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

215. 桑扈 - Sang Hu

[x_los]

交交桑扈、有鶯其羽。
君子樂胥、受天之祜。

They flit about, the green-beaks,
With their variegated wings.
To be rejoiced in are these princes!
May they receive the blessing of Heaven!

交交桑扈、有鶯其領。
君子樂胥、萬邦之屏。

They flit about, the green-beaks,
With their glancing necks.
To be rejoiced in are these princes!
They are screens to all the States.

之屏之翰、百辟為憲。
不戢不難、受福不那。

These screens, these buttresses, -
All the chiefs will take them as a pattern.
Are they not self-restrained? Are they not careful?
Will they not receive much happiness?

兕觥其觩、旨酒思柔。
彼交匪敖、萬福來求。

How long is that cup of rhinoceros' horn!
Good are the spirits in it and soft.
While it passes round, they show no pride;
All blessing must come to seek them.

Re: 215. 桑扈 - Sang Hu

[x_los]

See if I were reading a Western poem comparing men of fashion to brightly-coloured birds, I'd expect that to be an insult.

Re: 215. 桑扈 - Sang Hu

[superborb]

I think the birds are a xing that are not necessarily directly connected? Baike is THIN for this poem though, all it says about the birds is that it creates a lively and joyous atmosphere for the banquet.