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

211. 甫田 - Fu Tian

[x_los]

倬彼甫田、歲取十千。
我取其陳、食我農人。
自古有年。
今適南畝、或耘或耔、黍稷薿薿。
攸介攸止、烝我髦士。

Bright are those extensive fields,
A tenth of whose produce is annually levied.
I take the old stores,
And with them feed the husbandmen,
From of old we have had good years,
And now I go to the south-lying acres,
Where some are weeding, and some gather the earth about the roots.
The millets look luxuriant;
And in a spacious resting place,
I collect and encourage the men of greater promise.

以我齊明、與我犧羊、以社以方。
我田既臧、農夫之慶。
琴瑟擊鼓、以御田祖。
以祈甘雨、以介我稷黍、以穀我士女。

With my vessels full of bright millet,
And my pure victim-rams,
We sacrificed to [the Spirits of] the land, and to [those of] the four quarters.
That my fields are in such good condition,
Is matter of joy to my husbandmen.
With lutes, and with drums beating,
We will invoke the Father of husbandry,
And pray for sweet rain,
To increase the produce of our millets,
And to bless my men and their wives.

曾孫來止、以其婦子、饁彼南畝、田畯至喜。
攘其左右、嘗其旨否。
禾易長畝、終善且有。
曾孫不怒、農夫克敏。

The distant descendant comes,
When their wives and children,
Are bringing food to those [at work] in the south-lying acres.
The surveyor of the fields [also] comes, and is glad.
He takes [of the food] on the left and the right,
And tastes whether it be good or not.
The grain is well cultivated, all the acres over;
Good will it be and abundant.
The distant descendant has no displacency;
The husbandmen are encouraged to diligence.

曾孫之稼、如茨如梁。
曾孫之庾、如坻如京。
乃求千斯倉、乃求萬斯箱。
黍稷稻粱、農夫之慶。
報以介福、萬壽無疆。

The crops of the distant descendant,
Look [thick] as thatch, and [swelling] like a carriage cover.
The stacks of the distant descendant,
Will stand like islands and mounds.
He will seek for thousands of granaries;
He will seek for myriads of carts.
The millets, the paddy, and the maize,
Will awake the joy of the husbandmen;
[And they will say], ' May he be rewarded with great happiness.
With myriads of years, life without end!

Re: 211. 甫田 - Fu Tian

[x_los]

"And in a spacious resting place,
I collect and encourage the men of greater promise." the better agricultural workers?

"The distant descendant comes,
When their wives and children," this makes it sound like we're in the ghost's POV

Re: 211. 甫田 - Fu Tian

[superborb]

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.