Libro De Los Cantos

by Various, Gabriel García-Noblejas (translator), Luis Alberto de Cuenca (Foreword)

Compuestos por una infinidad de autores anónimos durante los cuatro siglos que van desde el año 1000 al 600 a. C. aproximadamente, los cantos amorosos, mitológicos, históricos, costumbristas y religiosos que conforman el " Libro de los cantos " constituyen el conjunto de poemas más antiguo de la civilización china y, por ende, uno de los más antiguos de la Humanidad. Desde la primera dinastía Han (a partir del año 206 a. C.), se atribuyó a Confucio tanto la selección como la edición de estos 305 cantos a partir de un total de tres mil que habrían llegado a manos del Maestro desde la más lejana antigüedad por vías que desconocemos. El Libro de los cantos pasó entonces a ser uno de los «Cinco Libros», es decir, uno de los cinco textos sagrados que contenían las directrices morales, políticas y espirituales que seguiría el Imperio del Centro durante siglos y siglos, adquiriendo así un prestigio inagotable. Los cantos no se leían, sino que se cantaban en distintos actos públicos con acompañamiento musical diverso y —como bien dice Luis Alberto de Cuenca, de la Real Academia de la Historia, en la Presentación que ha escrito para esta edición— «constituyen el principal legado de China a la cultura universal». Su valor histórico y literario, dentro y fuera de China, es sencillamente incalculable. La presente edición del " Libro de los cantos " es bilingüe. Además de la mencionada Presentación de Luis Alberto de Cuenca, va acompañada de una amplia introducción en la que el profesor Gabriel García-Noblejas nos explica la historia y el trasfondo cultural que rodean a estos 305 cantos.

Genres: Poetry, China, Classics, Chinese Literature, Literature, Philosophy, History

376 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 601

About the author

Various is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).

If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.

Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find myself randomly shouting 'Alas for the Zou-Yu!' when I drive home now (cf. 25). Thanks ancient Chinese poetry.

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection and interpretation of classic poetry written 2500 years ago.

The Chou were less confident: archaic Chinese writings, including many of the Songs, are filled with notes of anxiety lest the ruler stray and Heaven, in its wrath, withdraw its charge from Chou:

To begin well is common;
To end well is rare indeed.

'The anxiety is reminiscent of the caution that the house of Israel needed to show, always under the watchful eye of God; but the situation of the Chou was even more precarious: they were not, like the people of Israel, chosen forever, but merely given an office which they could keep only so long as they carried out its duties and remained successful. And the clearest evidence of Heaven's support was to be found in the voices of the common people. The Chou were constantly reminded of the fate of the dynasty they had conquered, the Yin or Shang Dynasty, which had in its day enjoyed Heaven's favor and then lost it.'

The Chou was an agrarian dynasty, and their sense of beauty and order is closely related to the cycles and abundance of the agricultural year. In a society of warriors, life is directed to a single intense and uncertain moment of decision, crisis; this plays a powerful role in understanding the structure of time and events, hence of narrative. Agrarian time is cyclical, a complete and repeating series of acts and event, all of which are equally necessary and all of which contribute to the whole.

The need for wholeness in poetry of the Chou goes far deeper than the dynasty's need for assurance of universal support: it embodies a larger sense of how the world and events in it are structured.

The anthology presents the full human share of unhappiness and pain, but usually the reasons behind suffering are quite clear: desertion by a lover, misgovernment, the hardships of forced military service. In the increasingly turbulent and violent centuries that followed the 7th century BC, much in The Book of Songs seemed indeed to come from a lost era in which the world was comprehensible; and the anthology contributed much to the Chinese myth of the Chou as the ideal polity.

The flight of birds, their cries, the movement of animals, the condition of flowers, dewy or rain-dabbled, the restlessness of insects, the sound of their wings, the fading of the stars -- all these play their part in early Chinese imagery; as symbols, illustrations, or omens according to the context. That the cries of birds should be interpreted as words with real meaning strikes us at first as odd. But remember that such cries as the caw-case, coo-coo, cluck-cluck, quack-quack, are typical of the sounds that actually existed in early Chinese vocabulary. It was difficult to believe that birds and beasts did not use them with the same intention as human beings.

