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dankodes * 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 24.**
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 24.**
235. 文王 - Wen Wang
周雖舊邦、其命維新。
有周不顯、帝命不時。
文王陟降、在帝左右。
King Wen is on high;
Oh! bright is he in heaven.
Although Zhou was an old country,
The [favouring] appointment lighted on it recently.
Illustrious was the House of Zhou,
And the appointment of God came at the proper season.
King Wen ascends and descends,
On the left and the right of God.
亹亹文王、令聞不已。
陳錫哉周、侯文王孫子。
文王孫子、本支百世。
凡周之士、不顯亦世。
Full of earnest activity was king Wen,
And his fame is without end.
The gifts [of God] to Zhou,
Extend to the descendants of king Wen; -
To the descendants of king Wen,
In the direct line and the collateral branches for a hundred generations.
All the officers of Zhou,
Shall [also] be illustrious from age to age.
世之不顯、厥猶翼翼。
思皇多士、生此王國。
王國克生、維周之楨。
濟濟多士、文王以寧。
They shall be illustrious from age to age,
Zealously and reverently pursuing their plans.
Admirable are the many officers,
Born in this royal kingdom.
The royal kingdom is able to produce them, -
The suppporters of [the House of] Zhou.
Numerous is the array of officers,
And by them king Wen enjoys his repose.
穆穆文王、於緝熙敬止。
假哉天命、有商孫子。
商之孫子、其麗不億。
上帝既命、侯于周服。
Profound was king Wen;
Oh! continuous and bright was his feeling of reverence.
Great is the appointment of Heaven!
There were the descendants of [the sovereigns] of Shang; -
The descendants of the sovereigns of Shang,
Were in number more than hundreds of thousands;
But when God gave the command,
They became subject to Zhou.
侯服于周、天命靡常。
殷士膚敏、祼將于京。
厥作祼將、常服黼冔。
王之藎臣、無念爾祖。
They became subject to Zhou.
The appointment of Heaven is not constant.
The officers of Yin, admirable and alert,
Assist at the libations in [our] capital; -
They assist at those libations,
Always wearing the hatchets on their lower garment and their peculiar cap.
O ye loyal ministers of the king,
Ever think of your ancestor!
無念爾祖、聿脩厥德。
永言配命、自求多福。
殷之未喪師、克配上帝。
宜鑒于殷、駿命不易。
Ever think of your ancestor,
Cultivating your virtue,
Always striving to accord with the will [of Heaven].
So shall you be seeking for much happiness.
Before Yin lost the multitudes,
[Its kings] were the assessors fo God.
Look to Yin as a beacon;
The great appointment is not easily [preserved].
命之不易、無遏爾躬。
宣昭義問、有虞殷自天。
上天之載、無聲無臭。
儀刑文王、萬邦作孚。
The appointment is not easily [preserved],
Do not cause your own extinction.
Display and make bright your righteousness and name,
And look at [the fate of] Yin in the light of Heaven.
The doings of High Heaven,
Have neither sound nor smell.
Take your pattern from king Wen,
And the myriad regions will repose confidence in you.
Re: 235. 文王 - Wen Wang
The [favouring] appointment lighted on it recently.' does this mean that the country has been around a long time, but has only recently become prominent?
'And the appointment of God came at the proper season.
King Wen ascends and descends,
On the left and the right of God.' but that's ok bc it was the right time for them to rise--and then what's this last couplet?
Why are we talking about some singular god?
And then we discuss how some other kingdoms have effectively amalgamated into Zhou.
"Always wearing the hatchets on their lower garment and their peculiar cap." ethnic costume? court dress for the fallen Yin? Why all this harping on the Yin?
"[Its kings] were the assessors fo God." ?
"The doings of High Heaven,
Have neither sound nor smell." ??
Re: 235. 文王 - Wen Wang
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mkern/files/the_formation_of_the_classic_of_poetry_0.pdf
The “Major Court Hymns” display a particular focus on King Wen,with two hymns, “King Wen” (Mao 235 “Wen wang”) and “King WenHas Fame” (Mao 244 “Wen wang you sheng”), entirely devoted to hispraise. In addition, another five hymns have been read as a set recallingthe story of King Wen.29 Here again, we may be witnessing less a setof discrete poems than a large repertoire of verse from which to recallthe origin of the Zhou.“King Wen,” the first of the “Major Court Hymns,” unfolds as follows, including shared lines with five other poems, among them “ClearTemple,” the first of the “Eulogies of Zhou”:King Wen is on high, / oh, shining in Heaven. / Though Zhou is an oldstate, / its mandate, it is new. / With Zhou, he was greatly illustrious, /God’s mandate was greatly timely. / King Wen ascends and descends /to God’s left side and right.Vigorous, vigorous was King Wen, / his good fame never ceases. / Arrayed are the bestowals on Zhou, / extending to King Wen’s line of descendants. / King Wen’s line of descendants / grows as root andbranches for a hundred generations. / All the officers of Zhou / shall begreatly illustrious in each generation.Across generations greatly illustrious / reverently, reverently are theyin their plans. / Admirable are the many officers, / they are born in thisland of the king. / The king’s land is able to give birth to them, / andthey are the supporters of Zhou. / Dignified, dignified are the many officers, / King Wen, by them, is at ease.Solemn, solemn was King Wen, / continuously bright and reverent. /Great indeed is Heaven’s mandate, / from Shang’s line of descendants./ Shang’s line of descendants / were in number a hundred thousand. /[But] God on high gave the mandate, / making them subjects of Zhou.They were made subjects of Zhou / [but] Heaven’s mandate is not constant. / The officers of Yin are eagerly serving, / now conducting libations in the capital [of Zhou]. / When rising to conduct the libations, / they don the customary robes and axe-patterned caps. / Chosen subjects of the king, / never forget your ancestors!Never forget your ancestors, / display and cultivate their virtue! / Forever strive to conjoin with the mandate, / bringing manifold blessingsupon yourself. / When Yin had not yet lost the multitudes, / they wereable to conjoin with God on high. / Take [the fate of] Yin as your mirror, / the lofty appointment is not easy [to keep]!The mandate is not easy [to keep], / may it not cease with you! /Spread and make bright your good fame, / take your measure from andrely on Heaven! / [Yet] the doings of Heaven above / are withoutsound, without smell— / model yourself on King Wen, / and the myriad states will submit in trust.According to the sequence of the poems in the Mao Poetry and thecomments in their prefaces, the first eighteen hymns praise Kings Wen,Wu, and Cheng (r. 1042/35-1006 BCE); the next five reprehend KingLi (r. 857/53-842/28 BCE); the next six praise King Xuan (r. 827/25-782 BCE); and the final two reprehend King You (r. 781-771 BCE).The hymns are thus believed to reflect significant moments in the development of the Western Zhou dynasty, beginning with an initial“golden age” and ending with the dynastic collapse under King You,the prototypical “bad last ruler” (and mirror image of the last ruler ofShang).
