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.

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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

66. 君子于役 - Jun Zi Yu Yi

[x_los]

君子于役、不知其期、曷至哉。
雞棲于塒、日之夕矣、羊牛下來。
君子于役、如之何勿思。

My husband is away on service,
And I know not when he will return.
Where is he now?
The fowls roost in their holes in the walls;
And in the evening of the day,
The goats and cows come down [from the hill];
But my husband is away on service.
How can I but keep thinking of him?

君子于役、不日不月、曷其有佸。
雞棲于桀、日之夕矣、羊牛下括。
君子于役、苟無飢渴。

My husband is away on service,
Not for days [merely] or for months.
When will he come back to me?
The fowls roost on their perches;
And in the evening of the day,
The goats and cows come down and home;
But my husband is away on service.
Oh if he be but kept from hunger and thirst!

Re: 66. 君子于役 - Jun Zi Yu Yi

[x_los]

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.