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

87. 褰裳 - Qian Chang

[x_los]

子惠思我、褰裳涉溱。
子不我思、豈無他人。
狂童之狂也且。

If you, Sir, think kindly of me,
I will hold up my lower garments, and cross the Zhen.
If you do not think of me,
Is there no other person [to do so]?
You, foolish, foolish fellow!

子惠思我、褰裳涉洧。
子不我思、豈無他士。
狂童之狂也且。

If you, Sir, think kindly of me,
I will hold up my lower garments, and cross the Wei.
If you do not think of me,
Is there no other gentleman [to do so]?
You, foolish, foolish fellow!

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: 87. 褰裳 - Qian Chang

[superborb]

This collection has so many poems where there is a woman mocking her lover?? An interesting theme haha.

Also interesting bc of the ambiguity in Chinese -- Legge has to choose that "I" will cross the river, vs Baidu's vernacular translation has the narrator telling her lover to cross the river. Original does not specify!