Shi Jing

Book of Songs (Arabic: Kitab al-Aghani) was also a book written by the 9th century Arab scholar Abu al-Faraj.

Shī Jīng (; Wade-Giles: Shih Ching), translated variously as the Classic of Poetry, the Book of Songs or the Book of Odes, is the first major collection of Chinese poems. It comprises 305 poems, some possibly written as early as 1000 BC. It is divided into:

160 folk songs (or airs - feng 風)
74 minor festal songs (or odes - ya 小雅), traditionally sung at court festivities
31 major festal songs (大雅), sung at more solemn court ceremonies
40 hymns and eulogies (sòng - 頌;), sung at sacrifices to gods and ancestral spirits of the royal house.

The work is one of the 五經 WuJing, or Five Classics, canonized by the Han Dynasty, whose scholars framed the 305 poems as having been edited by Confucius from a total corpus of some three-thousand poems. The 305 poems had to be reconstructed from memory by classicists since the previous Qin dynasty had burned the poems 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 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.

Commentators have also given the Book of Songs a second tripartite division based on their use of literary figures and devices, into fu, bi and xing poems. Roughly:

fu (賦/赋) poems are those with a straightforward narrative content

bi (比) are those with explicit comparisons

xing (興/兴) are based on implied comparisons

Contents

1 Contents

1.1 GuoFeng
1.2 XiaoYa
1.3 DaYa
1.4 Song

2 Sample
3 Translations
4 External links

Summary of groupings of ShiJing poems

GuoFeng

國風 [guo2 feng1] GuoFeng, aka "Lessons from the States" poems 001-160; 160 total
folk songs (or airs)
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

XiaoYa

小雅 [xiao3 ya3] XiaoYa, aka "Minor Odes of the Kingdom" poems 161-234; 74 total
minor festal songs (or odes) for court
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

DaYa

大雅 [da4 ya3] DaYa, aka "Major Odes of the Kingdom" poems 235-265; 31 total
major festal songs (湮捇) for solemn court ceremonies
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

頌 [song4] Song, aka "Odes of the Temple & Altar" poems 266-305; 40 total
praises, hymns, or eulogies sung at spirit sacrifices
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

Sample

Part 4: 頌 Song, Odes of the Temple & Altar Section 1: 周頌 Sacrificial Odes of Zhou Chapter 1: 周頌清廟之什 Decade of Qing Miao

266. 清廟 Qing Miao

於穆清廟、肅雝顯相。濟濟多士、秉文之德。對越在天、駿奔走在廟。不顯不承、無射於人斯。

Ah ! solemn is the ancestral temple in its pure stillness . Reverent and harmonious were the distinguished assistants ; Great was the number of the officers : -- [All] assiduous followers of the virtue of [king] Wen . In response to him in heaven , Grandly they hurried about in the temple . Distinguished is he and honoured , And will never be wearied of among men .

note: see entry for King Wen of Zhou

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.
ShiJing, translated by YunZhong Xu, edited by ShengZhang Jiang, Hunan, China: Hu Nan Chu Ban She, 1993.
''The Shi King: The Old "Poetry Classic" of the New York: Paragon Book, 1969.
The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius, translated by Ezra Pound, Cambridge: Harvard U 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

The Four Books and Five Classics (四書五經)
The Four Books:	The Great Learning (大學) \| The Doctrine of the Mean (中庸) \| The Analects (論語) \| The Mencius (孟子)
The Five Classics:	Classic of Changes (易經) \| Classic of Poetry (詩經) \| Classic of Rites (禮記) \| Classic of History (書經) \| Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋)

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