by Anonymous

Zhou Dynasty (1046 B.C. – 256 B.C.)

Original Poem, Lyrics of the Song in Chinese and Pronunciations

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关雎 – Guān Jū

无名氏 -- Wú Míng Shì
周 -- Zhōu (1046 B.C. – 256 B.C.)

关关雎鸠 -- Guān guān jū jiū，
在河之洲 -- zài hé zhī zhōu ,
窈窕淑女 -- Yǎo tiǎo shūnǚ,
君子好逑 -- jūn zǐ hǎo qiú。

关关雎鸠 – Guān guān jū jiū，
在河之洲 -- zài hé zhī zhōu ,
窈窕淑女 -- Yǎo tiǎo shūnǚ,
君子好逑 -- jūn zǐ hǎo qiú。

关关雎鸠 -- Guān guān jū jiū，
在河之洲 -- Zài hé zhī zhōu。
窈窕淑女 -- Yǎo tiǎo shūnǚ,
君子好逑 -- Jūn zǐ hǎo qiú。
窈窕淑女 -- Yǎo tiǎo shūnǚ,
君子好逑 -- Jūn zǐ hǎo qiú。

*    *    *    *    *    *
参差荇菜 – Cēn cī xìng caì,
左右流之 – Zuǒ yòu liú zhī。
窈窕淑女 – Yǎo tiǎo shū nǚ,
寤寐求之 – Wǔ mèi qiú zhī。
求之不得 – Qiú zhī bù dé,
寤寐思服 – Wǔ mèi shī fú。
悠哉悠哉 -- Yōu zāi yōu zāi,
辗转反侧 -- Zhǎn zhuǎn fǎn cè。

参差荇菜 -- Cēn cī xìng caì,
左右采之 -- Zuǒ yòu cǎi zhī。
窈窕淑女 -- Yǎo tiǎo shū nǚ,
琴瑟友之 -- Qín sè yǒu zhī。
参差荇菜 -- Cēn cī xìng caì,
左右芼之 -- Zuǒ yòu mào zhī。
窈窕淑女 -- Yǎo tiǎo shū nǚ,
钟鼓乐之 – Zhōng gǔ yuè zhī。

The Main Meaning of the Poem and the Lyrics of the Song in English

Guan! Guan! Singing ospreys，
On the sandbar in the River,
The beautiful girl,
The gentleman’s ideal spouse.

Guan! Guan! Singing ospreys,
On the sandbar in the River,
The beautiful girl,
The gentleman’s ideal spouse.
Guan! Guan! Singing ospreys,
On the sandbar in the River,
The beautiful girl,
The gentleman’s ideal spouse.
Guan! Guan! Singing ospreys,
On the sandbar in the River,
The beautiful girl,
The gentleman’s ideal spouse.
The beautiful girl,
The gentleman’s ideal spouse.
*      *       *      *
The ragged cresses,
Are flowing on the left and right.
The beautiful girl,
I' am seeking her day and night.
Seek but fail to get,
I miss her day and night.
What a long night it is!
I toss and turn, have a sleepless night.

The ragged cresses,
Are picked up from the left and the right.
The beautiful girl,
I show my friendship by playing music for her.
The ragged cresses,
Are chosen from left to right.
The beautiful girl,
I will pleasure her by marry her in the bells and drums.

About the Poet

Guan Ju is the first poem of Shi Jing ( 诗经 - Shījīng) – The Book of Songs, Book of Odes, Poetry or 300 Poems.

Shi Jing is the earliest and the first collection of Chinese poetry, and consists of 305 poems and a further six titles with no poetic content. It was created by various authors and was edited over many years from the initial phase of the Western Zhou Dynasty ( 11th century B.C.-771 B.C.) to the middle of the Chunqiu - the Spring and Autumn Period ( 770 B.C. – 476 B.C). Shi Jing records Chinese history between 1,100 B.C to 600 B.C., for about 500 years, it has a history of about 3,000 years.

Originally, Shi Jing (Book of Songs, Book of Odes) was just called Shi (Poetry) or 300 Poems, and was just a Collection of Poems. Since the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.- A.D. 220), it has been regarded as The first of the Five Classics of Confucianism, which are: 《诗经》 Shi Jing; The Book of Songs; 《书经 / 尚书》 The Book of History; 《易经》 The Book of Changes; 《礼记》 the Book of Rites; 《春秋》 The Spring and Autumn Annals. It was then called Shi “ Jing ” – Classic of Poetry, and listed as No. 1.

The 7th emperor of the Han Dynasty( 202 B.C.—220 A.D.), Emperor Wu of Han - Liu Che (156 B. C－87 B.C.) chose the principles of Confucianism as the national philosophy and code of ethics for his empire, established “ Wu Jing Bo Shi ” – five kinds of court academician for the 5 Confucian classics to teach the classics of Confucianism. Shi Jing – Classic of Poetry became one of the required reading books of officers and litterateurs.

In the Song Dynasty (960-1279), four other books - (《大学》 Da Xue: The Great Learning; 《中庸》 Zhong Yong: The Doctrine of the Mean; 《论语》 Lun Yu: The Analects of Confucius; 《孟子》 Meng Zi: Mencius, known as the Four Books - were included with the Classics of Confucianism by Zhu Xi (1130- 1200).   Since then, Chinese intelligentsia have been regarded the Four Books and the Five Classics as the classics.

Today's version of Shi Jing was handed was handed down by Mao Heng, therefore, it is also called Poetry of Mao.

The poems in Shi Jing originally were the lyrics and music and every poem could be sung along with its own music. According to the types of the music and the contents of the poems, they were divided into 3 sorts: Feng, Ya and Song and their expression styles were divided into Fu, Bi and Xing, all of them are called Liu Yi. In other words, Liu Yi includes 3 kinds of content and 3 kinds of expressions of Shi Jing.

The contents of Shi Jing:
-- Feng includes 160 pieces of folk songs and ballads, therefore, people also say Feng is folk song/music. They are the local music from 15 small kingdoms, a few of them were reworked by the nobles.

-- Ya is the formal classical court music, there are 105 pieces, sorted into Da Ya, 31, and Xiao Ya, 74.

The Da Ya were large or long court hymns. They were used for large banquets and ceremonies, they were created and given by the higher nobles, there are also several forms of them. The Xiao Ya were secondary court hymns. They were used for general banquets and they were created and given by lesser nobles.

-- Song is the ritual music or the eulogies’ poems. They were used in the palace’s ancestral temple during sacrifices to the ancestor and the gods. There are 40 pieces. Many of them can dance.
The names of the authors of the poems have not been known and all the music to which the poems were sung to has long since been lost. What we have left in Shi Jing is just the lyrics of the songs from about 3000 years ago.

The poems of Shi Jing were collected by the officers who were sent to the folk by the court. The folk songs/ballads are considered most valuable because they reveal out among the people and a wide social life with a realistic style.

Shi Jing—The Book of Songs indicated the beginning of ancient Chinese realistic poetry, and it has influenced Chinese literature and poetry down the ages.

Shi Jing is the source of Chinese verse and the start point of Chinese poetry.

Its forms of poetic expression include epic, pasquinade, epos, love song, martial song, ode, ballad and so on. Its content relates to labor, farming, love, marriage, war, corvee, crackdown, revolt, custom, ancestor worship, banquet and even weather, geography, animal and plant… therefore, it is considered as a mirror of the Zhou Dynasty (1046 B.C. – 256 B.C.).

In terms of the language and poetic form, the poems in Shi Jing—the Book of Songs are Si Yan Shi -- Chinese classical poems with four characters per line. The language of Shi Jing is the most important data in studying ancient Chinese in the period from the 11 century B.C to 6 century B.C.

Guan Ju is just one of the folk songs from Feng of Shi Jing and the first poem of Shi Jing.

Enjoy the Poem

This poem is a folk song from the kingdom of Zhou Nan, which was in today’s Luoyang, Henan Province. It is a love song telling of how a noble gentleman fell in love with a girl who was picking cress in the river, and how he missed her day and night and sought her and wanted to marry her.

This poem can be divided into 3 parts or 4 parts. I have divided it into 3 parts. I would like to introduce the whole of the poem briefly and mainly talk about the first part for which I have created a piece of music and a painting. I would sing the first part in Chinese and in English.

Let us consider the title: 关雎, Guān Jū. 关, Guān, it is a onomatopoeic word which imitates the sound of the song or cry of a kind of water bird called 雎鸠 jū jiū. 雎jū points to the bird 雎鸠jū jiū. It is said that this kind of bird is   the osprey, also known as the fish hawk. They are always seen in couples and never separate from each other. The two characters关雎, Guān Jū were put together, not because they were there originally - the original poem didn't have a title,- but when they were collected from the folk people to the court by the officials or when they were edited into the book Shi Jing, people gave them a title by picking up two words from the first line of the poem. Most of the titles of the poems in Shi Jing got their titles in this way. Since the first two words are关关, Guān Guān，the third word is 雎Jū, 关雎, Guān Jū were chosen to be the title of the poem. It has no actual meaning.

Taking the first two words from the first line of a poem as the title of the poem is one of the characteristics of Shi Jing.

The first part of the poem :

First line: 关关雎鸠guān guān jū jiū -- 关关guān guān is the sound of the birds’ call; 雎鸠jū jiū points to the osprey, fish hawk. This line means “ Guan Guan ,“ospreys are singing. Then where are they singing?