[James Violand · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminds me of the Ancient Greek Hesiod's Works and Days - a nearly contemporary work with The Book of Songs. A composite work of ancient Chinese peasants and poets, it harkens to a time of planting and the mankind's suffering due to nature's and the ruler's capricious ways. Though the weakest first part of the work consists of songs (by nature redundant and their melodies long forgotten) if the reader plows through it, he will perceive a humanity that has changed very little in 3000 years.

[Crito · Rating 5 out of 5]

My children, why do you not study the Book of Poetry? The Odes serve to stimulate the mind. They may be used for purposes of self-contemplation. They teach the art of sociability. They show how to regulate feelings of resentment. From them you learn the more immediate duty of serving one’s father, and the remoter one of serving one’s prince. From them we become largely acquainted with the names of birds, beasts, and plants. Analects 17.8, Legge tr.

There are many things to take away from this statement of Confucius; the one I would highlight is the extent that this collection is not simply one robust description of a form of life but many; rulers, pesants, priests, farmers, cosmopolitan bureaucrats, families displaced in wartime; pre-literate songs, post literate poetry; pining lovers, pastoral descriptions, accounts of kingdoms long gone. It's on par with the Bible or Mahabharata in terms of ancient texts which communicate worlds, but at a fraction the length of either. And yet, while it can also seem like an alien text at times, since it is overwhelmingly too-simple at a glance, it also has, as Confucius describes, a felt interiority which does put it more modern than those other classic texts. And of course for Chinese literature and culture it is just as sweepingly influential.

For how big of a deal it is, there have been (by my notice) few comprehensive English treatments. I have seen Legge's and they come quite literally in large ancient tomes which never see their way out a university library. There is Pound's translation, and while it gets quite tremendously closer than you would expect, it is still a Pound text. There is an open question of the extent this matters for this text in particular because there are about four layers of conversion when it comes to translating Shi into English verse. But the best compromise for a comprehensive text with faithful rendering into considered English verse is Waley's 1937 translation. But that had the minor problem of excluding 15 poems for no reason I can really understand, and the absolutely major problem of killing the work's deliberate structure in favor of a bizarre ordering by subject matter. If you're studying this work for, say, its place in the Confucian tradition, you would be looking at the Airs, the first 160, which in Waley were scattered to the winds. So the thing I love about this edition is Joseph Allen's restoration of the order as well as the missing poems, and his notes along with the inclusion of Waley's. Allen also has a really great postscript on the textual history which, when paired with Michael Nylan's account of the cultural history of the text in The Five "Confucian" Classics, contributes to a well rounded appreciation for this classic text.

The Odes' neglect in English is again likely due to the strange way it reads, as transcribed oral traditions combined with a burgeoning literary society. Unlike the Tang poets it may be rough to blast through them. But the immediate naive character of the work make this pleasant as a bedtime companion or something similarly incremental and ritualized. If you're just looking to take your medicine, the famous poems get anthologized all the time, The Ospreys Cry, The Dead Roe Deer, and others. But I do think it is rewarding to immerse yourself in the classic as a text, and as a more lush portrait of a world unlike anything that had been written around the time of its compilation.

[Adam Hoss]

I've made it a mission to read more of the important works non-Western literature. The Shijing, or "Classic of Poetry" is perhaps the world's oldest literary anthology. Compiled during the Hundred Schools of Thought period in Classical China, the Shijing contains 305 poems, some dating as far back as the 11th century BC, during the Zhou Dynasty. I read the Legge translation. I'm sure the Waley translation is superior.

Whether or not Confucius himself served as editor to this anthology, we know that he was familiar with its contents, saying of the poems that their subject matter was "expressive of pleasure without being licentious, and of grief without being hurtfully excessive." The book contains sacred hymns and prayers used in rituals, but also a collection of folk songs recording the voices of the common people.

I was gathering and gathering the mouse-ear,
But could not fill my shallow basket.
With a sigh for the man of my heart,
I placed it there on the highway.

I was ascending that rock-covered height,
But my horses were too tired to breast it.
I will now pour a cup from that gilded vase,
Hoping I may not have to think of him long.

I was ascending that lofty ridge,
But my horses turned of a dark yellow.
I will now take a cup from that rhinoceros' horn,
Hoping I may not have long to sorrow.

I was ascending that flat-topped height,
But my horses became quite disabled,
And my servants were [also] disabled.
Oh! how great is my sorrow!

This nearly 3000-year-old poem provides a narrative through which the ancient poet expresses feelings of longing and sorrow. It provides useful evidence that human nature changes little over the centuries. We can easily imagine a similar poem being written today. However, some of the other poems in the anthology certainly will strike our modern ears as odd. Many of them are very repetitive, sometimes changing a only single word in each stanza.

The peach tree is young and elegant;
Brilliant are its flowers.
This young lady is going to her future home,
And will order well her chamber and house.

The peach tree is young and elegant;
Abundant will be its fruits.
This young lady is going to her future home,
And will order well her chamber and house.

The peach tree is young and elegant;
Luxuriant are its leaves.
This young lady is going to her future home,
And will order well her family.

The scholar Lie Shipei saw a precursor to Chinese literature in the ritual spells found on oracle bones during the earlier Shang Dynasty, the first documented period of Chinese history. There does seem to be something of an incantation and ritual nature to the more repetitive poems. Some of the poems are more repetitive still. Consider the Chinese text of poem #8:

采采芣苡、薄言采之。
采采芣苡、薄言有之。
采采芣苡、薄言掇之。
采采芣苡、薄言捋之。
采采芣苡、薄言袺之。
采采芣苡、薄言襭之。

The poem essentially repeats, over and over again, a couplet about gathering plantains. We can perhaps deduce the influence of the earlier era, in which prayers and divinations frequently used a fortuitous harvest as a theme.

Most interesting to me is poem #113 in the collection, which is often held up as an example of the bi style parable. The standard interpretation is that the "large rats" is a reference to corrupt government officials.

Large rats! Large rats!
Do not eat our millet.
Three years have we had to do with you,
And you have not been willing to show any regard for us.
We will leave you,
And go to that happy land.
Happy land! Happy land!
There shall we find our place.

We can see devices such as metaphor and symbolism even in this early example of poetry. Perhaps this was an attempt to elude government censors, or to criticize the officials without fear of reprimand. If so, it provides an interesting link with the "misty poets" of 1980s China, who also used symbolism and indirect metaphors to encode anti-government messages (a tradition which continues to the present).

In an 1891 English edition, translator William Jennings writes that the Shijing "represents, as in a mirror, the circumstances, the thoughts, the habits, the joys and sorrows of persons of all classes of society in China 3,000 years ago, pourtrayed by themselves." He continues by noting the "strange customs" and "peculiar ideas" of these ancient people, but at the same time conceding that "And yet, as proving that human nature is the same in its feelings and humours, and in its virtues and vices, despite the limits of millenniums and the boundaries of continents, there are pages in which we feel ourselves standing in the midst of the modern life of Europe. We are introduced to a people and a country till of late little known, but which we find here to have been possessed of a moderately high civilization and a literature at a time when our own forefathers were actual barbarians roaming their virgin forests."

The most influential poem of the collection deals with the Chinese interpretation of the "divine right of kings." Scholars in Ancient China frequently debated the fall of the Shang Dynasty. If Heaven gave a decree that the Shangs should rule, then why (and how) were they overthrown? For defenders of the old guard, the answer was self-evident: the Zhou family were illegitimate leaders who had usurped power against the will of Heaven. But, the following poem in the Shijing provides documentary clues as to how the debate was settled. The poem would later influence the political philosophy of Confucius.

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.

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!

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 of God.
Look to Yin as a beacon;
The great appointment is not easily [preserved].

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.

So the decree of Heaven can be lost, if the ruler is not careful. The last line is key: behave as a just and fair leader, and the people will respect you. Confucius later developed this theme by arguing that the will of Heaven manifests itself in the will of the people. If the common people rebel and overthrow the king - provided the rebellion is successful - this is proof, retroactively, that the king had lost Heaven's decree to rule. This idea motivated future kings (and, later, emperors) to strive to remain in the good graces of the citizenry. This idea permeates the entirety of Chinese history, including language in the 1992 compromise between the mainland People's Republic of China and Taiwan, nearly 3000 years later. This is perhaps the earliest known example of literature shaping historical events.

[Edward Rathke]

It's weird to rate something like this, because it's not really a book in a traditional sense, or even a poetry collection. It's more like a record of ancient China.

With regard to that, it's not especially fun to read. Some of the poems are great. They're simple and about simple things. Simple lives. These were my favorite poems in the book. The simple ones about life as a farmer, as a citizen, as a woman, as a lover.

