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

109. 園有桃 - Yuan You Tao

[x_los]

園有桃、其實之殽。
心之憂矣、我歌且謠。
不我知者、謂我士也驕。
彼人是哉、子曰何其。
心之憂矣、其誰知之。
其誰知之、蓋亦勿思。

Of the peach trees in the garden,
The fruit may be used as food.
My heart is grieved,
And I play and sing.
Those who do not know me,
Say I am a scholar venting his pride.
'Those men are right;
What do you mean by your words?'
My heart is grieved;
Who knows [the cause of] it?
Who knows [the cause of] it?
[They know it not], because they will not think.

園有棘、其實之食。
心之憂矣、聊以行國。
不我知者、謂我士也罔極。
彼人是哉、子曰何其。
心之憂矣、其誰知之。
其誰知之、蓋亦勿思。

Of the jujube trees in the garden,
The fruit may be used as food.
My heart is grieved,
And I think I must travel about through the State.
Those who do not know me,
Say I am an officer going to the verge of license.
' Those men are right;
What do you mean by your words? '
My heart is grieved;
Who knows [the cause of] it?
Who knows [the cause of] it?
[They do not know it], because they will not think.

Re: 109. 園有桃 - Yuan You Tao

[x_los]

Actually I really like 'the reason you don't know why I'm upset is frankly because you don't want to know--if you wanted to know, it'd be pretty fucking obvious to you' as a note for this to hit.

So these trees are ornamental and of use, and this person wants to be of use but has instead been scorned and relegated to some runner-up scholar position.

I believe 'the verge of license' indicates the scholar is dangerously close to speaking his mind too freely and criticising people he shouldn't, because he's pissed about being overlooked.

Re: 109. 園有桃 - Yuan You Tao

[superborb]

Baike: this poet with lofty ideals is Sad about the state of his country

I would just like to point out that in Baike's vernacular version of the poem, they have the poet refer to himself as 书呆子, a nerd.

Re: 109. 園有桃 - Yuan You Tao

[llonkrebboj]

that is so cute!!!! but also D: