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

132. 晨風 - Chen Feng

[x_los]

鴥彼晨風、鬱彼北林。
未見君子、憂心欽欽。
如何如何、忘我實多。

Swift flies the falcon,
To the thick-wooded forest in the north.
While I do not see my husband,
My heart cannot forget its grief.
How is it, how is it,
That he forgets me so very much?

山有苞櫟、隰有六駮。
未見君子、憂心靡樂。
如何如何、忘我實多。

On the mountain are the bushy oaks;
In the low wet grounds are six elms.
While I do not see my husband,
My sad heart has no joy.
How is it, how is it,
That he forgets me so very much?

山有苞棣、隰有樹檖。
未見君子、憂心如醉。
如何如何、忘我實多。

On the mountain are the bushy sparrow-plums;
In the low wet grounds are the high, wild pear trees.
While I do not see my husband,
My heart is as if intoxicated with grief.
How is it, how is it,
That he forgets me so very much?

Re: 132. 晨風 - Chen Feng

[x_los]

. xi. 7.: OUT OF SIGHT AND OUT OF MIND.
Swiftly sped the sparrow-hawk,
Northward where the woods grow dense.—
Absent is my husband still,
And ’tis sad, this long suspense.
Why is he, methinks, and how
So unmindful of me now?
Groves of oak adorn the hill,
Elm-trees, six of them, the mead.—
Absent is my husband still;
Sad and cheerless life I lead,
Why is he, methinks, and how
So unmindful of me now?
On the hill wild cherry-trees,
On the meadowland wild pears.—
With my husband absent still
I seem stupefied with cares.
Why is he, methinks, and how
So unmindful of me now?

https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/confucius-the-shi-king-the-old-poetry-classic-of-the-chinese#lf1440_label_602

Re: 132. 晨風 - Chen Feng

[x_los]

Hey it's the mountains-lowlands separation xing again! Classic, classic.

Another abandoned wife one for ya.

(Still gonna use it for angry Binghe, tho. Still gonna use it.)

Re: 132. 晨風 - Chen Feng

[superborb]

From baike, the falcon is a sparrowhawk, and the sparrow-plum is a shadbush. The wild pear is a rowan.

I kind of wish there was a source for if these particular choices of animals/vegetation have meanings beyond just imagery? Like is it just that these plants live in contrasting locations and it's just for the xing?

Re: 132. 晨風 - Chen Feng

[ann712]

The shadbush is toxic and used in insecticides in China. Could this be an implied symbolism - the relationship has turned toxic.