Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Minor Odes of the Kingdom, Decade of Sang Hu

[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 10.**

Comments

218. 車舝 - Che Xia

[x_los]

間關車之舝兮、思孌季女逝兮。
匪飢匪渴、德音來括。
雖無好友、式燕且喜。

Jian-guan went the axle ends of my carriage,
As I thought of the young beauty, and went [to fetch her].
It was not that I was hungry or thirsty,
But [I longed] for one of such virtuous fame to come and be with me.
Although no good friends be with us,
We will feast and be glad.

依彼平林、有集維鷮。
辰彼碩女、令德來教。
式燕且譽、好爾無射。

Dense is that forest in the plain,
And there sit the long-tailed pheasants.
In her proper season that well-grown lady,
With her admirable virtue, is come to instruct me.
We will feast, and I will praise her.
' I love you, and will never be weary of you. '

雖無旨酒、式飲庶幾。
雖無嘉殽、式食庶幾。
雖無德與女、式歌且舞。

Although I have no good spirits,
We will drink [what I have], and perhaps [be satisfied].
Although I have no good viands,
We will eat [what I have], and perhaps [be satisfied].
Although I have no virtue to impart to you,
We will sing and dance.

陟彼高岡、析其柞薪。
析其柞薪、其葉湑兮。
鮮我覯爾、我心寫兮。

I ascend that lofty ridge,
And split the branches of the oaks for firewood.
I split the branches of the oaks for firewood,
Amid the luxuriance of their leaves.
I see you whose match is seldom to be seen,
And my whole heart is satisfied.

高山仰止、景行行止。
四牡騑騑、六轡如琴。
覯爾新昏、以慰我心。

The high hill is looked up to;
The great road is easy to be travelled on.
My four steeds advanced without stopping;
The six reins [made music] in my hands like lute-[strings].
I see you my bride,
To the comfort of my heart.

Re: 218. 車舝 - Che Xia

[x_los]

"It was not that I was hungry or thirsty,
But [I longed] for one of such virtuous fame to come and be with me." so it's not lust, but admiration

"Although no good friends be with us,
We will feast and be glad." just--getting married alone, I guess? for some reason?

"In her proper season that well-grown lady,
With her admirable virtue, is come to instruct me.
We will feast, and I will praise her.
' I love you, and will never be weary of you. '"

the shi jing's shizunfucker vibe: *intensifies*

Re: 218. 車舝 - Che Xia

[superborb]

Baike provides some interpretations about how it relates to satirizing Zhou You wang or potentially historical empress/concubines' virtues, but that modern scholars mostly think this is a poem about happy newlyweds from the husband's perspective, either by the groom or by a friend.

I think baike is a little snarky and says that although the poem naively says the bit about how it's not about lust but admiration for her virtues, it's a 'doth protest too much' situation (the idiom they use means 'to reveal what one intends to hide').