I was less invested in the poems that were not about these kinds of simple things. Part of that is surely because my knowledge of ancient China is, at best, poor. I mean, I know big chunks of Chinese history fairly well, but what happened in China 2,500 years ago is just not something I know much about. Which is partly what made these poems so interesting. Life has not changed immensely since those times, excepting the obvious differences.

But people were still just people. Working, loving, singing, dancing.

My complete ignorance on the Chinese language or the Chinese originals of these poems means I'm also unqualified to even guess at whether these are good translations or not.

But I'd recommend it for people interested in foundational texts of China. Not so much if you're just looking for good poetry.

It's a text that's more important in its context. The poems themselves aren't always very good or appealing. But, I mean, how many poems can remain amazing after 2,500 years?

[Leajk]

I loved the love poems, then skipped the war poems. Impossible to rate it due to the gap of translation and time gap. Read as a part of understanding the Japanese Heian period better as they were obsessed with Chinese poetry.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

If along the highroad
I caught hold of your sleeve,
Do not hate me;
Old ways take time to overcome.

[Ad · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Classic of Poetry, Shijing, translated variously as the "Book of Songs" (as here) or "Book of Odes," is the oldest collection of Chinese poetry, consisting of 305 poems dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BCE. It is one of the "Five Classics" traditionally (but incorrectly) said to have been compiled by Confucius, and has been studied and memorized by scholars in China and neighboring countries over two millennia.

The Classic of Poetry can be divided into two main sections: the "Airs of the States", and the "eulogies and hymns." The "Airs of the States" are short lyrics in simple language. They generally consist of ancient folk songs speaking of love and courtship, longing for an absent lover, soldiers on campaign, farming and housework, and political satire and protest. The poems were originally songs accompanied by tunes now lost. On the other hand, songs in the two "Eulogy" sections ("Lesser Ya" and "Greater Ya") and the "Temple Hymns" section tend to be longer ritual songs, usually in the form of courtly panegyrics or dynastic hymns. These sections - which are concerned with life at the royal court and its ceremonies, including worship of the royal ancestors - are the oldest parts, while the youngest are the Airs of the States.

Whether the various Shijing poems were folk songs or not, they all seem to have passed through the hands of men of letters at the royal Zhou court. In other words, they show an overall literary polish together with some general stylistic consistency. About 95% of lines are written in a four-syllable meter. Almost all of the "Airs" consist of three stanzas, with four-line stanzas being most common. One of the characteristics of the poems in the Classic of Poetry is that they tend to possess elements of repetition and variation, probably due to their oral folk song origin.

The Shijing has been a revered "Confucian Classic" since the Han Dynasty, and has been studied and memorized by centuries of scholars in China. The individual songs of the Odes, though frequently on simple, rustic subjects, have traditionally been saddled with extensive, elaborate allegorical meanings that assigned moral or political meaning to the smallest details of each line. The songs were seen as good keys to understanding the troubles of the common people - complaints against lovers were seen as complaints against faithless rulers. The Shijing was considered as a canonical collection of important moral truths and lessons.

According to the Shiji (Records of the Historian, early 1st c. BCE), Confucius would have selected 305 out of a corpus of more than 3,000 songs. Whether Confucius actually compiled the Shijing is more than questionable. Confucius and his direct followers have, however, regularly quoted from the Shijing, so it must have existed by the 6th c. BCE. It is said about him in the Lunyu (Analects): "The Master once stood by himself, and I hurried to seek teaching from him. He asked me, 'You've studied the Odes?' I answered, 'Not yet.' He replied, 'If you have not studied the Odes, then I have nothing to say.'" Confucius saw a guide for moderation in speech and action in the content and language of the Shijing.

The Shijing established the basis for the long and glorious tradition of Chinese classical poetry, which was practiced continuously as the preferred form of literati verse until the previous century.

What about this translation? Arthur Waley (1889-1966) was one of the first modern translators of Chinese and Japanese traditional literature, working according to high scholarly standards, but aiming his books at a more general audience as well. He writes a beautiful Bloomsbury style English and has a happy hand in finding equivalents for Chinese expressions of so long ago. The translation was published originally in 1937, and has been completed with additional translations by Joseph Allen of 15 poems that were omitted by Waley; Allen also wrote an interesting postface. Waley is the best translation we have, and he has made older ones such as by James Legge obsolete. But Waley's translation is not faultless - since the 1930s, Sinology has advanced and so has our knowledge of the language of the Shi Jing. A translator aided by modern commentaries from China and Japan would in many cases opt for other solutions. Yes, this is a beautiful translation, the best we have - but also: yes, it is time for a new translation!

