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Entry tags:
Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Minor Odes of the Kingdom, Decade of Du Ren Shi
* 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 17.**
This is the last chapter in the Minor Odes! After this we move to the Greater Odes (three weeks) and the Odes of the Temple and the Altar (four weeks). Then, a whole new set of 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 17.**
This is the last chapter in the Minor Odes! After this we move to the Greater Odes (three weeks) and the Odes of the Temple and the Altar (four weeks). Then, a whole new set of poems!
229. 白華 - Bai Hua
之子之遠、俾我獨兮。
The fibres from the white flowered rush,
Are bound with the white grass.
This man's sending me away,
Makes me dwell solitary.
英英白雲、露彼菅茅。
天步艱難、之子不猶。
The light and brilliant clouds,
Bedew the rush and the grass.
The way of Heaven is hard and difficult; -
This man does not confirm [to good principle].
滮池北流、浸彼稻田。
嘯歌傷懷、念彼碩人。
How the water from the pools flows away to north,
Flooding the rice fields!
I whistle and sing with wounded heart,
Thinking of that great man.
樵彼桑薪、卬烘于煁。
維彼碩人、實勞我心。
They gather firewood of branches of the mulberry trees,
And I burn them [only] in a [small] furnace.
That great man,
Does indeed toil and trouble my heart.
鼓鍾于宮、聲聞于外。
念子懆懆、視我邁邁。
Their drums and bells are beaten in the palace,
And their sound is heard without.
All-sorrowful I think of him; -
He thinks of me without any regard.
有鶖在梁、有鶴在林。
維彼碩人、實勞我心。
The marabou is on the dam;
The [common] crane is in the forest.
That great man,
Does indeed toil and trouble my heart.
鴛鴦在梁、戢其左翼。
之子無良、二三其德。
The Yellow ducks are on the dams,
With their left wings gathered up.
That man is bad,
Ever varying in his conduct.
有扁斯石、履之卑兮。
之子之遠、俾我疧兮。
How thin is that slab of stone!
He that stands on it is low.
That man's sending me away,
Makes me full of affliction.
Re: 229. 白華 - Bai Hua
Re: 229. 白華 - Bai Hua
Mao's commentary says this is about Zhou You wang and his promoting Bao Si to queen and deposing Queen Shen. In either case, women in marriage had an unequal position no matter what class they were in.
The white grass and white flowered rush are symbols of purity and the harmony of love.
The rice field being irrigated is the opposite of the feelings of the husband for his wife. Implying that people are out of place.
The mulberry not being able to be used = the narrator's virtue not being appreciated
The drums and bells are like, no secret can be held forever, thus people know she (Queen Shen) has been abandoned
The bird metaphor is between the white and meek crane and the greedy and sinister marabou. The marabou is a vulture, but it looks like a crane. The crane is considered a noble bird, but being in the forest = the loved person is far away.