Three-Character Classic st.59-62, attrib. Wang Yinglin

[lnhammer]

59.
Twenty times, rule passed
For three full centuries.
The Liang extinguished it
And thus the state was changed.

二十传
三百载
梁灭之
国乃改

60.
The Liang and Tang and Jin
Plus Han and also Zhou
Are the Five Dynasties—
Each one had its causes.

梁唐晋
及汉周
称五代
皆有由

61.
Then blazing Song rose up,
Received Zhou’s abdication.
Eighteen times, rule passed
Till South by North was flooded.

炎宋兴
受周禅
十八传
南北混

62.
All that’s in seventeen
Dynastic histories,
Showing good rule and chaos—
Know each rise and fall.

十七史
全在兹
载治乱
知兴衰

• 59: The Later Liang (907-923) was the first declared successor of Tang in the Five Dynasties & Ten Kingdoms Period (907-979). The Ten Kingdoms are also skipped in this account—as is Wu Zetian’s interruption of the Tang succession, despite the parallels with Wang Mang. (sings 🎵 we don’t talk about Zetian 🎵) • 60: The Five Dynasties are the Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Zhou. In the context of st.62, the “causes” are why they rose and fell. • 61: The Later Zhou state was usurped by the founder of the Song Dynasty in 960. It’s “blazing” because if you identify the succession of the Five Dynasties with the succession of the Five Phases (see st.17), Song returns the cycle to Fire. This account stops with the Southern Song’s conquest by Mongol forces from the north because that’s when this was written. (Ming, Qing, and Republican Era editions of this poem added stanzas taking the account up to their present.) The word I render as “flooded” also has the sense of “turbulence” and “(primal) chaos.” • 62: Finally we return to discussing the syllabus.

---L.

Comments

[sartorias]

That was really interesting!

[lnhammer]

Lots of omissions ... admittedly, it's a speedrun through 3000 years, but still