[Mary Soon Lee]

"The Book of Songs" is the oldest of the Chinese classics, a collection of 305 songs that date back over two thousand years to the Zhou kingdom. These songs/poems held a huge importance in Confucianism and in Chinese literature. They are presented in the order they appeared in the classic edition known as the Mao version. I knew little about this prior to reading the book, and I apologize for any mistakes I've made in my comments.

Now classed as poetry, the original versions derived from songs: folk songs, songs from rituals, ceremonial songs -- some of them perhaps courtship songs with men and women singing in call and response, some of them perhaps accompanied by dance as well as music. Although they arose from songs, the music has been lost. Add to this the difficulty of translating lyrics, where it is almost impossible to preserve rhythm, rhyme, sound, and it doesn't surprise me that I found the English renditions rather flat. I imagine reading a song like Greensleeves in translation and without the music.

This book contains Arthur Waley's translation of the bulk of the songs along with his comments. In addition, it contains a foreword by Stephen Owen, plus Joseph R. Allen's translations of fifteen songs that Waley omitted, plus Allen's comments and an extensive postface that Allen wrote on the literary history of "The Book of Songs." The foreword and postface help explain the origins of the songs/poems, their historical importance, and the commentaries and interpretations that were attached to them.

The postface uses song 81 as an example of how later material attached to the text. Here is Allen's translation:

Along the Highroad

If along the highroad
I caught hold of your cuff,
Do not hate me;
Old ways take time to overcome.

If along the highroad
I caught hold of your hand,
Do not be angry with me;
Love takes time to overcome.

The influential Mao version of the book, dating from about two thousand years ago, contained accompanying notes both of a lexical nature and on the general meaning. Of number 81, it says, '"Along the Highroad" describes thinking of one's noble lord; Duke Zhuang of Zheng neglected the proper way and the noble lords abandoned him. The men of the state longed for them/him.' [Note that the original contains no mention of Duke Zhuang.]

Another influential version of the book, Kong Ying-da's version from 641 CE, went into greater length on the general meaning--still tying it to Duke Zhuang--and on specific words. (Allen's postface quotes the discussion of the word translated as cuff.)

Whereas in the 12th century, a paraphrase by Zhu Xi has no mention of Duke Zhuang, saying instead "A licentious woman was abandoned by someone; upon the point of him leaving her, she grabbed his cuff in order to detain him.... These too are the lyrics of a love song between a man and a woman."

Historically, the interpretations that attached to "The Book of Songs" were very important. For myself, I am most interested in what the songs/poems show of life in China thousands of years ago: farming, courtship, being a soldier or a servant or a wife, divination, beliefs about ancestors. I liked it when I felt the emotion behind the songs/poems. I liked how some of the lines remain very timely, e.g. from number 195:

Shallow words are what they heed,
And shallow words make their debate.

Some of the notes are fascinating, for instance the brief statement on number 280 that "Musicians were generally blind men," or the explanation preceding number 209 that a young man, referred to as the Dead One, would impersonate their dead ancestor during sacrifices.

As poetry, stripped of music, translated into English, this book is somewhat lacking. As a record of a Chinese classic, plus a discussion of its historical importance, plus a glimpse into life thousands of years ago, it is fascinating. Hard to rate overall, but I'll settle on 4 out of 5 Confucian stars.

About my reviews: I try to review every book I read, including those that I don't end up enjoying. The reviews are not scholarly, but just indicate my reaction as a reader, reading being my addiction. I am miserly with 5-star reviews; 4 stars means I liked a book very much; 3 stars means I liked it; 2 stars means I didn't like it (though often the 2-star books are very popular with other readers and/or are by authors whose other work I've loved).

[CivilWar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel very torn rating this book...

Do I rate it just for the Shijing? In that case, it would be a perfect store, but there is more to the perfect Shijing edition than the ancient text itself, and plus, this is not the Shijing but a translation of it...

