TheClassic of Poetry, alsoShijing orShih-ching, translated variously as theBook of Songs,Book of Odes, or simply known as theOdes orPoetry (詩;Shī), is the oldest existing collection ofChinese poetry, comprising 305 works dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BC. It is one of the "Five Classics" traditionally said to have been compiled byConfucius, and has been studied and memorized by scholars in China and neighboring countries over two millennia. It is also a rich source ofchengyu (four-character classical idioms) that are still a part of learned discourse and even everyday language in modern Chinese. Since theQing dynasty, its rhyme patterns have also been analysed in the study ofOld Chinese phonology.

Classic of Poetry

The first song in theClassic of Poetry, handwritten by theQianlong Emperor, with accompanying painting
Language	Old Chinese
Subject	Ancient Chinese poetry and song
Publication place	China

Classic of Poetry
"Classic of Poetry" inseal script (top),[a] Traditional (middle), and Simplified (bottom) Chinese characters
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	詩經
Simplified Chinese	诗经
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Shījīng Wade–Giles Shih1-ching1 IPA [ʂɻ̩́ tɕíŋ] Wu Romanization Sy-chin Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Sī-gīng Jyutping Si1-ging1 IPA [si˥ kɪŋ˥] Southern Min HokkienPOJ Si-keng Middle Chinese Middle Chinese /ɕɨ keŋ/ Old Chinese Baxter (1992) *stjɨ(keng)[a] Baxter–Sagart (2014) *s.tə(k-lˤeng)[a]
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese	Kinh Thi
Hán-Nôm	經詩
Korean name
Hangul	시경
Hanja	詩經
Transcriptions Revised Romanization Sigyeong McCune–Reischauer Sigyŏng
Japanese name
Hiragana	しきょう
Kyūjitai	詩經
Shinjitai	詩経
Transcriptions Romanization Shikyō

Early references refer to the anthology as the300 Poems (shi).The Odes first became known as ajīng, or a "classic book", in thecanonical sense, as part of theHan dynasty's official adoption ofConfucianism as the guiding principle of Chinese society.^{[citation needed]} The same wordshi later became a generic term for poetry.^[1] In English, lacking an exact equivalent for the Chinese, the translation of the wordshi in this regard is generally as "poem", "song", or "ode". Before its elevation as a canonical classic, theClassic of Poetry (Shi jing) was known as theThree Hundred Songs or theSongs.^[2]

TheClassic of Poetry contains the oldest chronologically authenticated Chinese poems.^[1] The majority of theOdes date to theWestern Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), and were drawn from around provinces and cities in theZhongyuan (Central Plains) area. A final section of 5 "Eulogies of Shang" purports to be ritual songs of theShang dynasty as handed down by their descendants in thestate of Song, but is generally considered quite late in date.^[3][4] According to the Eastern Han scholarZheng Xuan, the latest material in theShijing was the song "Tree-Stump Grove" (株林) in the "Odes of Chen", dated to the middle of theSpring and Autumn period (c. 700 BCE).[5]

The content of thePoetry can be divided into two main sections: the "Airs of the States", and the "Eulogies" and "Hymns".^[8]

The "Airs of the States" are shorter lyrics in simple language that are generally ancient folk songs which record the voice of the common people.^[8] They often speak of love and courtship, longing for an absent lover, soldiers on campaign, farming and housework, and political satire and protest.^[8] The first song of the "Airs of the States", "Fishhawk" (Guān jū關雎), is a well-known example of the category. Confucius commented on it, and it was traditionally given special interpretive weight.^[9]

On the other hand, songs in the two "Hymns" sections and the "Eulogies" section tend to be longer ritual or sacrificial songs, usually in the forms of courtlypanegyrics and dynastic hymns which praise the founders of the Zhou dynasty.^[8] They also include hymns used in sacrificial rites and songs used by the aristocracy in their sacrificial ceremonies or at banquets.^[11][12]

"Court Hymns" contains "Lesser Court Hymns" and "Major Court Hymns". Most of the poems were used by the aristocrats to pray for good harvests each year, worship gods, and venerate their ancestors. The authors of "Major Court Hymns" are nobles who were dissatisfied with the political reality. Therefore, they wrote poems not only related to the feast, worship, and epic but also to reflect the public feelings.^[13]