Traditionally, the hymns, mostly attributed to anonymous court officials, have been regarded as witnesses to, and compositions of, theseinflection points; yet they may just as well be products of retrospectiveimagination. None of the more than ten thousand Western Zhou inscribed bronze vessels, bells, weapons, and other artifacts shares asingle couplet with any of the hymns. In the Zuo Tradition, one line offour characters from “King Wen” is first quoted in an entry nominallydated to 706 BCE,30 and another line from the same song appears in anentry dated to 688 BCE.31 The next recitations of, or short quotationsfrom, “Major Court Hymns” appear only from 655 BCE onward, andeven then only very sparingly until about the mid-sixth century BCE,when they begin to occur in somewhat higher frequency.32 Altogether, only twenty of these thirty-one poems are either mentioned by title orquoted. None is quoted in full, and the only quotation of a full stanzaof forty-eight characters appears in the entry for the year 514 BCE.33Moreover, quotations or recitations mentioned under particular years inthe Zuo Tradition did not necessarily take place during these times butmay have been inserted when the text was compiled some time in thelate fourth century BCE; the same may be true of the eleven “MajorCourt Hymns” quoted in the Conversations of the States.34 Even if allthese references were made on the historical occasions attributed tothem, the traces of “Major Court Hymns” in texts from before or during Kongzi’s lifetime would still be scant. Aside from a single stanzalength quotation, the textual record contains no more than a few dozenwords, beginning in 706 BCE and, hence, post-dating the reigns of theearly Zhou kings by more than three centuries.
Re: 235. 文王 - Wen Wang
https://baylor-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/2104/10239/Thesis.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
The being of Tian 天 (Heaven) is the same as that of God discussed in Chapter 1.When the Zhou dynasty came into power, they conflated Shangdi with Heaven, theirhighest god; centuries later, the Romans would do the same thing after their capture ofGreece. As with Jupiter and Zeus, Shangdi and Heaven were essentially the same beingin ancient Chinese religion; hence, He is the same being as God. For identificationpurposes, however, Tian will be translated as “Heaven” within the poem but referred toas God without.
His virtue was also passed down to his descendants, as seen in Wei Tian Zhi Ming維天之命:維天之命 “The Commandments of Heaven”維天之命 The commandments of Heaven10於穆不已 Are profound and unceasing.於乎不顯 Oh, how luminous 文王之德之純 Is King Wen’s virtue and purity!假以溢我 His virtue overflows to us;我其收之 We humbly receive it.駿惠我文王 Submit to our wise King Wen;曾孫篤之May his farthest descendants be whole-heartedly likehim.11This poem, along with the following Wo Jiang 我將, speaks of one of the great rulers ofthe Zhou: Ji Chang 姬昌, more commonly known as Zhou Wen Wang 周文王 (KingWen of Zhou), born in 1152 BC. Although a king of the Zhou people, King Wen did notrule during the Zhou dynasty, as the Western Zhou began in 1046 BC and King Wen diedin 1056 BC. However, he was instrumental in the downfall of the previous Shang dynastyby forming alliances with the neighboring Shi 士, or chiefs, during his tenure as Xi Bai西伯 (Lord of the West). This helped to build up the military strength necessary tooverthrow the Shang dynasty, an act accomplished by King Wen’s son.
Re: 235. 文王 - Wen Wang
"Zhou was an old country": in 'clan society' (unsure exactly what this means, presumably in the before nation state times?), Zhou was a tribe with the family name Ji. They united/allied with the Jiang family and grew in the northwest. Then Baike says some stuff about the early kings who established the foundation of the Zhou and led it to become independent of the Shang dynasty.
The appointment is what is often translated to "mandate of heaven" in English.
The gloss for 'ascends and descends' is highly opaque to me: 陟降：上行曰陟，下行曰降, which means, ascend descend: the direction of 'up' is advance/ascend/promote, the direction of 'down' is descend/surrender? I think it means one dynasty coming into power and one leaving.
The left/right is glossed as "the same as beside"
The hatchets are a particular archaic motif of alternating black and white decorative designs. Baike describes these clothes as those prescribed for sacrifice/rites. The Yin are the aristocrats of the Shang dynasty, which was the previous ruling dynasty -- and now subjects of the Zhou
"[Its kings] were the assessors fo God." is glossed as 'it can match the will of God'
I think that last bit is just saying that we don't know the will of the heavens, so you have to be cautious and virtuous to maintain the favor of the heavens.