王荣华,1998—2002年任中国驻冰岛大使,现任国际儒学联合会顾问、外交笔会理事、济南大学客座教授、国际中西哲学比较研究学会会员。著有英文作品The Story of China Studies,The Rooster Crows,Chinese Literature in 2019,A Modern Day Wonder—The Story of Poverty Alleviation in China,译注作品《声律启蒙》《三字经》《千字文》《千家诗》,编译作品《百家姓》,以及中文作品《四方步,六人行——国学大师的故事》《诗的国度——冰岛诗歌选》等。
The Verse of One Thousand Characters is the oldest enlightenment textbook in China? It came into being earlier than the other enlightenment textbooks such as The Three?Character a Line Chant and Family Names in Hundreds. It has been used as a primer to teach children characters?We know for sure who the poet was and when it was composed?We don?t have definite knowledge of who the authors were of the Three and the Hundred and when they were written?Some people refer to it as “One Thousand Character Classic”?Even though it has been in existence for over 15 centuries and its readership is the biggest, it is not proper to regard it as a “classic”?
The reasons for the author to give a paraphrase of the Verse are the following: firstly, it tells us what the most important one thousand characters are for the Chinese people? The Verse was intended to teach children how to write in the past 15 centuries? The one thousand characters were chosen by Yin Tieshi (殷铁石) , a literary assistant in the imperial court of the Southern Dynasty, on orders of Emperor Wu of Liang (梁武帝, 464549), for children of the royal family to learn?
笔者之所以要译注这本书,原因如下:第一,它告诉我们中国人首先要认识的最重要的一千个字有哪些。在过去的15个世纪里,这本书主要用来教孩子们认字。这些字最初是由南朝皇宫里的文学侍从殷铁石,按照梁武帝(464?D549)的旨意,为了教皇家儿童认字找出来的。
However, these characters were not related to each other and it was difficult for children to remember? The Emperor then asked Zhou Xingsi (周兴嗣) to piece these characters together? Zhou was at that time a middle ranking officer among the retinue of advisors on horse?backs when the emperor was on a tour? It took Zhou only one night to render the one thousand characters into a four?character?a?line verse?The next day, when the Emperor read it, he was amazingly surprised and ordered to have it printed? Since then,the Verse has been on the lips of Chinese peop