导读

通行文本为二百五十个四字句，通常两句合读为一联，本站的全文页便按一百二十五联安排对照阅读。它的难处不只是挑出一千个字，还在于把分散的字组织成可以诵读、记忆的篇章。

Its received text has 250 four-character lines, usually read in pairs; this site presents the complete work as 125 aligned couplets. The feat was not merely selecting a thousand characters, but arranging them into a memorable, recitable sequence.

《梁书·周兴嗣传》记载，梁武帝曾命周兴嗣将王羲之书迹中的一千个字“次韵”为文；《隋书·经籍志》也著录周兴嗣所撰《千字文》一卷。这两条记录足以说明作品与梁代宫廷、周兴嗣的关系，却没有交代具体的写作日数。后来流传的“一夜成文、须发尽白”很有故事性，宜作为后世传说阅读，不宜当作《梁书》已经证实的事实。

The biography of Zhou Xingsi in the Book of Liang says that the Liang emperor asked him to arrange a thousand characters taken from Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy into a rhymed composition. The bibliographical treatise of the Book of Sui records a one-juan Thousand Character Classic attributed to Zhou. These records connect the work with Zhou and the Liang court, but do not say that he finished it overnight. The familiar tale that his hair turned white while doing so belongs to later storytelling, not to the cited passage of the Book of Liang.

开篇的天地、日月和四时很宏阔，接着出现物产、历史人物、治国与修身，也写宫室、饮食和居处。这样的铺排使读者从可见的自然进入典故密集的社会世界。不过，它不是一部按现代学科编排的百科全书：有些句子是在陈述古人的宇宙观，有些承接礼教秩序，还有些借典故压缩了很长的故事。读到不熟悉的人名或制度，先弄清指涉，再谈它今天是否仍然成立，比把所有句子当作现成格言更可靠。

The opening moves on a grand scale through heaven, earth, the sun, moon, and seasons. It then turns to things people grow and make, historical figures, government, self-cultivation, dwellings, and food. This progression carries a reader from the visible world into a society dense with allusions. It is not an encyclopedia arranged by modern disciplines. Some lines express an ancient cosmology, some convey the moral hierarchy of their time, and others compress a longer story into eight characters. Identify the reference first; only then decide what, if anything, still speaks to the present.

《千字文》后来长期用于识字启蒙：四字成句、两句成联，读起来有节奏，记忆方便。但它并不等于今天为儿童写的浅白读物；许多典故和典章需要注释。它又是书法家反复书写的共同文本。字序固定，正、草、隶等不同写法便容易对看。明代文彭的隶书《千字文》仍可见于现代博物馆的书法研究与展陈：同一篇文字，在另一种笔法和版式中获得新的观看方式。读文与看字，是这部作品相伴而行的两条传统。

The work became a long-lived primer: four-character lines and paired rhymes make it easier to recite and remember. Yet it is not a simple children’s book in the modern sense; many allusions and institutions require explanation. It also became a shared text for calligraphers. A fixed sequence of characters lets viewers compare how different scripts and hands solve the same task. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has discussed Wen Peng’s sixteenth-century clerical-script Thousand Character Classic as an example of innovation through an inherited text. Reading the words and looking at their written forms are two intertwined traditions.

《千字文》流传久、用途广，不存在一份今天可以直接拿来代表所有时代的“唯一原本”。《隋书·经籍志》在著录周兴嗣本之外，也保存早期注本的线索；后世又有注释本、写本、刻本和书法临本。书格所介绍的《新刊大字校正释文三注故事》，便把《千字文》与其他蒙学文字合刊，并附注解。本站全文采用通行简体文本作阅读底稿，参照另外两种公开电子文本校对；遇到“鸣凤在竹／鸣凤在树”等异文，保留记录，不把不同底本的字任意拼成一个所谓定本。简繁转换也可能合并本来不同的字形，因此不能只看简体页面来断言“千字绝无重复”。

The work circulated for so long, and in so many settings, that no single modern file can stand for every historical witness. The Book of Sui records early commentary alongside Zhou’s text; later readers encountered annotated editions, manuscripts, printed books, and calligraphic copies. One edition described by Shuge, the Annotated Stories with Corrected Large-Character Text, prints the Thousand Character Classic with notes alongside other primers. This site uses a common simplified text as its reading base and checks it against two other open electronic texts. Variants such as ‘鸣凤在竹’ and ‘鸣凤在树’ are recorded rather than blended into a fabricated definitive text. Simplification can also merge formerly distinct character forms, so a simplified display alone cannot establish whether every historical graph was unique.

不妨先读前几联，听它如何从天地、四时过渡到人的生活；再按每联八字向后读，遇到不懂的典故就停下来查一查。本站把原文、拼音、现代汉语解释和英语译文逐联对照，方便在原句和解释之间来回核对。读到“孝当竭力，忠则尽命”一类句子，还要记得它属于古代等级社会的伦理表达，并非给今天的人提出不加条件的牺牲要求。把《千字文》当作一扇观察历史语言与观念的窗，比把它当作一套必须照做的生活守则，更能读出它的价值。

Begin with the opening couplets and notice how the scale narrows from the cosmos and seasons toward ordinary life. Then proceed eight characters at a time, pausing when an allusion needs explanation. This site aligns the original, pinyin, modern Chinese explanation, and English rendering couplet by couplet so readers can test each interpretation against the line itself. When the text urges complete devotion to parents or ruler, remember that this is an ethical expression from a hierarchical society, not an unconditional demand for sacrifice today. The Classic is most rewarding as a window into historical language and values, not as a rulebook to obey without question.