千字文 (Qiānzìwén) Daily lessons

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千字文 (Qiānzìwén) 1000 characters with Pinyin

 

千字文 (Qiānzìwén) 250 lines with Pinyin

 

千字文 (125 verses & Pinyin & Translation)

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8 Responses to 千字文 (Qiānzìwén) Daily lessons

  1. Curio Serand says:

    千字文 Day 1 : I realized yesterday that I must start more slowly @ 4, maybe 8 characters each day, not 40. So a slower journey, more time…

    天地玄黄,宇宙洪荒

    tiān dì xuán huáng,yǔ zhòu hóng huāng

    [The sky was black and earth yellow; space and time vast, limitless.]

    玄,天也;黄,地之色也;洪,大也;荒,远也;宇宙广大无边。
    [Mysterious, and the heavens; yellow, the color of the land also; flood, big too; shortage, far too; the majority of the boundless universe.]

    Notes:
    玄 here means black, as in玄塞, a foreboding name for the Great Wall. 宇宙 is now a common term for outer space, the cosmos, all creation. 宇 means the space around us, 宙 is time eternal. 洪荒 refers to the fluid, plastic, chaotic condition of the primordial state before the structuring of the world, as used in Chinese in Wu Cheng’eng’s “Chinese Genesis” in the beginning of his famed 16th century novel “Journey to the West”. It is interesting to compare that poetic account to Ovid’s own interpretation of the Greek creation in his Metamorphoses; there are many similarities.

  2. Curio Serand says:

    千字文 Day 2:

    日月盈昃,辰宿列张

    rì yuè yíng zè, chén xiù liè zhāng

    [Sun high or low, moon full or parsed; with stars and lodges spread in place.]

    (太阳有正有斜,月亮有缺有圆;星辰布满在无边的太空中。)
    (The sun is oblique, there is lack of a round moon; the stars covered in the boundless space.)

    Notes: 盈 means full, referring to the moon; 昃 refers to the sun’s inclination. 辰宿 is the sun, moon and stars. 宿 here, a rare literary reading, is commonly pronounced 夙 in modern Chinese. It is the character for the star lodges, or Chinese constellations, 28 of them in ancient Chinese astronomy.

  3. Curio Serand says:

    千字文 Day 3:

    寒来暑往,秋收冬藏

    hán lái shǔ wǎng, qiū shōu dōng cáng’

    [Cold arrives then heat once more; Autumn’s harvest, Winter’s store.]

    (寒暑循环变换,来了又去,去了又来;秋季里忙着收割,冬天里忙着储藏。)

    Notes: The ancestors of the Chinese people were systematically cultivating rice and millet over 4,500 years ago, with a grasp of the seasonal timing of planting and reaping. One site, Tao3河姆渡 in Zhejiang Province has produced evidence of rice cultivation 7,500 years ago, the oldest such record on earth. Chinese farmers very early on used the lunar calendar, known as the agrarian calendar, 農曆, to time their activities, using its 24 periods.

  4. Curio Serand says:

    千字文 Day 4:

    闰余成岁,律吕调阳

    rùn yú chéng suì, lǜ lǚ tiáo yáng

    [Extra days round out the years; scale in tune with sun and spheres.]

    (积累数年的闰余并成一个月,放在闰年里;古人用六律六吕来调节阴阳。)

    Notes: 闰余 refers to the lunar year being about ten days shorter than the time of the a complete journey around the sun. The Chinese added extra months, 闰樂 (or 闰乐?), to compensate, often lengthening the year. The bamboo pitch pipe played 12 notes, six of them high, called 律 and considered Yang force, and six low, known as 吕 and considered to reflect Yin energy. These corresponded to the twelve months of the year. In addition, the wind and soundwaves from the flute could be used for divination according to Yang and Yin, by scattering ashes.

  5. Curio Serand says:

    千字文 Day 5: Review 1

    天地玄黄,宇宙洪荒

    tiān dì xuán huáng, yǔ zhòu hóng huāng

    日月盈昃,辰宿列张

    rì yuè yíng zè, chén xiù liè zhāng

    寒来暑往,秋收冬藏

    hán lái shǔ wǎng, qiū shōu dōng cáng

    闰余成岁,律吕调阳

    rùn yú chéng suì, lǜ lǚ tiáo yáng

    [The sky was black and earth yellow; space and time vast, limitless.]
    [Sun high or low, moon full or parsed; with stars and lodges spread in place.]
    [Cold arrives then heat once more; Autumn’s harvest, Winter’s store.]
    [Extra days round out the years; scale in tune with sun and spheres.]

  6. Curio Serand says:

    千字文 Day 5:

    云腾致雨,露结为霜

    yún téng zhì yǔ, lù jié wéi shuāng

    (Lofty clouds causing rain, dew became frost)

    [Clouds soar up to end in rain; the dew congeals to morning frost.]

    Notes: A very succinct and clear description, for the late 5th century, of the physical processes involved, what meteorologists would now call the behavior of an adiabatic mass lifted into colder air under unstable conditions (high lapse rate, or rate of temperature decrease per unit of height), resulting in faster and faster lifting, further condensation and rain. The night’s dew freezes with morning’s cold. There is also a moralistic Confucianist explanation, regarding the sublimation of energies of the cultivated Junziren.

  7. Curio Serand says:

    千字文 Day 6:

    金生丽水,玉出昆冈

    jīn shēng lí shuǐ, yù chū kūn gāng

    Gold is born in the River Li; jade comes from Kunlun’s vault.

    Notes: The ancient Chinese panned for gold in running streams as prospectors still do. Kunlun probably refers to the Kunlun mountains, where the legendary Jade Pool Yao2chi3 in Tibet, home of the fairies and the Queen Mother of the West, Xi1wang2mu3 of ancient legend.

  8. Curio Serand says:

    千字文 Day 7:

    7

    剑号巨阙,珠称夜光

    (jiàn hào jù què,zhū chēng yè guāng)

    A sword is styled “Excalibur”; a pearl, the “Gleam of Night”.

    Notes: The Chinese “Excalibur”, 剑号, was the legendary jade sword of Gou3剑, (?-465BC), the king of Yue4 during the Spring and Autumn period, BC 770-476. According to one legend, it was given by the Mystery Girl, xuan2nv3, an unbeatable swordswoman and transformation of the Queen Mother of the West. He used it to avenge defeat and conquer his arch rival, Fu1Cha4, the king of Wu2. It has long referred to any jade sword, etc. The “Gleam of Night” or 夜光 was a famed legendary pearl, once, according to superstition, the eye of a whale, also referred to as 夜ming2珠.

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