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

[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 8.**

Comments

136. 宛丘 - Wan Qiu

[x_los]

子之湯兮、宛丘之上兮。
洵有情兮、而無望兮。

How gay and dissipated you are,
There on the top of Wanqiu!
You are full of kindly affection indeed,
But you have nothing to make you looked up to!

坎其擊鼓、宛丘之下。
無冬無夏、值其鷺羽。

How your blows on the drum resound,
At the foot of Wanqiu!
Be it winter, be it summer,
You are holding your egret's feather!

坎其擊缶、宛丘之道。
無冬無夏、值其鷺翿。

How you beat your earthen vessel,
On the way to Wanqiu!
Be it winter, be it summer,
You are holding your egret-fan!

Re: 136. 宛丘 - Wan Qiu

[x_los]

So, something of a partier who makes a good show of him or herself, but who doesn't do anything to cultivate people's deeper or more lasting respect?

Re: 136. 宛丘 - Wan Qiu

[ann712]

I think egret feathers were part of official’s robes in China, suggests an official who avoids the difficult issues he should be tackling to court ab easy popularity. So yes..I’m agreeing more wordily!

Re: 136. 宛丘 - Wan Qiu

[douqi]

Slightly usurping Helena's role, but I find it incredibly hard to read Shijing poems that I don't already know without glosses, so I looked this up on baidu. Apparently there are three interpretations, and one of them is indeed 'satirising a rather terrible official'. The second one is 'satirising the backward customs of a fiefdom which has witches presiding over ceremonies' (I _think_ the dancing figure is said witch here). The third, and most contemporary one, is 'romantic poem where the presumed male poet expresses his admiration for the dancing witch'.

*'witch' here obs an approximation, not same as Western perception of witches, etc.

Re: 136. 宛丘 - Wan Qiu

[superborb]

Yeah! The only additional thing from Baike I'd add is the gloss for the egret feathers are that they're common accessories for dance