x_los: (Default)
x_los ([personal profile] x_los) wrote in [community profile] dankodes2021-04-26 03:49 am

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

  * 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. 

* Remember you can also look at 
How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context.

* 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 MAY 3.**
superborb: (Default)

Re: 205. 北山 - Bei Shan

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 03:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Baike glosses sound as 'to wail, to cry out in distress', and the vernacular translation is like "some people are not the least concerned with the complaints of the common people; some people industriously work without pause and are worried and anxious".

Baike additionally adds that in the Zhou dynasty, the officials were arranged in a strict hierarchy of Qing, Dafu, Shi, and many of the Shijing poems express how difficult it was to be in that lowest class of Shi. So this is all people who are in the ruling class, but the lowest tier of it.

(Baike uses the word 劳役 (forced labor) to express what they have to do, which makes me think that I've misinterpreted how strong the 'forced' part of this word is supposed to be taken as)

Also, Legge is making shit up again, it's not a medlar, it's a wolfberry??? Baike adds that its fruit is a medicine and it is nourishing.
Edited 2021-05-02 15:08 (UTC)
superborb: (Default)

Re: 206. 無將大車 - Wu Jiang Da Che

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 03:43 pm (UTC)(link)
That line has a long gloss in Baike:
⑹不出于颎(jiǒng):犹言不能摆脱烦躁不安的心境。颎,通“耿”,心绪不宁,心事重重。一说通“炯”,火光明亮。
Cannot break away from the fidgety, unpeaceful state of mind. Jiong [the last character in the phrase], same as 'bright/honest', an unquiet state of mind, heavy worries. One source says 'bright', a blaze of brightness.

The vernacular translation is 心中不安会得病, if your heart is uneasy, you will fall ill.
superborb: (Default)

Re: 206. 無將大車 - Wu Jiang Da Che

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 04:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Baike says there are many interpretations of this poem, most think it is by a person who was hurt by the chaos of the time and wanted to dispel their own [worries?]. Some suggested it was written by a laborer, some by a scholar bureaucrat.

Ancients used riding a carriage to refer to the emperor and feudal vassals, so pushing a cart metaphorically can mean serving the country.
superborb: (Default)

Re: 207. 小明 - Xiao Ming

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 04:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Baike says the net of justice; the long arm of the law.

I think the poet is serving as an official in a far away place, not necessarily exile, just that bureaucrats had to serve away from home.
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Re: 208. 鼓鍾 - Gu Zhong

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 05:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Baike speculates that the Ya and Nan are closely related to the Zhou dynasty and this was written as the Zhou dynasty was in decline. So it's nostalgia for an earlier time when the country was powerful.
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Re: 209. 楚茨 - Chu Ci

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 06:00 pm (UTC)(link)
"Wives presiding are still and reverent," Baike's gloss on this line is 'wives': the emperor's and feudal prince's wives. 'presiding are still and reverent': respectful/deferential, one source says making an effort.

Some controversy over if it was the king of Zhou or one of the high ranking officials who is the worshipper -- by the end of the Spring and Autumn period, the ceremonies they would have used had become similar.
superborb: (Default)

Re: 210. 信南山 - Xin Nan Shan

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 06:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, Yu the Great
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Re: 210. 信南山 - Xin Nan Shan

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 06:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Baike compares this to 209 and says that though they're both songs about the Zhou royal family performing offerings. 209 describes both the autumn and winter sacrifices, while 210 only talks about the winter sacrifice.

Baike also says that the people of the Zhou dynasty placed great importance on farming. They took Houji, the god of farming, as their ancestor.
superborb: (Default)

Re: 211. 甫田 - Fu Tian

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 06:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, Baike's vernacular says the better workers

However, the distant descendant is the king of Zhou, so that is a really weird translation choice. Baike says this should be written by or on behalf of the king, since addressing the ancestors and gods would have been his duty.
superborb: (Default)

Re: 212. 大田 - Da Tian

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Baike explains a little more: the distant descendant is translated that way because it's literally great grandson. It's what the king of Zhou would call himself in front of his ancestors and the gods.

The wolf tail's grass makes sense, that is indeed a weed and is a direct translation of the alternate name for that weed (per Baike, it is dog tail grass), but the other is supposed to mean empty and shriveled grain.

The Baike section where they editorialize about the poems says that the harvest being left ungathered so the orphans/widows don't have to be humiliated by begging.

Baike says that this and 211 are important poems for understanding historical agriculture practices in the western Zhou dynasty.
Edited 2021-05-02 18:35 (UTC)
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Re: 213. 瞻彼洛矣 - Zhan Bi Luo Yi

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 06:55 pm (UTC)(link)
For danmei purposes, yes, the Luo is the Luo of Luo Binghe.

Baike says this poem is written in the Fu style, but still has metaphors.

Anyway, in historical times there were two Luoshui rivers, one originating in northwest Shaanxi and flowing into the Wei river, and one in the south of Shaanxi that flowed into the Yellow River. Zhu Xi (Song dynasty era, founder of neo-Confucianism) thinks this was the latter.

Baike says definitively that this was written during the reign of Zhou Xuan wang, but then the specific sources say Zhou You wang, so I'm confused.
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Re: 214. 裳裳者華 - Chang Chang Zhe Hua

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 07:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Baike says "the poem is full of the xing of the flowers, praising the beauty of the people", and I'm not sure if it's meant to be a causal relationship there, but it certainly would make sense to me if it was?
superborb: (Default)

Re: 214. 裳裳者華 - Chang Chang Zhe Hua

[personal profile] superborb 2021-05-02 08:06 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm not sure if it's a xing of flowers + praising beauty of people, therefore the xing is enhancing the 'beauty' interpretation