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

[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.

**NEXT BATCH APRIL 26.**

Comments

Re: 199. 何人斯 - He Ren Si

[x_los]

II. v. 5.: ALIENATION OF AN OLD FRIEND.†
And who is this? A man whose heart
Is in great jeopardy.
How comes he to approach my dam,
And not come in to me?
[229]
Ah, who is he whose heels he dogs?
Pâu, surely, it must be!
The two pursue the selfsame road;
But whether deals this blow?
How pass my dam, and not come in
His sympathy to show?
I am beneath his notice now;
At first it was not so.
Ay who is this? Why comes he now
Along my path, more near?
I fail to see himself as yet,
Only his voice I hear.
Who cannot face a man for shame,
Of Heaven hath he no fear?
Ay who is this? The man is like
A gusty whirling wind.
Why blow not from the North, or South,
(In front, or else behind)?
Why didst thou come so near my dam—
Only to vex my mind?
While driving leisurely along,
Thou hast no time to stop!
E’en driving quickly, there are times
Grease in thy wheels to drop.
Cam’st thou but once! Why am I left
To look, and long, and hope?
If thou hadst turned and called on me,
Then ease of heart were mine.
To turn and not to call—’tis hard
Such halting to divine.
Cam’st thou but once! Then come had peace:
(No more should I repine).
[230]
The whistle once the elder one,
The flute the younger blew;*
We both were strung upon one string.
If now I seem untrue,
I will bring forth my victims three,†
And swear to thee anew.
Art thou a ghost, a watersprite?
That all approach is vain.
Could face meet face and eye meet eye.
All then were clear and plain.—
Here to thy tune of twist and turn
I set this goodly strain.‡

https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/confucius-the-shi-king-the-old-poetry-classic-of-the-chinese