Whether the variousShijing poems were folk songs or not, they "all seem to have passed through the hands of men of letters at the royal Zhou court".^[15] In other words, they show an overall literary polish together with some general stylistic consistency. About 95% oflines in thePoetry are written in a four-syllablemeter, with a slightcaesura between the second and third syllables.^[8] Lines tend to occur insyntactically relatedcouplets, with occasional parallelism, and longer poems are generally divided into similarly structuredstanzas.^[16]

All but six of the "Eulogies" consist of a single stanza, and the "Court Hymns" exhibit wide variation in the number of stanzas and their lengths. Almost all of the "Airs", however, consist of three stanzas, with four-line stanzas being most common.^[17][18] Although a few rhyming couplets occur, the standard pattern in such four-line stanzas required a rhyme between the second and fourth lines. Often the first or third lines would rhyme with these, or with each other.^[19] This style later became known as the "shi" style for much of Chinese history.

One of the characteristics of the poems in theClassic of Poetry is that they tend to possess "elements of repetition and variation".^[16] This results in an "alteration of similarities and differences in the formal structure: in successive stanzas, some lines and phrases are repeated verbatim, while others vary from stanza to stanza".^[20] Characteristically, the parallel or syntactically matched lines within a specific poem share the same, identical words (or characters) to a large degree, as opposed to confining the parallelism between lines to using grammatical category matching of the words in one line with the other word in the same position in the corresponding line; but, not by using the same, identical word(s).^[16] Disallowing verbal repetition within a poem would by the time ofTang poetry be one of the rules to distinguish theold style poetry from thenew, regulated style.

The works in theClassic of Poetry vary in theirlyrical qualities, which relates to the musical accompaniment with which they were in their early days performed. The songs from the "Hymns" and "Eulogies", which are the oldest material in thePoetry, were performed to slow, heavy accompaniment from bells, drums, and stone chimes.^[8] However, these and the later actual musical scores or choreography which accompanied theShijing poems have been lost.

Nearly all of the songs in thePoetry are rhyming, with end rhyme, as well as frequent internal rhyming.^[16] While some of these verses still rhyme in modern varieties of Chinese, others had ceased to rhyme by theMiddle Chinese period. For example, the eighth song (芣苢Fú Yǐ^[b]) has a tightly constrained structure implying rhymes between the penultimate words (here shown in bold) of each pair of lines:^[21]

The second and third stanzas still rhyme in modernStandard Chinese, with the rhyme words even having the same tone, but the first stanza does not rhyme in Middle Chinese or any modern variety. Such cases were attributed to lax rhyming practice until the late-Ming dynasty scholarChen Di argued that the original rhymes had been obscured bysound change.Since Chen, scholars have analyzed the rhyming patterns of thePoetry as crucial evidence for the reconstruction ofOld Chinese phonology.^[22]

Traditional scholarship of thePoetry identified three major literary devices employed in the songs: straightforward narrative (fù賦), explicit comparisons (bǐ比) and implied comparisons (xìng興). The poems of theClassic of Poetry tend to have certain typical patterns in both rhyme and rhythm, to make much use of imagery, often derived from nature.

Although theShijing does not specify the names of authors in association with the contained works, both traditional commentaries and modern scholarship have put forth hypotheses on authorship. The "Golden Coffer" chapter of theBook of Documents says that the poem "Owl" (鴟鴞) in the "Odes of Bin" was written by theDuke of Zhou. Many of the songs appear to be folk songs and other compositions used in the court ceremonies of the aristocracy.^[11] Furthermore, many of the songs, based on internal evidence, appear to be written either by women, or from the perspective of a femalepersona. The repeated emphasis on female authorship of poetry in theShijing was made much of in the process of attempting to give the poems of the women poets of theMing-Qing period canonical status.^[23] Despite the impersonality of the poetic voice characteristic of theSongs,^[24] many of the poems are written from the perspective of various generic personalities.

