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

91. 子衿 - Zi Jin

[x_los]

青青子衿、悠悠我心。
縱我不往、子寧不嗣音。

O you, with the blue collar,
Prolonged is the anxiety of my heart.
Although I do not go [to you],
Why do you not continue your messages [to me]?

青青子佩、悠悠我思。
縱我不往、子寧不來。

O you with the blue [strings to your] girdle-gems,
Long, long do I think of you.
Although I do not go [to you],
Why do you not come [to me]?

挑兮達兮、在城闕兮。
一日不見、如三月兮。

How volatile are you and dissipated,
By the look-out tower on the wall!
One day without the sight of you,
Is like three months.

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: 91. 子衿 - Zi Jin

[douqi]

This is referenced in the title of Chapter 17 of Jin Yong's Sword Stained with Royal Blood, 青衿心上意 彩笔画中人. The Ninth Princess, returned to the palace after having met male lead Yuan Chengzhi out in the world, recites the entire poem to herself while completing a portrait of him.

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: 91. 子衿 - Zi Jin

[x_los]

btw it is VERY hard to search for articles online about these poems bc people keep naming people/poems after THESE poems and/or heavily quoting them x_x

Re: 91. 子衿 - Zi Jin

[douqi]

Lol I saw a Baidu disambiguation page listing no fewer than 5 poems and at least one drama named after and/or referencing this specific one.

Re: 91. 子衿 - Zi Jin

[superborb]

The "blue collar" bit refers to Zhou dynasty scholar robes. A bit weird that Legge is translating it to blue though -- the color should be black. (The word used now means blue/green usually, so it seems a mistranslation.)

Baidu says historically scholars thought it dealt with a school that was disbanded and the scholars dispersed. And/or a poem about depravity (? I'm not quite sure of this). But modern scholars think this is a love song.