x_los: (Default)
x_los ([personal profile] x_los) wrote in [community profile] dankodes2021-03-29 01:38 am

Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Minor Odes of the Kingdom, Decade of Baihua

I know this is a short week and that doing it on its own will not speed us through the Minor Odes, but given that the poems are longer in this section, Baihua's five felt too bulky to tack on to either side (to make one of those batches a kind of awkward 14-15 medium sized poems).

* 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 APRIL 5.**
forestofglory: a small plant in a clump of dirt  (eco-geek)

Re: 172. 南山有臺 - Nan Shan You Tai

[personal profile] forestofglory 2021-03-29 06:19 pm (UTC)(link)
What is a Tai plant? google only wants to tell me about Ti plants which to do not seem to be the same thing at all.
superborb: (Default)

Re: 172. 南山有臺 - Nan Shan You Tai

[personal profile] superborb 2021-04-04 03:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Baike gloss says: 通“薹” homonym with "Carex dispalatha", 莎草 "coco-grass or nut sedge", 又名蓑衣草 also known as woven rush raincoat - grass, 可制蓑衣 used to make woven rush raincoats
forestofglory: E. H. Shepard drawing of Christopher Robin reading a book to Pooh (Default)

Re: 172. 南山有臺 - Nan Shan You Tai

[personal profile] forestofglory 2021-04-05 05:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! (I saw a video of someone making those rain coats a while ago.)
superborb: (Default)

Re: 172. 南山有臺 - Nan Shan You Tai

[personal profile] superborb 2021-04-04 03:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Baike:
The last four phrases of each stanza is singing the praises of and offering birthday congratulations. [The phrase used for 'singing the praises of' is usually derogatory, but I don't think that connotation is meant here??] The first two stanzas offer wishes to the nation, the third and fourth to the parents of the people [I think this metaphorically means the ruler -- i.e. a virtuous ruler will treat the common masses as their children, so the parent of the people therefore is a virtuous ruler?], and the last to the offspring/posterity.

So this is a banquet song for nobles, wishing guests longevity and good future generations.

The xing adds symbolic meaning (bi), color and subtlety. Otherwise it would be too abrupt and straightforward.