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dankodes* 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.
* One of our members is doing posts on the foundations and development of wuxia. Worth checking out!
**NEXT BATCH APRIL 19.**
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.
* One of our members is doing posts on the foundations and development of wuxia. Worth checking out!
**NEXT BATCH APRIL 19.**
189. 斯干 - Si Gan
如竹苞矣、如松茂矣。
兄及弟矣、式相好矣、無相猶矣。
By the graceful sweep of these banks,
With the southern hill, so calm in the distance,
[Has the palace arisen], firm as the roots of a clump of bamboos,
[With its roof] like the luxuriant head of a pine tree.
May the brothers [here],
Be loving among themselves,
And have no schemings against one another!
似續妣祖、築室百堵、西南其戶。
爰居爰處、爰笑爰語。
Having entered into the inheritance of his ancestors,
He has built his chambers, five thousand cubits of walls,
With their doors to the west and to the south.
Here will he reside; here will he sit;
Here will he laugh; here will he talk.
約之閣閣、椓之橐橐。
風雨攸除、鳥鼠攸去、君子攸芋。
They bound the frames for the earth, exactly over one another;
Tuo-tuo went on the pounding; -
Impervious [the walls] to wind and rain,
Offering no cranny to bird or rat.
A grand dwelling is it for our noble lord.
如跂斯翼、如矢斯棘、如鳥斯革。
如翬斯飛、君子攸躋。
Like a man on tip-toe, in reverent expectation;
Like an arrow, flying rapidly;
Like a bird which has changed its feathers;
Like a pheasant on flying wings;
Is the [hall] which our noble lord will ascend.
殖殖其庭、有覺其楹、噲噲其正、噦噦其冥、君子攸寧。
Level and smooth is the court-yard,
And lofty are the pillars around it.
Pleasant is the exposure of the chamber to the light,
And deep and wide are its recesses; -
Here will our noble lord repose.
下莞上簟、乃安斯寢。
乃寢乃興、乃占我夢。
吉夢維何、維熊維羆、 維虺維蛇。
On the rush-mat below, and that of fine bamboos above it,
Here may he repose in slumber!
May he sleep and awake,
[Saying] ' Divine for me my dreams.
What dreams are lucky?
They have been of bears and grisly bears;
They have been of cobras and [other] serpents. '
大人占之。
維熊維羆、男子之祥。
維虺維蛇、女子之祥。
The chief diviner will divine them.
The bears and grisly bears,
Are the auspicious intimations of sons.
The cobras and [other] serpents,
Are the auspicious intimations of daughters.
乃生男子、載寢之床、載衣之裳、載弄之璋。
其泣喤喤、朱芾斯皇、室家君王。
Sons shall be born to him:
They will be put to sleep on couches;
They will be clothed in robes;
They will have sceptres to play with;
Their cry will be loud.
They will be [hereafter] resplendent with red knee-covers,
The [future] king, the princes of the land.
乃生女子、載寢之地、載衣之裼、 載弄之瓦。
無非無儀、唯酒食是議、無父母詒罹。
Daughters shall be born to him:
They will be put to sleep on the ground;
They will be clothed with wrappers;
They will have tiles to play with.
It will be theirs neither to do wrong nor to do good.
Only about the spirits and the food will they have to think,
And to cause no sorrow to their parents.
Re: 189. 斯干 - Si Gan
Interesting that daughters are auspicious rather than oh no, daughters.
Tiles to play with?
What does 'it will be theirs neither to do wrong nor to do good' mean here?
Re: 189. 斯干 - Si Gan
PurePlay? Play for no purpose but the fun of playing?
Re: 189. 斯干 - Si Gan
Baike glosses the tiles as ceramic spindles. The word used literally means roof tile. I've also now learned the word for spindle, which is inconveniently not a word in my usual dictionary...
"It will be theirs neither to do wrong nor to do good.": Baike's vernacular translation for this line is "I wish for her to not make trouble nor be improper". The gloss says indicates women should not discuss family quarrels or gossip. I think Legge's translation comes from the fact that a literal translation of the line in modern Chinese would be 'not incorrect, not rites', and he interpreted 'rites' as 'to do good', but Baike's gloss on the word is homonym to 'to discuss'.
Re: 189. 斯干 - Si Gan
The reason the sons sleep on the bed and daughters on the ground is "yang high, yin low". (Patriarchy >:( ). Baike specifically says: "Men are superior to women, and their treatment and the expectations on them are different. This is a reflection on the customs and consciouness of the time, and lets future generations understand those values."
I am-- surprised at the first line of the Baike background: 这是一首祝贺西周奴隶主贵族宫室落成的歌辞。This is a song to celebrate completion of the palaces of the Western Zhou slave owning nobility.
Anyway, the specific King of Zhou that it's about seems uncertain. There's also some debate over if celebrating the completion of the palace also comes with sacrificing animals to the ancestors.