Wang Xizhi (王羲之): Jī Xuě Níng Hán Tiē 《積雪凝寒帖》


 index  |  publikációk  |  facebook oldalunk 

Shi Qi Tie (十七帖) (The Seventeenth) is made up of twenty nine letters or short notes written by Wang Xizhi (王羲之, 303–361) to his friends, mainly to Zhou Fu (周撫, ?-365), chief of Yizhou prefecture (益州刺史). It was believed that those letters were written over a period of 14 years from the 3rd Year of Yonghe (永和 -> 347) to the 5th Year of Sheng Ping (升平 -> 361). The originals were lost long ago. The calligraphy had been inscribed onto stone but only a few ink rubbings survived today and they are highly precious.

shufa.hu

The beginning of Shi qi tie (十七帖)

The two characters that begin this work are Shi qi 十七. Jī Xuě Níng Hán Tiē (積雪凝寒帖) starts in the third last row.
Shanghai Library（上海图书馆藏）Sung Dynasty rubbing (宋拓本)

Each piece of letter is identified by the first few words or the key words of the text. Shi Qi (十七) were the two characters that begin the first piece. The characters forms are somewhat reminiscent of zhang cao (章草), the older cursive script. Most of the words are not joined. However the brushstrokes are gentle, graceful but vibrant. This style of calligraphy has become the model of latter-day cursive scripts (jin cao 今草).

I am particularly interested in the 5th piece of Shi Qi Tie – Ji Xue Ning Han Tie (積雪凝寒帖). It was related to snowfall and sending the author’s best regards to his friend. Scholars believe that the recipient of this letter was Zhou Fu (周撫, ?-365). It was generally believed that Wang wrote this letter in 351 CE when Wang was 49 years old. Some scholars suspected that this letter was written in 360, when Wang was 58 years old, one year before he died.

Translation

The first three rows of Jī Xuě Níng Hán Tiē (積雪凝寒帖) in Shi Qi Tie (Ueno version) (上野本) Kyoto National Museum (京都国立博物館)

計與足下別廿六年， 於今雖時書問, 不解闊懷。

分別二十六年了。雖然常有書信往來，還是難解久別懷念之情。

Counting back I have not seen you for 26 years. While we write to each other from time to time, I still miss you very much.

省足下先後二書， 但增嘆慨。

讀到先後兩封信，更覺慨歎感傷。

After reading your two recent letters, I feel even more sorrowful.

頃積雪凝寒，五十年中所無。

剛積了厚雪，空氣凝寒。五十年没有這麽冷過。

Snow has thickly accumulated. (There had been heavy snowfall.) The weather is extremely cold. It has not been that cold for the last 50 years.

The character ‘頃’ may mean ‘a short period of time 短時間’ or ‘recently’. Some scholars think that ‘頃’ means the location of the author of the letter -Yuè (越中).

想頃如常, 冀來夏秋間, 或復得足下問耳。

你還是老樣子吧，明年夏秋間，或者還會有你的信息。

I hope you are keeping well. I expect to hear from you sometime next Summer and Autumn.

The character ‘qǐng’ (頃) may mean the location of the recipient of the letter – Shǔ (蜀中), now Sichuan (四川).

比者悠悠 ，如何可言。

時間這樣悠久漫長, 我的憂思能以言說。

Time flows on steadily. I do not know what to say about my gloomy feelings.