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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 II — ¤p ¶® Minor odes of the kingdom
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Chapter 7 — ®á ±¯ ¤§ ¤° Decade of Sand Hu

215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224

Shijing II. 7. (217)

Those in the leather caps, –
Who are they ?
Since your spirits are [so]good,
And your viands are [so] fine,
How can they be strangers ?
They are your brethren, and no others.
[They are like] the mistletoe and the dodder.
Growing over the pine and the cypress.
While they do not see you, O king,
Their sorrowful hearts are all-unsettled.
When they do see you,
They begin to be happy and glad.

Those in the leather caps, –
Who are they ?
Since your spirits are [so]good,
And your viands are all of the season.
How can they be strangers ?
They are your brethren, all assembled.
[They are like] the mistletoe and the dodder.
Growing over the pine.
While they do not see you, O king,
Their hearts are full of sorrow.
When they do see you,
They begin to feel that things are right.

There are those in the leather caps,
Which they wear on their heads.
Since your spirits are [so] good,
And your viands are [so] abundant,
How can they be strangers ?
They are your brethren, and your relatives by affinity.
When there is going to be a fall of snow,
There is first the descent of sleet.
Death and ruin may come any day,
It is not long that you will see one another.
Rejoice over your spirits for the present evening ;
O king, enjoy the feast.

Legge 217

Shi Jing II. 7. (217) IntroductionTable of content
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The Book of Odes – Shi Jing II. 7. (217) – Chinese on/offFrançais/English
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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