千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 41

女慕貞潔

nǚ mù zhēn jié

"women, cherish your chastity and probity"

Another way of translating this is "women should cherish their chastity and probity," but that doesn't change the fact that here we have another edict of control. Throughout Chinese history, most women (or girls, since the Thousand Character Classic was presumably most often read by children) were not in a position to read this line, so it's primarily meant for boys. (Gotta teach 'em early who stands where in society.) When read alongside the next line, the sexism of this one is even more appalling.

貞潔 these days usually just means "chastity," but I opted for a longer description, because the "chastity and probity" referred to here were often expected of widows, to the degree that the virtuous widow became a cult figure of sorts in later dynasties. I'd like to know how much of this was just an elite thing, or whether it was widespread throughout society.

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千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 40

豈敢毀傷

qǐ gǎn huǐ shāng

"How could one dare to harm it?"

"How dare you do as you see fit with your body? Your parents gave you that flesh! You have to look after it, or you'll be a disgrace to your family." - Confucian strawman, c. 500 CE

My days of heedless self-destruction are pretty much over, and I've come to appreciate the value of taking care of oneself ("take refuge in clean living," as Grails might say, though my living ain't exactly fully clean), but I still think folks have a right to bodily autonomy. This autonomy can manifest in some incredibly selfish or misguided ways that I don't agree with at all—anti-vaxxer bullshit, for example—but when the alternative is letting tradition, gerontocracy, and hollow moralizing dictate terms, I gotta side with allowing people do what they want with their future corpses. Of course, it's not that simple: human beings, while capable of rational behavior that benefits self and other, are not actually all that rational, and make decisions about themselves based on all kinds of faulty premises. Those decisions, regardless of the logic behind them, impact others, and expressions of autonomy (e.g., the aforementioned anti-vax nonsense) wind up fucking over a lot of people.

I'd be more amenable to Confucian arguments about self-care if they weren't oriented towards maintaining a conservative, patriarchal social order. I'm about to start delving into other Chinese philosophical schools, so I hope to encounter something that provides an ethical framework as devoid of supernatural elements as Confucianism, but without the tired-ass hierarchy.

This line is the one I meant when, in the post on line 37, I said the 孝經 Classic of Filial Piety would turn up again.

豈 is a great character that marks a statement as not only rhetorical, but implies that it couldn't be otherwise at all. Whenever I see the character, I can't help but see two distinct elements, 山 and 豆: a mountain atop a bean, or maybe a hill of beans, neither of which is a meaningful reading at all. And that, 看倌, is why I am not a linguist or paleographer, but just some dude who's into classical Chinese.

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千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 39

恭惟鞠養

gōng wei jū yǎng

"respect and be considerate of what was raised and nurtured"

In the last post I remarked on reading the Thousand Character Classic as poetry, not because it's a poem per se, but because it's not written in standard prose. It's quite condensed, and pretty much devoid of particles and other grammatical markers that might otherwise help the reader figure out what it's getting at. In a way, it's less of a hassle (I wouldn't say easier, that's for sure), since you don't need to parse lines the same way. Of course, since this is a text designed to teach people how to read 1,000 discrete characters, it wouldn't make sense to include a bunch of duplicate characters—there may be a narrative to parts of the 千字文, but it's not what matters.

This line continues the theme of taking care of oneself out of filial piety: your parents raised you and took care of you, so the right thing to do is to treat your body as a precious gift. Not the worst idea in principle, but it can certainly serve to reinforce the kind of unyielding obedience that I find unappealing.


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千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 38

四大五常

sì dà wǔ cháng

"four greats and five constants"


Chinese cosmology typically holds that there are five elements: 水，土，金，木，火 water, earth, metal, wood, and fire. Calling them "elements" is misleading, though, as they're thought of more as processes or phases, not building blocks of the physical universe. The 四大 Four Greats referred to in this line of the Thousand Character Classic are the four elements we typically think of when we hear the term: water, earth, fire, and air. The presence of this concept in China is most likely due the influence of Buddhism.

