Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Lessons from the States, Odes Of Gui and Odes of Cao

[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 are doing a Nirvana in Fire read-along here. Anyone with thoughts is welcome to chime in. 

**NEXT BATCH MARCH 15.**

Comments

曹風 - Odes Of Cao; 152. 鳲鳩 - Shi Jiu

[x_los]

鳲鳩在桑、其子七兮。
淑人君子、其儀一兮。
其儀一兮、心如結兮。

The turtle dove is in the mulberry tree,
And her young ones are seven.
The virtuous man, the princely one,
Is uniformly correct in his deportment.
He is uniformly correct in his deportment,
His heart is as if it were tied to what is correct.

鳲鳩在桑、其子在梅。
淑人君子、其帶伊絲。
其帶伊絲、其弁伊騏。

The turtle dove is in the mulberry tree,
And her young ones are in the plum tree.
The virtuous man, the princely one,
Has his girdle of silk.
His girdle is of silk,
And his cap is of spotted deer-skin.

鳲鳩在桑、其子在棘。
淑人君子、其儀不忒。
其儀不忒、正是四國。

The turtle dove is in the mulberry tree,
And her young ones are in the jujube tree.
The virtuous man, the princely one,
Has nothing wrong in his deportment.
He has nothing wrong in his deportment,
And thus he rectifies the four quarters of the State.

鳲鳩在桑、其子在榛。
淑人君子、正是國人。
正是國人、胡不萬年。

The turtle dove is in the mulberry tree,
And her young ones are in the hazel tree.
The virtuous man, the princely one,
Rectifies the people of the State.
He rectifies the people of his State:
May he continue for ten thousand years!

Re: 曹風 - Odes Of Cao; 152. 鳲鳩 - Shi Jiu

[x_los]

There's such a deep connection here and in several of these between ritual, appearance and essence: presenting and manifesting correct behaviour is tied to both bearing good emotions/thoughts and the prosperity of the state. 'Rectifies' is itself an interesting choice: is he setting problems right, or does his personal rectitude infuse the broader context he operates in via his correct deportment?

Re: 曹風 - Odes Of Cao; 152. 鳲鳩 - Shi Jiu

[superborb]

Baike's gloss is that he serves as an example / leads, but then one source says "to correct; make right" which would imply a more active role?

Re: 曹風 - Odes Of Cao; 152. 鳲鳩 - Shi Jiu

[superborb]

It is so interesting to me that we get a lot of positive imagery with cuckoos? (Baike glosses the turtle dove as a cuckoo) https://www.jstor.org/stable/604785?seq=1 seems to discuss the relevance of the cuckoo in the Shijing, but I can't access it.

Baike:
It's seven children bc that's what was said about cuckoos.
Cuckoos are signs of spring and unselfishly and unbiasedly feed many small birds.

The two diametrically opposed opinions on if it's satire or praise.

Re: 曹風 - Odes Of Cao; 152. 鳲鳩 - Shi Jiu

[x_los]

It looks like if you go to 'alternate access options' it's available to read for free, via the 100 articles a month quota.