Do I rate it on the merits of the translation? In that case, I must confess, though I have a strong soft spot for Mr. Waley, I often times disagree with his translation choices here, and I agree more rather with Shirawaka's readings of the poems in the Guó fēng section of the Classic; for a better translation of it, please see Ha Poong Kim's Joy and Sorrow Songs of Ancient China: A New Translation of Shi Jing Guo Feng for a much cleaner, poetic translation, which comes with the original text to boot, and with more refined interpretations.

But ultimately, it boils down to this: for whatever reason, there is no "critical edition" of the Shijing in English, with full commentary and scholarly analysis as well as fine translation of the poetry. Arthur Waley's edition is the best we have: the rest are either the terrible, extremely outdated translation of James Legge, or the translation by Ezra Pound, who understood no Chinese at all, which might've been less of an issue assuming he had guides or so if only the Shijing were not an infamously hard text to understand in its original Chinese, with countless commentaries on it over the millennia focusing on character-by-character analysis. Just read it, it's an obvious hackjob.

So Arthur Waley's version remains the best way to experience, in English, the full Classic. For that reason alone it is hard to not recommend it, but I recommend you seek out other translations where you can and to read other interpretations on the original Chinese text: you will be shocked by how different they can be.

As for the Shi Jing itself, what can I say? The Guó fēng are simple, even naive poems, but they truly take you back to a time of innocence in human existence, as well as being a glimpse - the smallest insight yet essential to reconstructing it - of the life of the common, pre-Confucian Chinese people. Throwing plums to men you wish to woo, rituals of the river-goddess, the many love songs, there is a shocking variety to the common life of the people here and this is an essential read for both those who enjoy folk-poetry and those who study folklore and anthropology (for Chinese studies of course). It is shocking how different it is from the princely, elite poetry of the warrior-princes of Homer, the earliest texts of the European tradition.

The Xiǎo yǎ on the other hand, are a glimpse into exactly that common life of the Zhou elite, and so valuable for those reasons: one sees, at times, indeed even Waley makes a footnote of it, the remarkable correspondence with the customs recorded in the Odyssey, of feasting and hospitality and so on. The Dà Yǎ are essential to the student of mythology such as myself, for their mythological stories of the "birth of a nation" type, the formation of the Zhou people, their creation myth and what appears at times (illusionarily, of course) to be a fragmentary epic of the Zhou's vanquishing of the Shang. The sòng are, of course, important for the same reason, as well as for the reconstruction of both Zhou cultic life and of early (ritual) theater.

In short, the Shijing itself is as vital to ancient China as those texts which suggest the magic of the ancient, lost world, like the Inanna Poems of Mesopotamia, the Homeric epics of Greece, the Poetic Edda of Scandinavia, Genesis of Judea, etc, an irretrievably place from which all customs, folklore, fairy tales and, we may repeat it, sense of magic, emanates from. It is, of course, a must read, along with the Chu Ci.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Book of Songs (Shih Ching or Shī Jīng) is one of the "5 Classics" of the Chinese Axial Age, defined as "Classic" by subsequent Confucian thinkers. As with other Axial Age, and especially Chinese Axial Age, literature, it is prudent to try multiple different translations into English, as they can differ greatly. I read part or all of 3 translations of the Book of Songs, and here too disagreements abound. Sometimes the differences are so great that the meaning of the poem is actually reversed (e.g. where lovers converse, the same line can be attributed to different speakers!). The most modern translation is by Ha Poong Kim and is reviewed elsewhere on this GoodReads list. The older by far is by James Legge, and is difficult both in readability and comprehensibility (it also lacks any commentary, the lack of which does not help with comprehensibility). The chronologically middling translation by Arthur Waley is reviewed here; it is highly readable and comprehensible, and has substantial commentary. It is the only one where I read all 305 poems. A deeper discussion of the structure and significance of this text can be found in my review of the Kim translation, which is of only the first 160 poems, the fun and folksy Guó fēng ("Airs of the States"). Waley also translates the other 3 sections of the Book of Songs: the Xiǎo yǎ ("The Minor Odes"), the Dà yǎ ("The Major Odes"), and the Sòng ("The Hymns"). The Minor Odes are more focused than the Airs of the States on aristocratic life, but apparently nobles often have the same issues of love and lust, longing and loss, as do the commoners of the Airs. The Major Odes are concerned entirely with the affairs of the hegemonic kingdom of Zhōu (retroactively labeled a dynasty in later historiography). One rather longish major ode (long by Book of Songs standards) describes the origin story of the Zhou. The Hymns are shorter and have a formulaic quality to them; Waley suggests that they are ritualistic incantations for ceremonial purposes. However, one of the Hymns describes the origin story of the Shāng, the kingdom/dynasty that preceded the Zhou. Waley suggests that these origin stories are the closest Chinese parallels to the great Sanskrit and Greek epics. More generally, this earliest Chinese literature is very very different from the earliest Greek and Sanskrit literature; unanswered questions are why are these traditions so different, and what consequences did the differences have on the great civilizations subsequently built on them.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book of ancient Chinese poetry proved less interesting than earlier passages I'd read from the work had led me to believe it would be. The poetry included here definitely are song lyrics insofar as the pieces usually quite repetitive, with minor variations made in each stanza. As such, the work can be interesting. But as well as Waley does in terms of trying to provide context for the poetry through occasional introductions and frequent footnotes, much of it didn't really speak to me in our contemporary times (in fact, the footnotes often proved distracting, as they provided alternative translations or generally ruined the feel of the songs when I paid attention to them). There are poems here about serving the king, about sacrificing to the gods, about dynasties, about hunting, about farming, much of the material seeming quite remote.