The second line: 在河之洲 zài hé zhīzhōu -- 在zài means in, on, at, 河 hé means river, here means the Yellow River (In ancient Chinese literature and language, when people said River, it referred to the Yellow River) 之 zhī means of, 洲zhōu, means continent, here means islet or sandbar. This line means: on the sandbar in the River. Then, who is on the sandbar in the River? Of course, the ospreys.

So, the meaning of the two lines is: “Guan, Quan,” ospreys are singing on the sandbar in the river. It describes the environment and place where the story will unfold.

The third line: 窈窕淑女 yǎo tiǎo shūnǚ. 窈窕yǎo tiǎo means sylphlike, gentle and graceful. 淑shū means kind and gentle, fair; 女nǚ means woman, girl or female; 淑女shū nǚ means a gentle woman, a fair girl. This line means: A beautiful girl is over there.

君子好逑 jūnzǐ hǎoqíu. 君子jūnzǐ means gentleman; 好hǎo means good, kind; 逑qíu means spouse, mate; 好逑hǎoqíu means good / kind spouse / mate. This line means (she) would be the good spouse of the gentleman.

The two lines mean: The beautiful girl, is the gentleman’s ideal spouse.

The second part, there are 8 lines:

The first two lines: 参差荇菜 cēncī xíng caì, 左右流之 zuǒyòu liúzhī. 参差cēncī means something is long and short, ragged; 荇菜 xíng caì is a kind of plant that grows in water and can be eaten, someone said it is cress; 左右zuǒyòu means on the left and on the right; 左zuǒ means left; 右yòu means right; 流之liúzhī. 流liú means flow; 之zhī, here it does not have any meaning, it's just an auxiliary word. The two lines mean: The ragged cresses are flowing on the left and the right.

The third and fourth lines: 窈窕淑女Yǎo tiǎo shūnǚ, 寤寐求之 wùmèi qiúzhī. 寤wù means awake; 寐mèi means sleep, asleep; 求qiú means seek, beg, entreat and request; 之zhī refers to the girl.

** Please pay attention to the word之zhī, it has different meanings in different places. Here it is a pronoun, to refer to the girl, it means her. The meaning of the two lines is: the beautiful girl, I seek her day and night.

The fifth lines: 求之不得Qiú zhī bù dé. 求means seek, beg, entreat and request; 之zhī means her;   不bù, means no; 得dé means get, obtain or gain; This line means: I seek her but fail to get ( her ).

The sixth line: 寤寐思服 wù mèi sī fú. 思服sī fú means think of, miss; the two words mean: I miss her and think of her.
　　
The seventh line: 悠哉悠哉 Yōu zāi yōu zāi means: What a long night it is! For such a long time I have missed her! 悠Yōu means long; 哉 zāi, interjection and auxiliary word, it has no meaning and just helps to express feelings. Here it is similar to Wow! Ay! Ah!

The eighth line: 辗转反侧 zhǎn zhuǎn fǎn cè. 辗转zhǎn zhuǎn means toss about (in bed) or flounder; 反fǎn means turn over; 侧cè means side; This line means: toss and turn restlessly; I have had a sleepless night.

The last two lines means: Wow! What a long night that was, I tossed and turned and had a sleepless night!

The third part of the poem:

The first two lines: 参差荇菜 Cēncī xìng caì, 左右采之zuǒ yòu cǎi zhī. 采cǎi means: pick. 之zhī, here means it. It is a pronoun. To refer to the 荇菜xìng caì cress. The two lines mean: The ragged cresses are picked from the left and the right.

The third and the fourth line: 窈窕淑女 Yǎotiǎo shūnǚ,，琴瑟友之qín sè yǒu zhī. 琴qín is a musical instrument, a seven-stringed plucked instrument in some ways it is similar to the zither; 瑟 sè a musical instrument with 25 or 16 strings; 友yǒu means friend, make a friend; 之zhī here means "her". 琴瑟友之qín sè yǒu zhī means by playing my musical instruments qín and sè I will befriend her and to express my love to her.

The fifth and the sixth lines: 参差荇菜 Cēncī xìng cài, 左右芼之 zuǒyòu mào zhī. 芼mào means pick, touch, here it means choose; The two lines mean: The ragged cresses, can be picked and chosen from the left and the right.

The last two lines: 窈窕淑女 Yǎotiǎo shūnǚ, 钟鼓乐之 zhōng gǔ yuè zhī. 钟zhōng means bell, to sound / ring the bells; 鼓gǔ means drum, play drum; 乐之 yuèzhī means: to please her. 乐 yuè means happy, cheerful, to make her happy. The two lines mean: The beautiful girl, whom I will marry will take pleasure at the sound of the bells and drums.

