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

123. 有杕之杜 - You Di Zhi Du

[x_los]

有杕之杜、生于道左。
彼君子兮、噬肯適我。
中心好之、曷飲食之。

There is a solitary russet pear tree,
Growing on the left of the way.
That princely man there!
He might be willing to come to me.
In the centre of my heart I love him,
[But] how shall I supply him with drink and food?

有杕之杜、生于道周。
彼君子兮、噬肯來遊。
中心好之、曷飲食之。

There is a solitary russet pear tree,
Growing where the way makes a compass.
That princely man there!
He might be willing to come and ramble [with me].
In the centre of my heart I love him,
[But] how shall I supply him with drink and food?

Re: 123. 有杕之杜 - You Di Zhi Du

[x_los]

So either the speaker is like the tree, or the hot guy is under the tree, and the speaker wants this hot guy as an attendant or husband worries they wouldn't be able to afford the basic upkeep on this husbandunit.

Re: 123. 有杕之杜 - You Di Zhi Du

[ann712]

If she can’t supply him with drink and food he ain’t married to her. Beware the ramble maiden! Yep could be a lot of fun but it leaves you in an un-marriageable position.

So much the mantra of my teenage years! How things have changed.

Maybe also a warning to marry within your station in life - also a mantra of my teenage years.

Re: 123. 有杕之杜 - You Di Zhi Du

[superborb]

REALLY interesting that the Shijing poems often come in two stanzas that are very similar?

Baike: several possible explanations, but the one it elaborates on most is where it's a lonely person looking forward to friends visiting and drinking and talking together.