Baike: Mao's commentary says this satirizes Zhou You wang, who has no relatives and cannot peacefully make merry with his family.
Although the tone of the poem is about a banquet, it also describes the relationships between the aristocrats. Beneath the surface of a lively atmosphere, they are pessimistic and disappointed, so it's a mood of "make merry while you can". It is an expression of the decline of last years of the Western Zhou Dynasty. (Also, Baike keeps referring to the aristocrats as 奴隶主贵族, which translates to the slave owning aristocrats, and I'm not sure if there is some connotation to the 'slave owner' part that I'm missing?)
Baike also notes that some scholars believe this wasn't meant as satire, just a song about enjoying life, but the people reading into it adds this meaning.
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Re: 217. 頍弁 - Kui Bian
Date: 2021-05-09 03:57 pm (UTC)Mao's commentary says this satirizes Zhou You wang, who has no relatives and cannot peacefully make merry with his family.
Although the tone of the poem is about a banquet, it also describes the relationships between the aristocrats. Beneath the surface of a lively atmosphere, they are pessimistic and disappointed, so it's a mood of "make merry while you can". It is an expression of the decline of last years of the Western Zhou Dynasty. (Also, Baike keeps referring to the aristocrats as 奴隶主贵族, which translates to the slave owning aristocrats, and I'm not sure if there is some connotation to the 'slave owner' part that I'm missing?)
Baike also notes that some scholars believe this wasn't meant as satire, just a song about enjoying life, but the people reading into it adds this meaning.