The real beautiful pieces of the collection come in the first third of the book. Those are the love and marriage songs. The human heart, it seems, doesn't change, and many of the songs about losing one's loved ones seem to carry the same anguish that folks today would also serve up. I look forward to turning my attention to some more contemplative classical Chinese poets, who may well run down similar paths to these songs.

[Amber Scaife · Rating 4 out of 5]

The earliest collection of ancient Chinese literature, these poems give us a glimpse of daily life on a wide socio-economic range, from the 11th to 7th centuries BCE. Most interesting to me is the comparison between these poems and those the Greeks were coming up with. The lives and concerns of women appear much more frequently here, which is really interesting.

A couple of my favorites:

Along the Highroad
If along the highroad
I caught hold of your sleeve,
Do not hate me;
Old ways take time to overcome.

Sun in the East
Sun in the east!
This lovely man
Is in my house,
Is in my home,
His foot is upon my doorstep.

Moon in the east!
This lovely man
Is in my bower,
Is in my bower,
His foot is upon my threshold.

[Erik Champenois · Rating 4 out of 5]

Supposedly the world's oldest collection of poetry, Shijing is one of the five Confucian classics (alongside the Shu jing/book of documents, which I just read, the Book of Rites, I Ching, and the Spring and Autumn Annals). I'm not much of a poetry reader but I enjoyed reading the concise and mostly straightforward and understandable poems in this collection, with the themes ranging from nature to romance to war.

[Samuel Parkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent piece of scholarship, meaning the Shijing accessible to those if us without Chinese. It really is crucial for understanding Chinese history, and especially Confucianism, as well as poetry.

The notes and postface are very helpful if you are happy with an academic approach.

All in all, a great book, and a monument of scholarship. The translations are, though, totally, thoroughly unpoetic! So this is a book to read to understand more than to glory in ancient poetry.

[Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know how this book wound up on my to read list. I love poetry but I feel that something was lost in translation with this version of The Book Of Songs. I couldn't get into it and I don't know why

[Magda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting for the history behind it.

Poems themselves were more so a collection of what would seem to be folksongs. There was, however, a section dedicated to the origin stories of the Han people, which was insightful.

[Gabriel Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oscillates between homespun familiarity and something utterly alien. Waley notes the common themes and images across folk songs of many nations and cultures but the context is so utterly different from that of English ballads and folk verse.

[Belle Meade School]

895

[Marta Kazic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fuck I really need to learn Chinese oh my god

[Sonoran · Rating 3 out of 5]

partial reading

[Lexi V · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for LIT 460

[Christopher Porzenheim · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me six years to read this according to Goodreads, which is unusual. And having completed it after all these years, I can say that I only enjoyed 2 out of the 305 Odes that make the Shijing. Oof. It doesn't help that this English translation is almost 100 years old at time of writing.

Why then, did I bother to persevere despite enjoying so little of this?

I started reading the Shijing in 2017 around when I was more seriously getting into the study of Confucianism, because its a classic Confucian work. The Four Classic Works of Confucianism constantly reference it, in much the same way that Aristotle and Plato constantly reference Homer.

