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

160. 狼跋 - Lang Ba

[x_los]

狼跋其胡、载疐其尾。
公孙硕肤、赤舄几几。

The wolf springs forward on his dewlap,
Or trips back on his tail.
The duke was humble, and greatly admirable,

狼疐其尾、载跋其胡。
公孙硕肤、德音不瑕。

The wolf springs forward on his dewlap,
Or trips back on his tail.
The duke was humble, and greatly admirable,
There is no flaw in his virtuous fame.

Re: 160. 狼跋 - Lang Ba

[x_los]

So cunning, avaricious men trip themselves up, but the duke wasn't like them?

Re: 160. 狼跋 - Lang Ba

[x_los]

This poem gets a mention and Yellow Bird is extensively discussed in The Halberd at Red Cliff: Jian'an and the Three Kingdoms, which looks v good: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Halberd_at_Red_Cliff/QfgFEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Re: 160. 狼跋 - Lang Ba

[superborb]

Ahhh, here is the satire.
(Did we lose the last line of translation of stanza 1 btw? It should be something about red shoes)

Baike:
Scholars generally believe the duke here is Zhou gong (Duke of Zhou), and this praises his regency. Some think this is satirizing the nobility / sons of the nobility. One says it isn't Zhou gong, but some other descendent of Bin gong. Another says this is about a husband and wife, and it is the wife teasing the husband.

Basically, a lot of controversy over if the wolf is sarcastic or not? It could be neutrally describing how the Zhou country advanced and retreated.

The red shoes that are supposed to be the last line of stanza 1 are worn by the nobility. So it is the image of a plump nobleman caring about his shoes, looking ridiculous. But then it softens this humor with the last sentence.

Re: 160. 狼跋 - Lang Ba

[x_los]

'Self-composed in his red slippers.' must have accidentally deleted it x_x