T of C
Home |
My Work |
Hand- books |
Qin as Object |
Qin in Art |
Poetry / Song |
Hear, Watch |
Play Qin |
Analysis | History |
Ideo- logy |
Miscel- lanea |
More Info |
Personal | email me search me |
Art Illustrating Guqin Melodies |
聽我的錄音 Listen to a recording from my CD / 首頁 |
Illustration for Guan Ju (Cry of the Osprey)1 | 關雎圖 Guan Ju Tu |
A classical illustration for Guan Ju (see source) |
On the other hand, perhaps based on the osprey being said not to have made a sound like "guan guan", it has been suggested that the jujiu is maybe more likely to have been a mallard.5
Then again, An Unexpurgated Translation of Book of Songs, by Xu Yuanzhong, translates the opening of this song/poem as follows:6
"Turtledove" and other possibilities are discussed further here.
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)
1.
Illustration From Mōshi himbutsu zukō
The image here was copied from a modern printing of a Japanese edition of the Revised version of Illustrations of living objects in the Mao [edition of the Book of] Poems (毛詩品物圖改 Mōshi himbutsu zukō). It was 輯 compiled by the Japanese Sinologist 岡元鳳 Genpō Oka (1737-1787) of 浪華 Naniwa (Osaka), hence the marks in the text giving the pronunciation in Japanese syllables. I do not know from what this edition was "revised".
Not yet translated, but it begins saying 傳雎鳩,王雎也 "traditional commentary has it that jujiu are the same as wangju (princely) ju." This is discussed further here.
Other images here from the same source include ones for these melodies:
Chinese original sources for such images are also mentioned below.
(Return)
2.
Original Chinese version (see Appendix)
In Chinese 毛詩品物圖改 is Mao Shi Pin Wu Tu Gai and the compiler's name pronounced 浪華岡元鳳 Gang Yuanfeng of Langhua.
(Return)
3.
Illustrations that show other forms of "鳩 jiu"
Examples include,
These examples suggest "鳩 jiu" can refer to a wide range of birds and
雎鳩 jujiu is just one of them. There is no 關鳩 guanjiu, but it is still not completely certain what kind of bird the 雎鳩 jujiu is.
(Return)
4.
Translation as "osprey"
James Legge (1815-1897), The Chinese Classics: With a Translation, Critical and Exegetical Notes, Prolegomena and Copious Indexes (Volume 4, She King),
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1871.
(Return)
5.
A mallard (as here?)
Also compare mandarin ducks (鴛鴦 yuan yang, with the yuan being male and the yang being female) are associated with romance. 47745.28 鴛鴦 has the Latter Han History as its earliest reference. More commonly ducks are called 鴨 ya, of which there are many types. "Osprey" is commonly translated as 魚鷹 yuying.
(Return)
5.
An Unexpurgated Translation of Book of Songs, by Xu Yuanzhong
Panda Books, Beijing, 1994.
Professor Xu says "turtle doves coo in spring" but does not explain further why he selects that translation here.
(Return)
Appendix
Illustrations from 毛詩品物圖改 Mao Shi Pinwutu Gai
Revised Mao (edition of the Book of] Poems Illustrated
Compare from online Chinese edition (source) |
Primary sources for illustrations of plants and/or animals mentioned in the Shi Jing
See also Images of Confucius.
Study of such images is not complete. The online original of the image at right, downloaded from digitalarchive.npm.gov.tw is itself not clear.
The three books mentioned here are all said to be similar, but information on them is not clear, starting with 17141.166, which has only 毛詩 Mao poems, nothing about illustrations or book names. Nevertheless, the main sources seem to be three books with similar names and similar images. The first dates from the 18th century; the other two seem to be 19th century versions of the same.
The text of this work, in three volumes, has been copied into ctext.org. There is an example here.
This is the name both for the Japanese book in black and white described above and also the one in color at right, which was downloaded from digitalarchive.npm.gov.tw. (Or: go to
Index and search for "毛詩品物圖". It seems to be attributed to 岡公翼, another name for 岡元鳳 Genpo Oka, mentioned above).
This is the title printed on books I have found online under the previous title. The images seem to be the same but with some textual differences and printed in color.