The size question hadn't occurred to me, I'm embarrassed to say. The Erya glosses 豬 as "piglet" (or at least that's what the Guangyun says - 爾雅曰豕子) but I don't see much evidence of it being anything other than "pig" by this time, and the early Qing 分韻撮要 just says "pig" (豕也).
Depending on the dog being used for comparison, an ancient pig wouldn't necessarily be so much bigger (and could have been smaller if we're talking mastiff like hounds). Modern pigs have been bred to be massive.
Amen. If you're not going to translate the poem as a poem, then a gloss would be fine.
What's going on with the relative sizes of animals? I would have thought pigs were bigger than dogs, or does 猪 specifically refer to a piglet?
Hell yeah - I knew you'd be onboard!
The size question hadn't occurred to me, I'm embarrassed to say. The Erya glosses 豬 as "piglet" (or at least that's what the Guangyun says - 爾雅曰豕子) but I don't see much evidence of it being anything other than "pig" by this time, and the early Qing 分韻撮要 just says "pig" (豕也).
Depending on the dog being used for comparison, an ancient pig wouldn't necessarily be so much bigger (and could have been smaller if we're talking mastiff like hounds). Modern pigs have been bred to be massive.
I found it impossible to imagine any dog other than Hobbes in the role - larger than a pot-bellied pig and life.
That dog poem. 嘎嘎嘎