千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 50

詩贊羔羊

shī zàn gāo yáng

"The Classic of Poetry praises lambs"


Lambs are cute, sure, but Paar notes that this is a reference to the following lines from the Classic of Poetry (AKA the Book of Odes):

羔羊之皮、素絲五緎。
委蛇委蛇、自公退食。

"The skins of lambs and sheep, their five seams white;
Unhurried, they withdraw from public to dine."

This is still somewhat unhelpful, but Paar explains that the lambskins in question are lambskin clothes worn by officials, and the white thereof signifies their spotless character. Thrilling stuff, huh?

微臣
史大偉

 

千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 49

 墨悲絲染

mò bēi sī rǎn

"Mozi was saddened by dyed silk"


墨子 Mozi is one of China's philosophical heavyweights, though his ideas (which I'm not all that familiar with, sadly, though I did recently get a Chinese-language book on Mohist thought that will inevitably take me forever to read) were ultimately overshadowed by Confucianism.

It's safe to say that Mozi wasn't literally upset by the sight of dyed silk. Paar describes it as Mozi being "reminded of how a good man could be corrupted in the company of evil associates." 

On an unrelated note, while these four characters are individually quite pleasing to the eye, I especially like the appearance of the line as a whole, mainly due to how the upper and lower elements of each character fall into place.

微臣
史大偉

千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 48

器欲難量

qì yù nán liáng 

"seek to be immeasurably capable"

This one threw me off from the get-go, since I know 器 as "tool" or "instrument." Turns out it also means "capacity" or "capability," which stems from another use of the character as "vessel"—i.e., something capable of holding things.

What I translated as "immeasurably capable" is actually "hard to measure." Same difference, I reckon.

微臣
史大偉

千字文 / The Thousand Character Classic, part 47

 信使可複

xìn shǐ kě fù

"make pledges that can be kept"

 

信 has a number of meanings, most of them involving trust, faithfulness, etc. You can see it in the character's two components: a man 人 (which often takes the form 亻 when used as a component) standing by his word 言. That assessment, which is bit too gimmicky for me most of the time, at least works here without being too much of a stretch.

In modern Mandarin, 信 most commonly means "letter," as in those things few people write to one another anymore. I, however, am a letter-writer, so if you're interested in handwritten correspondence, send me an email.

複 here means "to repeat," which makes sense but sounds weird in English in this context.

微臣
史大偉