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

[x_los]

* I know the two titular Weis are confusing; I believe they're different characters both rendered thus in Pinyin.

* I found the best option for the weekly reminder emails, via Gmail. The external service options are more involved than our purposes require. Does anyone know anything about how to arrange an Apps Script? Basically all it has to do is tell ten people, on Saturdays, to come and get their juice/poems. 

* 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.

* IF YOU HAVE FRIENDS WHO MIGHT LIKE TO JOIN or have other ideas, please let me know on this post.

* 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.

Comments

Re: 111. 十畝之閒 - Shi Mu Zhi Jian

[llonkrebboj]

an alternate interpretation just off the cuff, idk if it would make any more sense lmao... this IS rather oblique.

note: a mu 畝 according to wikipedia is 1/15th of a hectare, which makes it about 1.5 acres. i'll just keep mu as the unit of measure since there's no equivalent xD 10 acres would be like roughly 10 football fields. and it's a BIG plantation bc even outside of that 10 mu, there is YET MORE mulberry trees.

Within that ten mu, the mulberry leaf pickers do so idly idly (hey ~).
"With you, I shall return (hey ~)."
Outside of the ten mu, the mulberry leaf pickers do so leisurely, leisurely (hey ~).
"With you, I shall go forth (hey)."

there's two ways to see it - maybe more still because all the keywords here have so many possibilities!

within this big mulberry plantation, the ladies (mulberry leaf pickers were usually ladies) work at a comfortable, unhurried pace. they're plucking the food for the silkworms, so they have to pick the nice leaves. it's like a little bubble of its own here, separated from the world outside. afterwards, they return home with their fellow workers. OR they return home with their husbands xD

Re: 111. 十畝之閒 - Shi Mu Zhi Jian

[x_los]

Why do the worms need nice leaves as opposed to any old shit? Like--do the worms care?

Everything about the farming is super interesting, I would NOT have thought about what the farm was /for/ and how it worked!

Re: 111. 十畝之閒 - Shi Mu Zhi Jian

[llonkrebboj]

HAHAHHA i vaguely remember watching a documentary about like silk making as a child, and they said that the silkworms take their nutrition and water only from the leaves they eat xD that they don't eat any other sort of leaves. so if you want healthy & happy worms to make nice silk cocoons, you'd have to satisfy their needs and keep them well fed with the best food! (and what good reason to take your time picking the leaves eh?)