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This one's pretty cool, guys. Today, we're going to take look at a short text that's almost 2000 years old. This passage comes from the 《山海经》[pinyin]shan1 hai3 jing1[/pinyin], or <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Mountains_and_Seas">The Classic of Mountains and Seas</a></em>, an ancient compendium of mythological beasts that was formalized during the Han Dynasty - that's around the same time as the Roman Empire. 

The《山海经》is kind of a zoologist's manual of magical creatures: it describes where they live, what they look like, what they eat, and sometimes, how they came to exist. This particular passage is the origin story of the famous 精卫 [pinyin]jing1 wei4[/pinyin], a mystic bird that spends its time trying to fill up the ocean (填海) with sticks and pebbles. 

But 精卫填海 is not just a story from antiquity, it has also become an idiom in modern times. Filling up the sea with pebbles is, obviously, a futile, pointless, and never-ending job, which is exactly what this phrase now describes. In other words, the 精卫 is the Chinese equivalent of Sisyphus from Greek mythology, the king cursed by Zeus to roll a bolder up a hill for all eternity, and "精卫填海" describes a similarly Sisyphean task. But sometimes it can have a positive mean: dogged determination in the face of overwhelming odds. 

<h4>The language</h4>
Books written prior to around 1920 are mostly written in classical Chinese, which is kind of like Shakespearean English. Because this language can be difficult even for native speakers, classic texts are often translated into modern Chinese. The version of 《精卫填海》 that we're going to read today is the modern Chinese translation of the classical Chinese. 

There are a few proper names of people and places, which I've highlighted in the Chinese text. One god mentioned in passing here is 炎帝 [pinyin]Yan2 di4[/pinyin], the Fire Emperor, a semi-mythical figure from ancient history.

One point of grammatical order: this passages uses a less well-known definition of the character 为. In this case, 为 means "become" or "into", so the phrase 化为 mean "transform into".

If you enjoy this story, and want more mythology, you can pick up either the <a href="https://amzn.to/3blphOC" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Chinese version</a> or the <a href="https://amzn.to/2XYAxwm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">English version</a> of the 《山海经》on Amazon.
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<h4>《精卫填海》</h4>
<span class="highlightText">发鸠山</span>，山上长了很多柘树。有一种鸟，它的形状像乌鸦，头知部有花纹，白色的嘴，红色的脚，名叫<span class="highlightText">精卫</span>，它的叫声像在呼唤自己的名字。传说这种鸟是<span class="highlightText">炎帝</span>小女儿的化身，名叫<span class="highlightText">女娃</span>道。有一次，<span class="highlightText">女娃</span>去东海游泳，溺水身亡，再也没有回来，所以化为精卫版鸟。经常口衔西山上的树枝和石块，用来填塞东海。<span class="highlightText">浊漳河</span>就发源于<span class="highlightText">发鸠山</span>，向东流去，引入<span class="highlightText">黄河</span>。

<h6>Buy it on Amazon:</h6>
<a href="https://amzn.to/3blphOC" target="blank" class="inline-link-button" rel="noopener noreferrer">In Chinese</a><br />
<a href="https://amzn.to/2XYAxwm" target="blank" class="inline-link-button" rel="noopener noreferrer">In English</a><br />
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[hide-this-part morelink="Show English translation"]
Fajiu Mountain - upon the mountain grew many mulberry trees. There is a kind of bird there, whose shape is like a raven, with a patterned head, a white beak, and red feet, which is called the Jingwei, and its name sounds like its cry. According to legend, this bird is transformed daughter of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Emperor">Yan Emperor</a>, her name was Nvwa. Once, Nvwa went swimming in the Eastern Sea, where she drowned and died, never to return, so she transformed into the Jingwei. [The Jingwei] often carries sticks and stones from the Western mountains in its mouth, and tries to fill up the Eastern Sea. The Zhuozhang River originate from Fajiu Mountain，and flow east, into the Yellow River.
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