I stopped reading the Shijing because it was the least interesting classic Confucian work for me, relative to stuff like the Analects, Mencius, Xunzi, etc. But I've never lost the interest in reading it because of its influential status. And now, in 2023, as I've entered yet another phase of more serious study of Chinese philosophy, it was time to finish.

I can see why this work is so interesting to Confucians. There are lots of proto-Confucian ideas floating around throughout the Shijing, regarding the mandate of heaven, virtue, and rituals. However, (and it might just be this translation) but, I think Odes with these themes are the exception to the rule in the Shijing. Most of this work is more like love songs and farming advice.

This hasn't stopped generations of Confucians from reading Confucian ideas into these Odes. As the editor noted, it's a scenario not unlike that of the Song of Solomon in the Bible. And frankly, Plato and Aristotle don't do a great job referencing Homer without distorting the Iliad or the Odyssey to make whatever their philosophical argument is either. Ancient philosophers referencing their popular culture to make their arguments work is challenging for the contemporary reader. I'm not a part of the popular culture they use to make their arguments.

So, I wouldn't recommend reading this today unless you are a Confucian completionist, and even then its a slog. We need a new complete and modern english translation that can replace this old one. It would be nice to enjoy reading the Shijing in English. I'm certain this translation could be bettered.

[Marcos Augusto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is the first anthology of Chinese poetry. Cited by Confucius as a model of literary expression, for, despite its numerous themes, the subject matter was always “expressive of pleasure without being licentious, and of grief without being hurtfully excessive”. The original book, contains 305 poems that are classified as popular songs or odes.

The fountainhead of the Chinese literary tradition, the poems are customarily believed to have been composed between 1000 and 600 BCE. While the “Hymns” and “Eulogies” were performed in the religious and political rituals of the Zhou royal house to recall the glory of the founding and heyday of the Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE), the original context of the “Airs of the States” remains uncertain. Their simple, repetitive structures are often taken as evidence of their origins in folk song, even though the poems have survived only in the writings of the ancient elite. At the Western Han imperial court, the Shijing (as it is known in chinese) was officially canonized as one of the Five Classics, the core of Confucian learning. Since then, it has attracted thousands of commentaries and studies on all of its literary, historical, and linguistic aspects.

The poems themes range from love and daily life to the mythology and history of the Zhou dynasty, traditional interpretation of the collection was strongly moralizing.

[Bread · Rating 5 out of 5]

the oldest collection of chinese poetry, the shijing occupies a central place in chinese culture & has been studied & commented on by scholars for millennia. there are aristocratic poems talking about the glory of conquest, the mandate that Heaven has given the ruler (but can also take away), & the histories of the royal house, but one thing i really liked was how most of the poems recorded the voices & inner lives of the common people, touching on themes like love & longing, the troubles of war & the common soldier, ancestor worship & agriculture, & the political ineptitude of rulers. its also remarkable how many poems seem to have been written by women, or are atleast from their perspective. many of the poems in the Airs section have quite a repetitive structure, indicating their origin in oral folk songs passed down. theres a lot of imagery utilising nature, which presupposes a cultural understanding that i'm sure im missing, along with the fact that ofc i'm reading a translation. the foreward & postface are quite good, discussing the significance & history of the work

[Kadiatu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Veeerry interesting, to learn about Chinese, namely Confucian philosophy. Every other line I read, you wouldn't believe, is very closely related to our Islamic teachings. Just read, and you'll be able to compare.

*A couple examples:
-If you do not implement all that you have learned from reading [these Songs], it does not matter if you memorized a thousand of them.
-We need to have a balance between human beings and nature.

[Sheri Fresonke Harper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the Chinese Classics so I wanted to read it. The poems paint scenes of culture, love, love lost, war, told to hit the road. The translation is the easy way to read them. The text offers explanations about the times, who was in charge, and the importance of people. It also offers coherent details about how poems interconnect metaphorically or via images or words.

[Rachel Robins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad for ancient Chinese poetry. Rather fasinating to read and speculate what life was like for these people. The poetry is different that Wester culture but often the themes are issues we have today. Interesting read.

[W.M. Driscoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arthur Waley does his usual stand-up job translating an ancient Chinese classic and making it accessible and enjoyable to the modern reader. For anyone interested in Chinese history, culture, poetry in general or Confucianism in the specific, this is The Book of Songs translation for you.