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

[x_los]

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!

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* 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.

Comments

59. 竹竿 - Zhu Gan

[x_los]

籊籊竹竿、以釣于淇。
豈不爾思、遠莫致之。

With your long and tapering bamboo rods,
You angle in the Qi.
Do I not think of you?
But I am far away, and cannot get to you.

泉源在左、淇水在右。
女子有行、遠兄弟父母。

The Quanyuan is on the left,
And the waters of the Qi are on the right.
But when a young lady goes away, [and is married],
She leaves her brothers and parents.

淇水在右、泉源在左。
巧笑之瑳、佩玉之儺。

The waters of the Qi are on the right
And the Quanyuan is on the left.
How shine the white teeth through the artful smiles!
How the girdle gems move to the measured steps!

淇水滺滺、檜楫松舟。
駕言出遊、以寫我憂。

The waters of the Qi flow smoothly;
There are the oars of cedar and boats of pine.
Might I but go there in my carriage and ramble,
To dissipate my sorrow!

Re: 59. 竹竿 - Zhu Gan

[x_los]

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?

Re: 59. 竹竿 - Zhu Gan

[superborb]

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