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Shi Jing Introduction Table of content – The Book of Odes

The oldest collection of Chinese poetry, more than three hundred songs, odes and hymns. Tr. Legge (en) and Granet (fr, incomplete).

Section I — Lessons from the states
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15
Chapter 5 — The odes of Wei

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

Shijing I. 5. (57)

Large was she and tall,
In her embroidered robe, with a [plain] single garment over it : –
The daughter of the marquis of Qi.
The wife of the marquis of Wei,
The sister of the heir-son of Tong
The sister-in-law of the marquis of Xing,
The viscount of Tan also her brother-in-law.

Her fingers were like the blades of the young white-grass ;
Her skin was like congealed ointment ;
Her neck was like the tree-grub ;
Her teeth were like melon seeds ;
Her forehead cicada-like ; her eyebrows like [the antenne of] the silkworm moth ;
What dimples, as she artfully smiled !
How lovely her eyes, with the black and white so well defined !

Large was she and tall,
When she halted in the cultivated suburbs.
Strong looked her four horses,
With the red ornaments so rich about their bits.
Thus in her carriage, with its screens of pheasant feathers,
she proceeded to our court.
Early retire, ye great officers,
And do not make the marquis fatiqued !

The waters of the He, wide and deep,
Flow northwards in majestic course.
The nets are dropt into them with a plashing sound,
Among shoals of sturgeon, large and small,
While the rushes and sedges are rank about.
Splendidly adorned were her sister ladies ;
Martial looked the attendant officers.

Legge 57

[Xref] Lunyu III. 8. quotes Shijing I. 5. (57)
gbog – Lunyu 48 – 2005/12/02
Shi Jing I. 5. (57) IntroductionTable of content
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Alias Shijing, Shi Jing, Book of Odes, Book of Songs, Classic of Odes, Classic of Poetry, Livre des Odes, Canon des Poèmes.

The Book of Odes, The Analects, Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, Three-characters book, The Book of Changes, The Way and its Power, 300 Tang Poems, The Art of War, Thirty-Six Strategies
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