The 五常 Five Constants can refer to the primary five Confucian virtues: 仁，義，禮，智，信 benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and sincerity, but also the Five Phases (五行) mentioned above. This double reading is undoubtedly intentional, but the line as a whole makes me wonder why there's a reference to an imported cosmological notion in the first place.

Looking back to the previous line, we can read it in conjunction with this one: "Presumably, this body and hair [exists] among the Four Great Elements and Five Constant Virtues [or Five Phases]." Paar pulls that "exists" seemingly out of thin air, but it makes the lines work together. If you were to look at the lines as part of a poem, you could probably drop the connecting phrase in English, but it's hard to argue that it doesn't make it easier to read.


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千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 37

蓋此身髮

gài cǐ shēn fà

"Presumably, this body and hair"

This one is cryptic, but thankfully, Francis Paar (the editor of the edition of the 千字文 that I'm consulting) notes that this is a reference to a line from the 孝經 Classic of Filial Piety: 身體髪膚受之父母不敢毀傷 "Body, hair, and skin were received from our father and mother, and we dare not destroy or harm them." This is, I assume, one reason that long hair was prevalent in China for centuries, a style I approve of since I'm a longhair myself, even if the Confucian rationale leaves me cold. This passage from the 孝經 shows up again a few lines later.

蓋 is a strange particle that Kroll says "on the one hand indicates a measure of uncertainty and on the other expresses a measure of confidence in the statement," which is why I followed his lead and used "presumably" in my translation.

The following few lines all work together to form a longer statement, so this one isn't just weird and isolated.


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千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 36

 賴及萬方

lài jí wàn fāng

"Benefits reached all regions"

Another pretty obvious one here: the rulers of old have quite a reach. 萬 means "ten thousand" and is often used to signify a large number of things, hence "all" here.

My copy of the 千字文 says that 賴 is used as an equivalent to 利, which can mean "advantage" or "profit," but Kroll's dictionary has a similar meaning attached to 賴 and doesn't mark it as a substitute character.

The next line gets a little more interesting and ties into what follows it, and both will require more effort than this entry, so I'll write those up soon and post them.


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千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 35

化被草木 

huā bèi cǎo mù

"the transformations extended to grasses and trees"

What transformations? Who or what wrought them?

Turns out the narrative regarding those old sage-kings that started a while back has simply kept going after all, and there wasn't just a shift in focus. Those legendary rulers were apparently so good at what they did (or didn't do, as the case may be, since 無為 seems to be their thing) that not just humans but grasses and trees, singing birds and horses in the fields, were all brought around to their way of thinking. Remarkable indeed!

被 is a marker of the passive voice in modern Chinese, and can be used the same in classical Chinese under certain circumstances, but here it's used as "reach" or "extend to."

草木 "Grasses and trees" being subject to the influence of kings reminded me of the Mahayana Buddhist doctrine of 本覺, or "original enlightenment," which holds that not only sentient beings, but all things, including inanimate objects like grasses and trees (which aren't inanimate at all, but whatever) inherently possess and express Buddha-nature. And speaking of Buddhism, when I was looking up various uses of 化, I ran across a reference to 化胡, the legend that Laozi, the mythical founder of Daoism, went to India to convert "barbarians" to Daoism, and either converted the Buddha or became the Buddha.  Pretty wild, man, not least because it seems pretty non-Daoist to proselytize.

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千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 34

白駒食場

bái jū shí cháng

"the white colt grazing in the field"

There's no reason for me not to post several of these Thousand Character Classic notes a week, at least when they're this basic. The only thing I have to say about this line is that I originally translated it as "the white colt eating in the field" since 食 means "to eat." But my copy of the 千字文 uses "graze," which makes sense, since that's what horses do. I don't think I've ever seen one just eat a bunch of hay and call it quits until it's hungry again.

Anyway, I'm gonna write up the next line right now.


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史大偉