Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Minor Odes of the Kingdom, Decade of Du Ren Shi

[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 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!

Comments

Re: 230. 綿蠻 - Mian Man

[x_los]

What's the oriole doing?

"Inform me, teach me;" doesn't quite seem to fit?

Re: 230. 綿蠻 - Mian Man

[superborb]

Baike seems to think the 'inform me, teach me' bit is the narrator longing for someone to sympathize and guide him, but also this Baike article seems lower quality than most, so an extra grain of salt here.

Re: 230. 綿蠻 - Mian Man

[llonkrebboj]

I think it may not be the same yellow bird each time. The first line of each part is the dude seeing a bird (maybe very common in the area?) land and stop at each leg of his journey. The 'mound' is a biiiit misleading I guess. A 丘 is a hill. So, 1) at a bend in the road to/of the hill, 2) at a corner of a hill and 3) on the side of a hill. Meanwhile, he's like look at that bird! Now look at the issues I have. Wish I knew where I'm going and what I'm doing. The birb knows what's up in life. But I don't T_T

So if the first four lines of each section are like negativity central, the second four lines are the cheerleading, positive encouragement part. Maybe it should be sung or performed as a duet after all.

There is actually no 'me' in the text at this point. It's more like

// Feed and quench
and teach and guide
and order the carriage behind
telling them to let (the speaker) ride //

Very "you're exhausted and fretful bc your basic needs are not met and there's no one to guide you, but we are here now so don't be afraid anymore" sort of upbeat reassurance.

Re: 230. 綿蠻 - Mian Man

[x_los]

That's a nice point, re: what the bird xing is doing!

Re: 230. 綿蠻 - Mian Man

[ann712]

Orioles also symbolise joy or herald the coming of the spring. Maybe a symbol of that? I know there is joy to found but I’m tired, the journey to find it is wearying me, I need somebody to teach me how to find it.