Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Lessons from the States, Odes Of Zheng

[x_los]

Back after the Christmas/New Year break! I'd really like to get through the Book of Odes in the next months, so we can enter into our next Tang or Song offering. I'll try to be more regulated in the poem posts accordingly. 

Some notes:

* 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.

* I believe the reminder emails have stopped, so I'll seek a new service to run that. 

When the second batch of these is up and running, 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.

**NEXT BATCH FEB 1.**

Comments

Re: 93. 出其東門 - Chu Qi Dong Men

[aeriallon]

Madder, it turns out, is kind of a salmon-coral-scarlet, depending on what you mix with it as a mordant. This one's got me in my lesbian feelings as well—

Re: 92. 揚之水 - Yang Zhi Shui

[aeriallon]

(if i may briefly fangirl for a bare instant this is the most jin guangyao poem ever)

Re: 76. 將仲子 - Jiang Zhong Zi

[x_los]

Extreme 'Baby it'c cold outside' vibes--I wonder if there's similar irritating Discourse?

How to Read Chinese Poetry has v good, full coverage of this one, which I highly rec.

Re: 75. 緇衣 - Zi Yi

[x_los]

So like, is this court imperial (or sub-imperial) court, or court courtyard? Why are you going, coming back, and then SENDING back some food? This is some weird party planning.

Re: 77. 叔于田 - Shu Yu Tian

[x_los]

So I guess other people are staying home and shit and not getting out there, experiencing country lyfe like Shu, who has a Joules gilet and everything.

Re: 77. 叔于田 - Shu Yu Tian

[x_los]

Apparently another translation exists, but I can't find it online:

Shu yu tian. 叔于田. Classic of Poetry LXXVII “Shu Is On a Field Hunt”. Poem by Book of Songs Shijing 詩經. Translation by Stephen Owen, in An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911, p. 56.

Re: 78. 大叔于田 - Da Shu Yu Tian

[x_los]

This fucker loves to hunt, I guess.

A stronger and smoother narrative flow than most of the other chanting, ritual or work-song lyric poems we've been working with.

He shoots but seldom; because he's keeping a careful eye on his targets and choosing his shots accordingly?

What are the significance of the marsh and fire?

Re: 78. 大叔于田 - Da Shu Yu Tian

[x_los]

Two other translations exist:

Da shu yu tian. 大叔于田. Shu Has Gone Hunting. Poem by Book of Songs Shijing 詩經. Translation by Robert Payne et al., in The White Pony: An Anthology of Chinese Poetry from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Newly Translated, pp. 50-51.

Da shu yu tian. 大叔于田. Book of Songs 27. Poem by Book of Songs Shijing 詩經. Translation by Ezra Pound, in Anthology of Chinese Literature: From Early Times to the Fourteenth Century, p. 23.

Re: 79. 清人 - Qing Ren

[x_los]

Ok so what are then men of Qing in running around these places doing? Defending, invading, training, just looking fly?

Re: 80. 羔裘 - Gao Qiu

[x_los]

So this guy's good at his job, not overly ambitious, not a fuckboi. Is the lamb's fur, with its various embellishments, his uniform?

Re: 81. 遵大路 - Zun Da Lu

[x_los]

Yeah this one has Mood.

This poem is included in Classical Chinese Literature https://www.worldcat.org/title/classical-chinese-literature/oclc/33665984 , and it's possible there could be some commentary in there.

Here is another translation:

Zun-da-lu: If Along the Highroad
by Arthur Waley
If along the highroad
I caught hold of your sleeve,
Do not hate me;
Old ways take time to overcome.

If along the highroad
I caught hold of your hand,
Do not be angry with me;
Friendship takes time to overcome.

Re: 82. 女曰雞鳴 - Nu Yue Ji Ming

[x_los]

"Says the wife, ' It is cock-crow; '
Says the husband, ' It is grey dawn. '"

Reminiscent of the Romeo and Juliet morning scene. Also interesting that we're getting that agricultural sense of time, with its arguable but material, sometimes important distinctions between stages of the dawn.

'If the morning star be not shining.' what does this matter?

And I will hope to grow old with you. niceee

'ornaments of my girdle' so what's the significance of these? Is it jade? I feel like we were talking about some ornaments like these a couple books ago.

so is this like a crane wife kinda thing, where she's vowing to do him BIG favours/acts of service out of love? Pulling-feathers-from-my-own-breast energy?

Re: 83. 有女同車 - You Nu Tong Che

[x_los]

countenance like the flower of the ephemeral hedge-tree

A friend for Congealed Fat Face.

That beautiful eldest Jiang,
Is truly admirable and elegant.

Ah shit, sorry Yanli, my bad.

Re: 84. 山有扶蘇 - Shan You Fu Su

[x_los]

Who are Zidu and Zichong, when they're at home?

water-polygonum: could be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persicaria_amphibia or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persicaria_hydropiper

Are mountains and watery lowlands often poetically paired as complimentary opposites like this?

Re: 84. 山有扶蘇 - Shan You Fu Su

[x_los]

I also find this translation, and a kind of mysterious note:

The Shan Yu Fu Su; allusive. A lady mocking her lover.

1 On mountain grows the mulberry tree;
The lotus flower in meadow damp.
It is not Tzŭ-tu that I see,
But only you, you foolish scamp!
2 Polygonums the damp meads cover;
To lofty pines on mountains view.
It is not Tzŭ-ch‘ung comes as lover;
You artful boy, ‘tis only you!

http://www.akashicflash.com/TheSecret/cfu/bop/bop087.htm

Re: 85. 蘀兮 - Tuo Xi

[x_los]

I see we're just making fun of old dudes, now.

Re: 86. 狡童 - Jiao Tong

[x_los]

Nah, girl, fuck him. Sleep hygiene is important.

Re: 87. 褰裳 - Qian Chang

[x_los]

so is our jist here, 'if you love me I'll do a LOT for you/if you don't--isn't there someone who loves me?/christ, you're an asshole'?

Re: 88. 丰 - Feng

[x_los]

'I did not fuck around--frankly, a mistake, on my part.'

Just guessing but: this whole poem is just a list of guys she didn't hook up with where she's like and to be HONEST, I could have gotten laid. what was I thinking?

So what's the structural end turn doing?

Re: 89. 東門之墠 - Dong Men Zhi Shan

[x_los]

Evocative, but I'm not sure how the xing is supposed to inflect the turn?

Re: 90. 風雨 - Feng Yu

[x_los]

The kind of tortured phrasing of the rhetorical questions makes me feel like she supposes herself obligated to be relieved and content, but isn't actually.

Re: 91. 子衿 - Zi Jin

[x_los]

Is the blue at all significant?

Sometimes the speakers in these are presumed to switch, and I wonder whether stanza 3's speaker is the same as 1&2?

(v fic useful, on accident)

Re: 91. 子衿 - Zi Jin

[x_los]

I see little lord fashleroy has once again given us his best attempt, as well:

Zi-jin: The Student's Blue Collar or Lapel
by Ezra Pound
Blue, blue collar, my heart's delight,
I can't come out,
Why shouldn't you write?

Blue, blue sash, heart's misery
I cannot come out, but you might come to me.

You swish about
between gates of the towered wall,
So far, no wrong
One day without you
is three months long.

Re: 92. 揚之水 - Yang Zhi Shui

[x_los]

So what do they carry? Why is it these guys against the world?

Re: 93. 出其東門 - Chu Qi Dong Men

[x_los]

do we think 'grey coiffure' is artistic powdering, like a Georgian wig?