![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_los posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
dankodesBack 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.**
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.**
Re: 94. 野有蔓草 - Ye You Man Cao
Re: 94. 野有蔓草 - Ye You Man Cao
by Ezra Pound
Mid the bind-grass on the plain
that the dew makes wet as rain
I met by chance my clear-eyed man,
then my
joy began.
Mid the wild grass dank with dew
lay we the full night thru,
that clear-eyed man and I
in mutual felicity.
Uninspired choices, as usual.
Re: 94. 野有蔓草 - Ye You Man Cao
In the wilds grew creepers,
With dew-drops so heavy and thick.
There was a girl, beautiful and bright,
Her features so delicate and charming.
By chance we met each other,
She embodied my long-cherished wish.
In the wilds grew creepers,
With dew-drops so full and round.
There was a girl, beautiful and bright,
Her features so charming and delicate.
By chance we met each other,
Together with her life will be happy.
https://fi.librarything.com/topic/25859
Re: 95. 溱洧 - Zhen Wei
1. a whole thing,
2. potentially gendered.
So do we know more about this?
Re: 95. 溱洧 - Zhen Wei
https://crbaird.weebly.com/classic-of-poetry-poem-xcv.html
O Zhen and Wei together,
swollen now they flow.
Men and maids together,
chrysanthemums in hand.
The maid says, “Have you looked?”
The man says, “I have gone.”
“Let’s go then look across the Wei,
it is truly a place for our pleasure.”
Man and maid together
each frolicked with the other
and gave as gift the peony.
O Zhen and Wei together,
flowing deep and clear.
Men and maids together,
teeming everywhere.
The maid says, “Have you looked?”
The man says, “I have gone.”
“Let’s go then look across the Wei,
Man and maid together
each will frolic with the other
and give as gift the peony (Norton 763).
*What is the significance of the natural setting in the poem? Why is it an especially appropriate backdrop to this conversation?
Re: 75. 緇衣 - Zi Yi
Random fact: 緇衣 also currently(?) refers to the robes worn by Buddhist monks and nuns. I learned this from a Jin Yong novel where nun in disguise gives herself a fake name that's basically a pun on 緇衣.
Re: 90. 風雨 - Feng Yu
There's also a possible reading of the poem where 君 is read as 'king/lord' instead of 'husband', so that it becomes sort of a King Arthur-y 'in these dark times a righteous king has arrived, how could I not be joyful'. Unfortunately, for the life of me, I cannot remember whether that's a legit alternative reading I saw somewhere, or whether it's something my brain made up.
Re: 76. 將仲子 - Jiang Zhong Zi
This is referenced in the title to Chapter 13 of Jin Yong's The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre, 不悔仲子踰我墻 (literally: I do not regret that Mr Zhong leapt over my wall). I really hate the context in which the reference occurs, but here goes.
The chapter tells the backstory of Ji Xiaofui, a disciple of the Emei sect. She is stalked by Yang Xiao, a senior member of the Ming Cult, is abducted by him, held prisoner, and sexually assaulted. Somehow this causes her to fall in love with him enough that she names their daughter 不悔 (no regrets).
This is doubly disturbing because the poem itself seems to be from the perspective of a woman who wants to meet with her lover but is afraid of what her family and neighbours might say. Old Master Jin really needed more than a few things drummed into his head about consent.
Re: 91. 子衿 - Zi Jin
On a completely unrelated note, the first line (青青子衿、悠悠我心) also turns up in Cao Cao's poem 短歌行 (Short Song Style). Baike informs me that this a reference to his search for military/political/scholarly talent, which possibly calls back to 子衿 being a reference to scholar's robes.
Re: 75. 緇衣 - Zi Yi
Re: 90. 風雨 - Feng Yu
Ah, yeah, I was wondering it if was just an oddity of translation rather than embedded in the og text. There's a bit a little like that in Hamlet, where driven-mad Ophelia (who knows her dad is dead) sings 'nonsense' (p fucking sensical tbh) rhymes, inc one that goes 'and will he not come again?' before correcting herself. So I think maybe I'm kinda primed to view that circumlocution as actually a denial.
You know what that REALLY sounds like is the Mao School Confucian Allegory readings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Poetry#Legacy) that were so dominant in a lot of critical reception/kinda have their parallel in scholasticism biblical 'deep reading'.
Re: 91. 子衿 - Zi Jin
Re: 91. 子衿 - Zi Jin
Re: 90. 風雨 - Feng Yu
So the way I'm (somewhat facetiously) reading has a name, lol. It's also applied to some Song (and maybe Tang) poems, e.g. why would a renowned general-poet be writing about a beautiful woman standing in a darkened corner? It must be an allusion to his having fallen out of imperial favour (although we know more about the authors of Song poetry so there is at least a bit of historical support for those readings).
Re: 88. 丰 - Feng
Re: 88. 丰 - Feng
Re: 88. 丰 - Feng
Re: 75. 緇衣 - Zi Yi
缁（zī）衣：黑色的衣服，当时卿大夫到官署所穿的衣服。
ziyi: black clothes, at the time worn by high ranking officials when going to gov't offices
Baidu also seems to think the narrator is the wife, showing the affection she has for her husband through the gift of clothing.
Re: 76. 將仲子 - Jiang Zhong Zi
Re: 77. 叔于田 - Shu Yu Tian
The question and answer structure is v interesting here -- I don't think we've seen it before?
Re: 78. 大叔于田 - Da Shu Yu Tian
Baidu says that modern scholars think the narrator is a woman praising her lover. At the time, you'd call the brothers in age order as 'bo', 'zhong', 'shu', 'ji', so this is roughly like calling someone "third brother" in today's vernacular.
Re: 78. 大叔于田 - Da Shu Yu Tian
The fire is to block the escape of the wild animals.
Re: 79. 清人 - Qing Ren
Re: 80. 羔裘 - Gao Qiu
The lamb's fur is the official uniform of the senior officials of the court.
So the uniform is beautiful = matching the internal virtuousness of the official (if genuine praise). Baidu also says that if this was satire, it was too subtle bc it's created endless debate sdfjskljf
Re: 81. 遵大路 - Zun Da Lu
The gloss for "do not hate me" is "do not regard me as ugly/shameful/disgraceful". Could also be "do not regard me as evil". It notes one source says it could be "do not find me disagreeable / do not loathe me".
It says there are many hypotheses about what the poem is describing. In the past, some interpreted as an adulterous woman being abandoned. Or it could be abandoned wives. Or it could be just a farewell poem.