,
she proceeded to our court.
Early retire, ye great officers,
And do not make the marquis fatigued!

河水洋洋、北流活活。
施罛濊濊、鱣鮪發發、葭菼揭揭。
庶姜孽孽、庶士有朅。

The waters of the He, wide and deep,
Flow northwards in majestic course.
The nets are dropt into them with a plashing sound,
Among shoals of sturgeon, large and small,
While the rushes and sedges are rank about.
Splendidly adorned were her sister ladies;
Martial looked the attendant officers.

'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?

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.

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

57. 碩人 - Shuo Ren

Re: 57. 碩人 - Shuo Ren

Re: 57. 碩人 - Shuo Ren