Guan ju (simplified Chinese: 关雎; traditional Chinese: 關雎; pinyin: Guān jū; Wade–Giles: Kuan1 chü1: "Guan cry the ospreys") is a poem from the ancient anthology Shi Jing (Classic of Poetry), and is one of the best known poems in Chinese literature. It has been dated to the seventh century BCE, making it also one of China's oldest poems. The title of the poem comes from its first line (Guan Guan ju jiu), which evokes a scene of ospreys calling on a river islet. Fundamentally the poem is about finding a good and fair maiden as a match for a young noble.
Guan ju boasts a long tradition of commentaries. Traditional Chinese commentators, represented by the "Three Schools" and the Mao School, hold that the poem contains a moral pertinent to the relationship between genders. However, modern commentators, and some Western sinologists, offers different interpretation.
The poem has been commonly alluded to in later Chinese literature and sometimes even in everyday speech.
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