Classic of Poetry
Shi Jing (simplified Chinese: 诗经; traditional Chinese: 詩經; pinyin: Shī Jīng; Wade–Giles: Shih Ching), translated variously as the Classic of Poetry, the Book of Songs or the Book of Odes, is the earliest existing collection of Chinese poems. It comprises 305 poems, some possibly written as early as 1000 BC. It forms part of the Five Classics.
The collection
The collection is divided into three parts according to their genre, namely feng, ya and song, with the ya genre further divided into "small" and "large":
| Chinese character(s) | Pinyin | Number and Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 風 | fēng | 160 folk songs (or airs) |
| 小雅 | xiǎoyǎ | 74 minor festal songs (or odes traditionally sung at court festivities) |
| 大雅 | dàyǎ | 31 major festal songs, sung at more solemn court ceremonies |
| 頌 | sòng | 40 hymns and eulogies , sung at sacrifices to gods and ancestral spirits of the royal house |
The Confucian tradition holds that the collection, one of the Wu Jing, or Five Classics, came to what we have today after the editing of Confucius. The collection was officially acknowledged as one of "Five Classics" during the Han Dynasty, and previously in Zhou Dynasty Shi (詩) was one of "Six Classics". Four schools of commentary existed then, namely the Qi (齊), the Lu (魯), the Han (韓), and the Mao (毛) schools. The first two schools did not survive. The Han school only survived partly. The Mao school became the canonical school of Shi Jing commentary after the Han Dynasty. As a result, the collection is also sometimes referred to as "Mao Shi" (毛詩). Zheng Xuan's elucidation on the Mao commentary is also canonical. The 305 poems had to be reconstructed from memory by scholars since the previous Qin Dynasty had burned the collection along with other classical texts. (There are, in fact, a total of 308 poem titles that were reconstructed, but the remaining three poems only have titles without any extant text). The earliest surviving edition of Shi Jing is a fragmentary one of the Han Dynasty, written on bamboo strips, unearthed at Fuyang.
The poems are written in four-character lines. The airs are in the style of folk songs, although the extent to which they are real folk songs or literary imitations is debated. The odes deal with matters of court and historical subjects, while the hymns blend history, myth and religious material.
The three major literary figures or styles employed in the poems are fu, bi and xing:
| Chinese character | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 賦 | fù | straightforward narrative |
| 比 | bǐ | explicit comparisons |
| 興 | xìng | implied comparisons |
Contents
Guo Feng
| group | char | group name | poem #s |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 周南 | Odes of Zhou & South | 001-011 |
| 02 | 召南 | Odes of Shao & South | 012-025 |
| 03 | 邶風 | Odes of Bei | 026-044 |
| 04 | 鄘風 | Odes of Yong | 045-054 |
| 05 | 衛風 | Odes of Wei | 055-064 |
| 06 | 王風 | Odes of Wang | 065-074 |
| 07 | 鄭風 | Odes of Zheng | 075-095 |
| 08 | 齊風 | Odes of Qi | 096-106 |
| 09 | 魏風 | Odes of Wei | 107-113 |
| 10 | 唐風 | Odes of Tang | 114-125 |
| 11 | 秦風 | Odes of Qin | 126-135 |
| 12 | 陳風 | Odes of Chen | 136-145 |
| 13 | 檜風 | Odes of Kuai | 146-149 |
| 14 | 曹風 | Odes of Cao | 150-153 |
| 15 | 豳風 | Odes of Bin | 154-160 |
Xiao Ya
| group | char | group name | poem #s |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 鹿鳴 之什 | Decade of Lu Ming | 161-170 |
| 02 | 白華 之什 | Decade of Baihua | 170-175 |
| 03 | 彤弓 之什 | Decade of Tong Gong | 175-185 |
| 04 | 祈父 之什 | Decade of Qi Fu | 185-195 |
| 05 | 小旻 之什 | Decade of Xiao Min | 195-205 |
| 06 | 北山 之什 | Decade of Bei Shan | 205-215 |
| 07 | 桑扈 之什 | Decade of Sang Hu | 215-225 |
| 08 | 都人士 之什 | Decade of Du Ren Shi | 225-234 |
Da Ya
| group | char | group name | poem #s |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 文王之什 | Decade of Wen Wang | 235-244 |
| 02 | 生民之什 | Decade of Sheng Min | 245-254 |
| 03 | 蕩之什 | Decade of Dang | 255-265 |
Song
| group | char | group name | poem #s |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 周頌 | Sacrificial Odes of Zhou1 | 266-296 |
| 01a | -清廟之什 | Decade of Qing Miao | 266-275 |
| 01b | -臣工之什 | Decade of Chen Gong | 276-285 |
| 01c | -閔予小子之什 | Decade of Min You Xiao Zi | 286-296 |
| 02 | 魯頌 | Praise Odes of Lu3 | 297-300 |
| 03 | 商頌 | Sacrificial Odes of Shang1 | 301-305 |
note: alternative divisions may be topical or chronological (Legges): Song, DaYa, XiaoYa, GuoFeng
Translations
- The Book of Odes, in The Sacred Books of China, translated by James Legge, 1879.
- The Book of Songs, translated by Arthur Waley, edited with additional translations by Joseph R. Allen, New York: Grove Press, 1996.
- Book of Poetry, translated by Xu Yuanchong (許淵沖), edited by Jiang Shengzhang (姜勝章), Hunan, China: Hunan chubanshe, 1993.
- The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius, translated by Ezra Pound, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954.
- The Book of Odes, translated by Bernhard Karlgren, Stockholm: The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1950.
External links
- Legge's translation of the Shi Jing at Chinese text initiative
- The Book of Odes in Chinese arrayed with James Legge translation.
- Shiijing with Mao prefaces and Zhu Xi commentary by Harrison Huang
- Legge's translation of the Shi Jing at the Internet Sacred Text Archive.