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

[x_los]

This is the last book in Lessons from the States! After this, we get into some fairly different material:

Minor odes of the kingdom (about 7 weeks)
Greater odes of the kingdom (3 weeks)
Odes of the temple and the altar (4 weeks)

And then we'll be talking about what we want to do next. But seriously, working through all the Lessons from the States is itself a milestone: one building-block of your Classical Education achieved.

* 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 22.**

Comments

159. 九罭 - Jiu Yu

[x_los]

九罭之鱼、鳟鲂。
我觏之子、衮衣绣裳。

In the net with its nine bags,
Are rud and bream.
We see this prince,
With his grand-ducal robe and embroidered skirt.

鸿飞遵渚、公归无所、于女信处。

The wild geese fly [only] about the islets.
The duke is returning; - is it not to his proper place?
He was stopping with you [and me] but for a couple of nights.

鸿飞遵陆、公归不复、于女信宿。

The wild geese fly about the land.
The duke is returning, and will not come back here?
He was lodging with you [and me] but for a couple of nights.

是以有衮衣兮、无以我公归兮、无使我心悲兮。

(It looks on the page like there should be another stanza after this, but this other site's version of the translation seems to agree that there isn't?)

Re: 159. 九罭 - Jiu Yu

[x_los]

Maybe a parallel is intended between the caught fish and the duke, who the poet seems dubious regarding the 'proper place' of? Perhaps he's embroiled in a tense, hostile political situation, where he is disempowered.

Re: 159. 九罭 - Jiu Yu

[superborb]

I have to say this set of poems is (at least according to Baike) way less satirical than I expected???

Baike:

nine bags: nine is again an imaginary number, just means 'many'

Some think this is a sister poem to "伐柯" Fa Ke and both praise Zhou gong. Then there was other commentary, and Baike noted that this was all speculation

Another interpretation is this is someone hosting a high ranking official for a banquet, saying they're having so much fun, why doesn't he stay for a few more days?

Re: 159. 九罭 - Jiu Yu

[x_los]

"是以有衮衣兮、无以我公归兮、无使我心悲兮" so do you know wtf is up with this seemingly untranslated chunk?

Re: 159. 九罭 - Jiu Yu

[superborb]

That's ... really weird that it wasn't translated and probably makes my last sentence not make sense -- the last line is something like, (from the vernacular Baike version) "Keep your ceremonial robes, my liege don't leave, don't leave me to be melancholy"