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

[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.

**NEXT BATCH MARCH 1.**

Comments

128. 小戎 - Xiao Rong

[x_los]

小戎俴收、五楘梁輈。
游環脅驅、陰靷鋈續、文茵暢轂、駕我騏馵。
言念君子、溫其如玉。
在其板屋、亂我心曲。

[There is] his short war carriage; -
With the ridge-like end of its pole, elegantly bound in five places;
With its slip rings and side straps,
And the traces attached by gilt rings to the masked transverse;
With its beautiful mat of tiger's skin, and its long naves;
With its piebalds, and horses with white left feet.
When I think of my husband [thus],
Looking bland and soft as a piece of jade;
Living there in his plank house;
It sends confusion into all the corners of my heart.

四牡孔阜、六轡在手、騏駵是中、騧驪是驂、龍盾之合、鋈以觼軜。
言念君子、溫其在邑。
方何為期、胡然我念之。

His four horses are in very fine condition,
And the six reins are in the hand [of the charioteer].
Piebald, and bay with black mane, are the insides;
Yellow with black mouth, and black, are the outsides;
Side by side are placed the dragon-figured shields;
Gilt are the buckles for the inner reins.
I think of my husband [thus],
Looking so mild in the cities there.
What time can be fixed for his return?
Oh! how I think of him!

俴駟孔羣、厹矛鋈錞、
蒙伐有苑、虎韔鏤膺、
交韔二弓、竹閉緄縢。
言念君子、載寢載興。
厭厭良人、秩秩德音。

His mail-covered team moves in great harmony;
There are the trident spears with their gilt ends;
And the beautiful feather-figured shield;
With the tiger-skin bow-case, and the carved metal ornaments on its front.
The two bows are placed in the case,
Bound with string to their bamboo frames.
I think of my husband,
When I lie down and rise up.
Tranquil and serene is the good man,
With his virtuous fame spread far and near.

Re: 128. 小戎 - Xiao Rong

[x_los]

incongruous image of the poetic speaker's gentle, domestic husband thoroughly fitted out for war, far away

Re: 128. 小戎 - Xiao Rong

[superborb]

Yeah, baike is all about how majestic the imagery of the scene when he leaves home, and how this early Eastern Zhou era is where Qin is fighting off the Xirong (ethnic group) and expanding, and isn't the narrator so hopeful about her husband having glorious victories? I guess it fits how the ideal man should be gentle and tranquil, even as he wages war?

Re: 128. 小戎 - Xiao Rong

[forestofglory]

There are a lot of horse in this batch of poems