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

[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. 

* 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.**

Comments

208. 鼓鍾 - Gu Zhong

[x_los]

鼓鍾將將、淮水湯湯。
憂心且傷。
淑人君子、懷允不忘。

His bells ring out jiang-jiang,
While the waters of the Huai go sweeping on;
Sad is my heart and wouded.
The virtuous sovereigns [of old], -
In my heart, indeed, I cannot forget them.

鼓鍾喈喈、淮水湝湝。
憂心且悲。
淑人君子、其德不回。

His drums ring out jie-jie,
While the waters of the Huai rush along;
My heart is sad and grieved.
Of the virtuous sovereigns [of old],
The virtue was without flaw.

鼓鍾伐鼛、淮有三洲。
憂心且妯。
淑人君子、其德不猶。

His bells ring out, his large drums resound,
There are the three islands in the Huai;
Sad is my heart and moved.
Of the virtuous sovereigns [of old],
The virtue was different from this.

鼓鍾欽欽、鼓瑟鼓琴。
笙磬同音。
以雅以南、以籥不偕。

His bells ring out qin-qin;
His lutes, large and small, give their notes;
The tones of his organs and sounding stones are in unison.
They sing the Ya and the Nan,
Dancing to their flutes without error.

Re: 208. 鼓鍾 - Gu Zhong

[x_los]

"His drums ring out jie-jie"

Great, now I'm going to have the Sister, Sister theme song stuck in my head.

"His bells ring out qin-qin;
His lutes, large and small, give their notes;" Is this still a xing, or is it too personified for that?

What are these 'xings' and the final stanza doing?

Re: 208. 鼓鍾 - Gu Zhong

[superborb]

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.