[updated September 2022]
Local Dialects (Casual Talk): Five Poems: No. 3
赠 君 一 法 决 狐 疑
不 用 钻 龟 与 祝 蓍。
诗 玉 要 烧 三 日 满
辨 材 须 待 七 年 期。
周 公 恐 惧 流 言 后
王 莽 谦 恭 未 篡 时。
向 使 当 初 身 便 死
一 生 真 伪 复 谁 知？
Fang Yan: Wu Shou
Zeng jun yi fa jue hu yi
Bu yong zuan gui yu zhu si.
Shi yu yao shao san ri man
Bian cai xu dai qi nian qi.
Zhou gong kong ju liu yan hou
Wang mang qian gong wei cuan shi.
Xiang shi dang chu shen bian si
Yi sheng zhen wei fu shei zhi?
Casual Talk: Five Poems: No. 3
Send this as a gift to you, about one way to dispel doubts and misgivings
Do not use the divinations of cracked turtle shells and yarrow sticks.
For three days one must set fire to rocks to see if they are jade or not
Must wait seven years to differentiate between elm and camphor trees.
Only after Zhou Gong walked away into the mountains as his nephew’s regent was it discovered that he was good and virtuous
Wang Mang seemed modest and polite, but he actually tried to be a usurper.
When we die, all of this will become manifest
In one’s life who knows what is true and what is false?
Notes:
Zhou Gong: (r. 1042-1035 BC) Known as the Duke of Zhou, he was famous by being connected to the Yi Jing (I Ching) (Book of Changes), the Book of Songs (Poetry), and with yayue music.
Yayue music: A form of classical music and dance performed in royal courts and Confucian temples. Considered refined and with good taste necessary for the temple rituals, as well as solemn and ceremonial, slow and stately enough for an emperor and his court.
Wang Mang: (45 BC-23 AD) (r. 9-23 AD) Han official who seized the imperial throne to start the short-lived Xin Dynasty which separated the Western from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.