Shi Jin, small songs, decade of du ren shi, xi sang aka 詩經 小雅 都人士之什 隰桑

[mvrdrk]

The title is so I can find the poem again easily in my book. You can find some useful information at http://chinese.dsturgeon.net/index.html. Including fonts to support classical Chinese!

The poem in question (Shi Jin, small songs, category 8 poem 4) is at http://chinese.dsturgeon.net/text.pl?node=16097&if=en, complete with word by word vocab definitions and commentary. Probably making the rest of this post redundant, but oh well.

The poem is
隰桑有阿¹
其葉有難²
既見君子
其樂如何

My book says
今註:
¹阿: 美盛的樣子, 有阿既阿然也.
²有難: 既有儺(nuo2), 讀那, 既有那, 長美的樣子.
阿儺二字連用, 與 "阿那", "阿儺", "阿難", "猗那", 都是形容物之柔美著. 此章則分用, 古曰有阿, 有難, 期實同一意義也.
Modern Annotation:
1 e1: beautiful and abundant, 'has beauty' means 'beautifully'.
2 has nuo2: same as has nuo2, pronounced nuo2, has nuo2 means grows beautifully
e1nuo2 two characters used together, and "阿那", "阿儺", "阿難", "猗那", are all used to describe the soft beauty of objects. This poems uses them separately. Classically used as has e1, has nuo2, but they actually all mean the same thing.

今譯:
隰地的桑樹, 多麼柔美啊! 她的葉子多麼茂盛啊! 既經見了君子, 真是無法行容的快樂啊!

Modern Translation: Swamp's mulberry tree(s), how beautiful it(they) are! Her leaves are so abundant! Seeing you (君子), it's really an indescribable happiness!

My notes:
It tickles me to no end the the annotation uses classical style prose. Look at notation 1, last phrase, which has the structure a 既 b 也, which is means a = b. The 也 is a classical phrase or sentence ending particle that makes the period redundant.

I'm not sure how to translate 的樣子 in the annotations. Technically it means "whatever's shape/appearance" but I think the English covers the meaning without using those words.

君子 is one of those terribly ambiguous terms, a la that section in the Chinese through Poetry book I'm reading, that doesn't translate well from Chinese into English. It can mean you, you all, gentleman, gentlemen, government official, husband, nobleman, ... And translating it into "esteemed male person(s)" doesn't really cut it.

The last line of the annotation says 古曰有阿, 有難 is also difficult for me. I'm not sure if that's: classically used as "has e1" and "has nuo2" (two 2 character phrases), or classically used as "has e1, has nuo2" (one 4 character phrase). I'm inclined to say it could be both.

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Should I write out my translation of the book annotation and commentary?

I can sort of get the gist of what you've givem, which is all that's needed. But if someone else wants it...

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

ooh yhesss please! I wouldn't mind if it isn't too much trouble.

And you're such a love for sharing these!

*hugs*

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

Okay. I'll amend the original post to add them. I'm glad you enjoy it! I'm hoping this will be the year of finally getting started learning this stuff instead of talking and wishing, but not actually working on it. (Supreme ruler of my personal bad habit pantheon.)