According to tradition, the method of collection of the variousShijing poems involved the appointment of officials, whose duties included documenting verses current from the various states which constituted the empire. Out of these many collected pieces, also according to tradition, Confucius made a final editorial round of decisions for elimination or inclusion in the received version of thePoetry. As with all great literary works of ancient China, thePoetry has been annotated and commented on continuously throughout history, as well as in this case providing a model to inspire future poetic works.

Various traditions concern the gathering of the compiled songs and the editorial selection from these make up the classic text of theOdes: "Royal Officials' Collecting Songs" (王官采詩) is recorded in theBook of Han,^[c] and "MasterConfucius Deletes Songs" (孔子刪詩) refers to Confucius and his mention in theRecords of the Grand Historian, where it says from originally some 3,000 songs and poems in a previously extant "Odes" that Confucius personally selected the "300" which he felt best conformed to traditional ritual propriety, thus producing theClassic of Poetry.

In 2015, theAnhui University purchased a group of looted manuscripts, among which is one of theoldest extant scribal copies of theClassic of Poetry (at least part of it). The manuscript has been published in the first volume of this collection of manuscripts,Anhui daxue cang Zhanguo zhujian (安徽大學藏戰國竹簡).^[25]

The Confucian school eventually came to consider the verses of the "Airs of the States" to have been collected in the course of activities of officers dispatched by theZhou dynasty court, whose duties included the field collection of the songs local to the territorial states of Zhou.^[1] This territory was roughly theYellow River Plain,Shandong, southwesternHebei, easternGansu, and theHan River region. Perhaps during theharvest. After the officials returned from their missions, the king was said to have observed them himself in an effort to understand the current condition of the common people.^[1] The well-being of the people was of special concern to the Zhou because of their ideological position that the right to rule was based on the benignity of the rulers to the people in accordance with the will ofHeaven, and that thisHeavenly Mandate would be withdrawn upon the failure of the ruling dynasty to ensure the prosperity of their subjects.^[26] The people's folksongs were deemed to be the best gauge of their feelings and conditions, and thus indicative of whether the nobility was ruling according to the mandate of Heaven or not. Accordingly, the songs were collected from the various regions, converted from their diverse regional dialects into standard literary language, and presented accompanied with music at the royal courts.^[27]

TheClassic of Poetry historically has a major place in theFour Books and Five Classics, the canonical works associated withConfucianism.^[28] Some pre-Qin dynasty texts, such as theAnalects and a recently excavated manuscript from 300 BCE entitled "Confucius' Discussion of theOdes", mention Confucius' involvement with theClassic of Poetry but Han dynasty historianSima Qian'sRecords of the Grand Historian was the first work to directly attribute the work to Confucius.^[29] Subsequent Confucian tradition held that theShijing collection was edited byConfucius from a larger 3,000-piece collection to its traditional 305-piece form.^[30] This claim is believed to reflect an early Chinese tendency to relate all of theFive Classics in some way or another to Confucius, who by the 1st century BCE had become the model of sages and was believed to have maintained a cultural connection to the early Zhou dynasty.^[29] This view is now generally discredited, as theZuo zhuan records that theClassic of Poetry already existed in a definitive form when Confucius was just a young child.^[11]

In works attributed to him, Confucius comments upon theClassic of Poetry in such a way as to indicate that he holds it in great esteem. A story in theAnalects recounts that Confucius' sonKong Li told the story: "The Master once stood by himself, and I hurried to seek teaching from him. He asked me, 'You've studied the Odes?' I answered, 'Not yet.' He replied, 'If you have not studied the Odes, then I have nothing to say.'"^[31]

According to Han tradition, thePoetry and other classics were targets of theburning of books in 213 BCE underQin Shi Huang, and the songs had to be reconstructed largely from memory in the subsequent Han period. However the discovery of pre-Qin copies showing the same variation as Han texts, as well as evidence of Qin patronage of thePoetry, have led modern scholars to doubt this account.^[32]

During the Han period there were three different versions of thePoetry which each belonged to differenthermeneutic traditions.^[33] The LuPoetry (魯詩Lǔ shī), the QiPoetry (齊詩Qí shī) and the HanPoetry (韓詩Hán shī) were officially recognized with chairs at the Imperial Academy during the reign ofEmperor Wu of Han (156–87 BCE).^[33] Until the later years of the Eastern Han period, the dominant version of thePoetry was the LuPoetry, named after thestate of Lu, and founded by Shen Pei, a student of a disciple of theWarring States period philosopherXunzi.^[33]

