The Book of SongsJoseph Roe Allen Joseph R. Allen's new edition of The Book of Songs restores Arthur Waley's definitive English translations to the original order and structure of the two-thousand-year-old Chinese text. One of the five Confucian classics, The Book of Songs is the oldest collection of poetry in world literature and the finest treasure of traditional songs that antiquity has left us. Arthur Waley's translations, now supplemented by fifteen new translations by Allen, are superb; the songs speak to us across millennia with remarkable directness and power. Where the other Confucian classics treat "outward things, deeds, moral precepts, the way the world works", Stephen Owen tells us in his foreword, The Book of Songs is "the Classic of the human heart and the human mind". |
Contents
South of Zhou 111 | 5 |
South of Shao 1225 | 13 |
Airs of Bei 2644 | 23 |
Airs of Yong 4554 | 38 |
Airs of Wei 5564 | 46 |
Airs of the Royal Domain 6574 | 56 |
Airs of Zheng 7595 | 64 |
Airs of Qi 96106 | 77 |
Airs of Bin 15460 | 119 |
The Minor Odes Poems 161234 | 129 |
The Major Odes Poems 23565 | 223 |
The Hymns Poems 266305 | 287 |
The Zhou Hymns 26696 | 291 |
The Lu Hymns 297300 | 308 |
The Shang Hymns 30105 | 318 |
Waleys Notes on Books Used | 324 |
Airs of Wey 10713 | 84 |
Airs of Tang 11425 | 90 |
Airs of Qin 12635 | 99 |
Airs of Chen 13645 | 107 |
Airs of Gui 14649 | 113 |
Airs of Cao 15053 | 116 |
Waleys Additional Notes | 326 |
Waleys Original Topical Categories and Order of Poems | 333 |
A Literary History of the Shi jing | 336 |
| 384 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Airs ancestors blessings Book of Songs bright brothers capital century B.C. chariots Chen China Chinese Confucian Confucius dance drink drums Duke of Zhou dynasty early east feng feudal four steeds fu shi gather girl glorious glosses happy heart Henan horses Hou Ji interpretation jade Jiang kao-zheng Karlgren King Wen King Wu lady land Lord of Shao lucky guest Mao shi zheng means mighty Heaven millet month mother Mount Qi Neo-Confucian night Odes offering oriole plucking poems poetry Qing ritual River royal seen my lord Shaanxi Shandong Shang Shi ji Shi jing shi zheng yi Small Prefaces southern hills southernwood stanza Stephen Owen tall Tang Thick grows tradition translations verse Waley's wine words Xian-yun xing Xuan Yellow River Zheng Xuan Zhu Xi Zoeren Zuo zhuan