Ok, now, we have learned the basic meaning of this poem. Let us have a short break by talking something about the 六义liù yì of Shi Jing: 风fēng，雅 yǎ, 颂 sòng，赋fù , 比 bǐ, 兴xìng.

I have told you that in the content, Shi Jing was sorted three kinds: Feng, Ya. Song and Shi Jing mainly uses three forms of artistic expression: Fu. Bi and Xing.

-- 赋fù : To write something directly, to write about the process of a thing or to express a feeling directly.
-- 比 bǐ: To make a metaphor, to compare this thing to that thing.
-- 兴xìng: To write one thing to begin with, and then to arouse something else.
Now let we come back to the poem itself, to see how it uses these methods, it mainly use the method “兴 xìng” .

You see, in the first part of the poem, a young man overlooked the sandbar far away and he saw a lot of couples of ospreys there. They are singing to each other, and they are staying there harmoniously. It roused his own love feeling to a girl who is picking the plants in the water nearby. Maybe the beautiful girl would/could be his mate or spouse?

Then in the second part, when he saw the cresses flowed on the left and right, he could not help thinking of the difficulty the beautiful girl was having in getting the Xing Cai (cresses) in the water, so that he could not sleep for whole of the night for He felt the pain of lovesickness

Then in the third part, once more when he looked at the plants in the water and thought of the girl who were picking up the water plants, he wanted to act: to play music for her and to make a friends with her. Then in the last 4 lines, when he looked at the cresses in the water and the girl was choosing them there, he decided to make an offer of marriage, to marry her in the beautiful sounds of bells and drums.

Now when we recall   this poem, we can guess that, besides using Fu – to write about and to express his loving feeling directly, in this poem, the poet mainly used the artistic form: Xing -- to write about one thing to begin with and then to arouse something else.   

This writing style gives this poem a special artistic charm.. The words: 窈窕淑女 yǎo tiǎo shūnǚ, 君子好逑 jūnzǐ hǎo qiú have become the wonderful sentences that resounded through the ages.

Besides using the expression style of 兴xìng, this poem’s rhyming words are usually used on the lines of even numbers, it is the foundation of Chinese poetry's usage of rhyming.

In language, many phrases or words in this poem use Shuangsheng -- the double initial consonant (of a Chinese syllable) and Dieyun -- double simple or compound vowel (of a Chinese syllable). For example: “窈窕”yǎo tiǎo is double vowel that rhymes “ao”, “ 参差” cēncī are two characters with the same initial consonant “ c ”. “辗转” zhǎnzhuǎn are double vowels “ an” and two same initial consonants “zh”.

These kind of words help the language to be quite lively and lifelike.

It is also the first Chinese classical poem with four characters per line. This kind of poetry language usage continued until the Three Kingdoms times (220-265).

Inspiration:

I am thinking, why was a love poem listed No.1 in the first Chinese Poetry Collection, this Book of Songs from about 3,000 years ago; why The Book of Songs was also listed as the No. 1 of the Five Classics of Confucianism in the Han Dynasty（206 B.C.- A.D. 220）and then in the Song Dynasty (960-1279)?

Maybe because:

--   In traditional Chinese culture, an ideal or perfect marriage should be a combination between a beautiful girl who has a pretty appearance and a kind heart inside and a gentleman who is handsome outside and kind inside.

A feeling of love can be very deep but should be kept under control. In this poem, the gentleman expresses a very deep love to the girl, but he does not do anything too vehement, his love is warm but decent or not too passionate?. It is not like a violent storm, therefore, it can be kept for a long time.

-- A love for the purpose of marriage is a normal and responsible love. A true love should be encouraged and be blessed.

In fact, since about 3,000 years ago, in the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century B.C. -256B.C.), the first poem of the earliest collection of poetry Shi Jing – Book of Songs or Classic of Poetry is a love poem.

When I write here, I cannot help smiling for I have thought of something I have learned in Bible: if the two people love each other, then get married, a wife should follow her husband and a husband should look after his wife… Once more, about 3,000 years ago, there was already something so similar in those classical pieces of literature from totally different worlds. Maybe just because of those sensible ideas and reason in these two books, they have become classics and have come down to us in modern times. Right?
To help share my thoughts and understanding about this poem with you, I created a piece of music on Sep 9, 2005 and created a painting for it in April, 2008. I then tried to re-do all of these things in my visit to the USA in 2013. I do hope that my effort will be of some help to you to learn Chinese culture, art and language.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, you are welcome to write to shirley@ebridge.cn or to leave your message on www.ebridge.cn.


Shirley Yiping Zhang
November 5, 2016, in the USA
March 10, 2015 in the USA
December,2013 in the USA
April, 2008, in China.
September 9, 2005 in China