There is a delightful little vignette of life in ancient China in the Confucian classic Shijing 詩經, or Book of Songs: 將仲子兮，無踰我里，無折我樹杞。豈敢愛之？畏我父母。仲可懷也，父母之言，亦可畏也。將仲子兮，無踰我牆，無折我樹桑。豈敢愛之？畏我諸兄。仲可懷也，諸兄之言，亦可畏也。將仲子兮，無踰我園，無折我樹檀。豈敢愛之？畏人之多言。仲可懷也，人之多言，亦可畏也。I beg of you, Chung Tzu,Do not climb into our homestead,Do not break the willows we have planted.Not that I mind about the willows,But I am afraid of my father and mother.Chung Tzu I dearly … Continue reading Chung Tzu’s lover and the Golden Aphrodite →

The end of Nine Songs, a darkly romantic counterpoint between a plant’s life cycle and the passing of human generations, echoes a famous passage in Iliad 6, where the Trojan hero Glaucus suddenly switches to a poeticizing mode and responds to his Greek opponent Diomedes with a metaphor: οἵη περ φύλλων γενεὴ τοίη δὲ καὶ … Continue reading Glaucus and the Shaman of South China (2/3) →

I was procrastinating in Lamont library when I came across a review article on the BMCR of a recent book with the enticing title The Homeric Epics and the Chinese “Book of Songs”: Foundational Texts Compared, edited by Prof. Fritz-Heiner Mutschler. For a long time, I had been interested in comparing Ancient Chinese and Ancient Greek … Continue reading Glaucus and the Shaman of South China (1/3) →