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Glancing through chapter 878 of Complete Tang Poems, devoted to 谣 (yáo), popular rhymes, I noticed some are called 童谣 (tóngyáo), literally “children’s rhymes,” modern meaning “nursery rhymes.” So I’m, like, duh Imma sample them —ancient lullabies FTW!
Well, not so much. This was an object lesson in language drift and being careful with idioms—these aren’t songs from the nursery but chants from the playground.
Which, yes, were collected and preserved. There’s a long tradition of collecting folksongs: scholar-officials were interested because they believed, following Confucius, folksongs measured the mood of the common people and so the health of the realm. The Han Dynasty had an imperial department devoted to collecting adult folksongs, in the style that came to be called yuefu (“music bureau”) after the department. I didn’t figure out these were more of the same till I’d already picked four at random and started translating them.
These all have a historical moment attached by the editors or their sources, so I’ll put them in chronological order.
Children’s Rhyme of 682
Fresh rice did not go in the basket,
Fresh wheat did not go on the floor—
And when the Eighth and Ninth Months came
The dog barked in the empty yard.
( There’s three more where that came from, though only one’s about death )
That was interesting, and I hope somewhere out there social historians are mining this stuff. But honestly, despite my interest in schoolyard lore (glances at his collection of Opie) this is a bit far out of my wheelhouse. Especially when there’s poems by ghosts, specters, fairies, and other supernaturals to work on, not to mention courtesans. And, yanno, the rest of 3TP.
---L.
Index of Chinese translations
Subject quote from Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Pink Floyd.
Well, not so much. This was an object lesson in language drift and being careful with idioms—these aren’t songs from the nursery but chants from the playground.
Which, yes, were collected and preserved. There’s a long tradition of collecting folksongs: scholar-officials were interested because they believed, following Confucius, folksongs measured the mood of the common people and so the health of the realm. The Han Dynasty had an imperial department devoted to collecting adult folksongs, in the style that came to be called yuefu (“music bureau”) after the department. I didn’t figure out these were more of the same till I’d already picked four at random and started translating them.
These all have a historical moment attached by the editors or their sources, so I’ll put them in chronological order.
Children’s Rhyme of 682
In the Seventh Month of 682, there was heavy rainfall in Luoyang and many people starved to death. At this time, a children’s rhyme went:
Fresh rice did not go in the basket,
Fresh wheat did not go on the floor—
And when the Eighth and Ninth Months came
The dog barked in the empty yard.
( There’s three more where that came from, though only one’s about death )
That was interesting, and I hope somewhere out there social historians are mining this stuff. But honestly, despite my interest in schoolyard lore (glances at his collection of Opie) this is a bit far out of my wheelhouse. Especially when there’s poems by ghosts, specters, fairies, and other supernaturals to work on, not to mention courtesans. And, yanno, the rest of 3TP.
---L.
Index of Chinese translations
Subject quote from Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Pink Floyd.