The Mao Tradition of thePoetry (毛詩傳Máo shī zhuàn), attributed to an obscure scholar named Máo Hēng (毛亨) who lived during the 2nd or 3rd centuries BCE,^[33] was not officially recognized until the reign ofEmperor Ping (1 BCE to 6 CE).^[34] However, during the Eastern Han period, the MaoPoetry gradually became the primary version.^[33] Proponents of the MaoPoetry said that its text was descended from the first generation of Confucius' students, and as such should be the authoritative version.^[33]Xu Shen's influential dictionaryShuowen Jiezi, written in the 2nd-century CE, quotes almost exclusively from the MaoPoetry.^[33] Finally, the renowned Eastern Han scholarZheng Xuan used the MaoPoetry as the basis for his annotated 2nd-century edition of thePoetry. Zheng Xuan's edition of the Mao text was itself the basis of the "Right Meaning of the MaoPoetry" (毛詩正義Máo shī zhèngyì) which became the imperially authorized text and commentary on thePoetry in 653 CE.^[33]

By the 5th-century, the Lu, Qi, and Han traditions had died out, leaving only the MaoPoetry, which has become thereceived text in use today.^[32]Only isolated fragments of the Lu text survive, among the remains of theXiping Stone Classics.^[34]

TheBook of Odes has been a revered Confucian classic since the Han dynasty, and has been studied and memorized by centuries of scholars in China.^[12] The individual songs of theOdes, though frequently on simple, rustic subjects, have traditionally been saddled with extensive, elaborate allegorical meanings that assigned moral or political meaning to the smallest details of each line.^[35] The popular songs were seen as good keys to understanding the troubles of the common people, and were often read as allegories, and complaints against lovers were seen as complaints against faithless rulers.^[12][35] Confucius taught that theOdes were a valuable focus for knowledge and self-cultivation, as recorded in an anecdote in theAnalects:

詩可以興，可以觀，可以群，可以怨。邇之事父，遠之事君。多識於鳥獸草木之名。
TheOdes can be a source of inspiration and a basis for evaluation; they can help you to come together with others, as well as to properly express complaints. In the home, they teach you about how to serve your father, and in public life they teach you about how to serve your lord. They also broadly acquaint you with the names of birds, beasts, plants, and trees.

— Analects, chapter 17 (Edward Slingerland, trans.)^[36]

The extensive allegorical traditions associated with theOdes were theorized byHerbert Giles to have begun in theWarring States period as a justification forConfucius' focus upon such a seemingly simple and ordinary collection of verses.^[37] These elaborate, far-fetched interpretations seem to have gone completely unquestioned until the 12th century, when scholar Zheng Qiao (鄭樵, 1104–1162) first wrote his scepticism of them.^[38] European sinologists like Giles andMarcel Granet ignored these traditional interpretations in their analysis of the original meanings of theOdes. Granet, in his list of rules for properly reading theOdes, wrote that readers should "take no account of the standard interpretation", "reject in no uncertain terms the distinction drawn between songs evicting a good state of morals and songs attesting to perverted morality", and "[discard] all symbolic interpretations, and likewise any interpretation that supposes a refined technique on the part of the poets".^[39] These traditional allegories of politics and morality are no longer seriously followed by any modern readers in China or elsewhere.^[38]

The Odes became an important and controversial force, influencing political, social and educational phenomena.^[40] During the struggle between Confucian,Legalist, and other schools of thought, the Confucians used theShijing to bolster their viewpoint.^[40] On the Confucian side, theShijing became a foundational text which informed and validated literature, education, and political affairs.^[41] The Legalists, on their side, attempted to suppress theShijing by violence, after the Legalist philosophy was endorsed by theQin dynasty, prior to their final triumph over the neighboring states: the suppression of Confucian and other thought and literature after the Qin victories and the start ofBurning of Books and Burying of Scholars era, starting in 213 BCE, extended to attempt to prohibit theShijing.^[40]

As the idea of allegorical expression grew, when kingdoms or feudal leaders wished to express or validate their own positions, they would sometimes couch the message within a poem, or by allusion. This practice became common among educated Chinese in their personal correspondences and spread toJapan andKorea as well.

