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

121. 鴇羽 - Bao Yu

[x_los]

肅肅鴇羽、集于苞栩。
王事靡盬、不能蓺稷黍、父母何怙。
悠悠蒼天、曷其有所。

Su-su go the feathers of the wild geese,
As they settle on the bushy oaks.
The king's affairs must not be slackly discharged,
And [so] we cannot plant our sacrificial millet and millet; -
What will our parents have to rely on?
O thou distant and azure Heaven!
When shall we be in our places again?

肅肅鴇翼、集于苞棘。
王事靡盬、不能蓺黍稷、父母何食。
悠悠蒼天、曷其有極。

Su-su go the wings of the wild geese,
As they settle on the bushy jujube trees.
The king's affairs must not be slackly discharged,
And [so] we cannot plant our millet and sacrificial millet; -
How shall our parents be supplied with food?
O thou distant and azure Heaven!
When shall [our service] have an end?

肅肅鴇行、集于苞桑。
王事靡盬、不能蓺稻粱、父母何嘗。
悠悠蒼天、曷其有常。

Su-su go the rows of the wild geese,
As they rest on the bushy mulberry trees.
The king's business must not be slackly discharged,
And [so] we cannot plant our rice and maize; -
How shalll our parents get food?
O thou distant and azure Heaven!
When shall we get [back] to our ordinary lot?

Re: 121. 鴇羽 - Bao Yu

[x_los]

Dumped/discharged officials are mad about the offices they believe they should (still) have being poorly managed. How will the ancestors be sustained, if the sacrifices are not properly made?

What have geese to do with anything, and these bushy plants? Maybe the plants should have been harvested for the sacrifice, but weren't.

Re: 121. 鴇羽 - Bao Yu

[ann712]

The wild geese’s migratory arrival are a sign that its time to plant but the subjects are prevented from doing so because they have to attend to the king.

Ah the wild geese have arrived - get planting.

Re: 121. 鴇羽 - Bao Yu

[superborb]

Baike: the bird is a Chinese bustard, a big wild goose which lives in aquatic areas and does not roost. This is important, bc the analogy is that it's not supposed to live on these trees -- just like the farmers aren't supposed to live outside their home, unable to farm and feed their families. The three trees are chosen just to rhyme and have no deep meaning.

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.