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

[x_los]

* 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.

Until someone knows what to do there, I'll send out manual messages weekly. If you'd like to receive these and are not getting them, please let me know.

* 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.

* In case you missed it and are interested, some people on the com did a Scum Villain read-along here. Anyone with thoughts is welcome to chime in.

* PROGRESS REPORT: With this, we're through the first ten books of the Shi Jing. There will be four more weeks in Lessons from the States, because I'm combining the very short books Gui and Cao. Then we have about seven weeks in Minor Odes of the Kingdom, because the short Baihua will go in with the book before it. Then come three weeks in Greater Odes, then four in Odes of the Temple and the Altar. Then we're entirely done with Shi Jing, and can do Tang or Song or something.

**NEXT BATCH FEB 22.**

Comments

Re: 121. 鴇羽 - Bao Yu

[x_los]

Okay, so the people have been displaced, or made soldiers, or are suborned on other projects for the crown: in some way taken from the farm.

Re: 122. 無衣 - Wu Yi

[x_los]

Yeah, this sounds cogent to me.

Re: 125. 采苓 - Cai Ling

[x_los]

I don't think it's possible to be too obvious, really, in trying to work out what these might mean, bc we don't have a TON to work with re figuring out the basic content of material this old

Re: 125. 采苓 - Cai Ling

[x_los]

OH that end-turn about 'slander will die if you fucking ignore it' wasn't obvious to me, and makes sense/broadens the poem out.

Re: 118. 綢繆 - Chou Mou

[superborb]

Well, the phrase comes from this poem LOL. I think it's just used as an exclamation to say what an enjoyable night it is? I get the impression it is more like, a reference to this poem in that context.

Re: 117. 椒聊 - Jiao Liao

[superborb]

I think earlier during poetry club we ran into it and I was very confused. But after a bit more reading, I think it's just a common poetic technique where the author uses analogy (bi) to evoke a comparison with the poet's feelings and intentions (xing).

[kitsunec4]

Oh man, I hope you enjoy this, I haven't yet read all your notes, but Scum Villain is super frothy and enjoyable in a ridiculous way. Kind of exactly the sort of thing to relax with and giggle at.