Modern scholarship on theClassic of Poetry often focuses on doing linguistic reconstruction and research inOld Chinese by analyzing the rhyme schemes in theOdes, which show vast differences when read in modernMandarin Chinese.^[21] Although preserving more Old Chinese syllable endings than Mandarin, ModernCantonese andMin Nan are also quite different from the Old Chinese language represented in the Odes.^[42]

C.H. Wang refers to the account ofKing Wu's victory over theShang dynasty in the "Major Court Hymns" as the "Weniad" (a name that parallelsThe Iliad), seeing it as part of a greater narrative discourse in China that extols the virtues ofwén (文 "literature, culture") over more military interests.^[43]

• Legge, James (1871).The She-king, or the Lessons from the States. The Chinese Classics. Vol. 4.Part 1,Part 2. rpt. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press (1960).
• —— (1876).The She king, or The Book of Ancient Poetry(PDF). London: Trübner. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2014-04-12.
• —— (1879).The Shû king. The religious portions of the Shih king. The Hsiâo king. The Sacred Books of China. Vol. 3. Oxford, The Clarendon press.
• Lacharme, P. (1830).Confucii Chi-King sive Liber Carminum. Sumptibus J.G. Cottae. Latin translation.
• Jennings, William (1891).The Shi King: The Old "Poetry Classic" of the Chinese.; rpt. New York: Paragon (1969).
• (in French and Latin)Couvreur, Séraphin (1892).Cheu-king; Texte chinois avec une double traduction en français et en Latin [Shijing; Chinese Text With a Double Translation in French and Latin]. Hokkien: Mission Catholique.
• Granet, Marcel (1929).Fêtes et chansons anciennes de la Chine (in French). Paris.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Translated into English by E. D. Edwards (1932),Festivals and Songs of Ancient China, New York: E.P. Dutton.
• Waley, Arthur (1937).The Book of Songs. London: Allen & Unwin.ISBN 9780802134776. Rpt. New York: Grove Press, 1996, with a Preface by Joseph Allen.ISBN 0802134777.
• Karlgren, Bernhard (1950).The Book of Odes(PDF). Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities. Reprint of
  • Karlgren, Bernhard (1944)."The Book of Odes: Kuo Feng and Siao Ya".Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities.16:171–256.
  • Karlgren, Bernhard (1945)."The Book of Odes: Ta Ya and Sung".Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities.17:65–99.
• Pound, Ezra (1954).The Confucian Odes: The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• Takada, Shinji 高田真治 (1966).Shikyō詩経 (in Japanese). Tokyo: Shūeisha.
• (in Mandarin Chinese) Cheng Junying 程俊英 (1985).Shijing Yizhu 诗经译注[Shijing, Translated and Annotated]. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe and
• (in Mandarin Chinese) Cheng Junying 程俊英 (1991).Shijing Zhuxi 詩經注析[Shijing, Annotation and Analysis]. Zhonghua Publishing House.[1]
• (in Japanese) Mekada, Makoto 目加田誠 (1991).Shikyō 詩経. Tokyo: Kōbansha.
• Vincenzo, Cannata (2021).Il Libro delle Odi: edizione integrale. Milano, Italy: Luni Editrice.

• Chinese classics
• Classical Chinese poetry
• Geese in Chinese poetry
• "Guan ju"
• Chengyu
• Chinese art

• Bilingual Chinese-English searchable edition at Chinese Text Project
• Shi Ji Zhuan from the Chinese Text Initiative, University of Virginia: Chinese text based onZhu Xi's edition; English translation fromJames Legge, with Chinese names updated to pinyin.
• The Book of Odes atWengu zhixin. Chinese text with James Legge andMarcel Granet (partial) translations.
• Legge translation of theBook of Odes at the Internet Sacred Text Archive.
• Shijing and collated commentaries (Harrison Huang's website)Archived 2020-01-16 at theWayback Machine (Chinese text)
• The Book of Songs at Chinese Notes; Chinese and English parallel text with matching dictionary entries.