What is this poem???

[Long Zhiren]

Can anyone tell me what this poem is for? Does it relate to a genealogy? What is it? How can I learn more about it? Thanks.

大夢鴻林仲,

祖敦世堯舜，

楚漢一致永，

遠孝順久長

正直培綱紀,

均安禮義和,

人文恒蔚起,

發達定聯科。

[skylee]

Just a wild guess. It looks like something from a 族譜 for the order of names of people of a clan.

[Long Zhiren]

Thanks.

Yes. It is most certainly a 族譜.

But where do these come from and how can I study them more? How do these things work?

How would we know if the 前二十字 are supposed to be five lines of four characters or four lines of five characters?

Is there a significance of these going left to right and top down, instead of top to bottom and right to left?

Thanks again.

[chueggroll]

well here is the translation for it, some of it might be wrong:

Hong Lin Zhong big dream

Zudui World Yao and Shun

Chu-Han Yong-line

Long-distant family

Integrity training and discipline

Both the propriety and

Humanities constant Weiqi

Developed for the Division

[Long Zhiren]

Thanks but no thanks for the translation.

I can read it. And it's nowhere close to what you provided.

The first trick, is that the first stanza of twenty characters might have to have been five lines of four characters, not four lines of five.

I'm going to start doing some studying of these things, starting with some recommended readings mentioned in some about.com and wikipedia articles. There's a few more examples of these in those English language articles.

I'm wondering a few things. Stay tuned unless you have the answers for these already. I find this fascinating.

(1) If the Qing Dynasty lasted any longer, would the next set of characters have been three lines of six characters?

(2) Did these sets of stanzas correspond mainly to dynasty spans? Was a new set supposed to be generated with each break of a branch? Brace yourself. I may continue this topic under Chinese History. How common was it for entire families/clans to move from one province to another with the beginning of each dynasty?

(3) What happened with the collapse of the Qing Dynasty? Was it popular to change one's name? to what extent? Why?

(4) How does a character in each line correlate to the names of everybody in a single generation?

(5) Does anyone still use these? To what extent do/did Koreans use these systems?

It would be a great help to find someone who's quite familiar with genealogies. I get the sense that it is no longer common knowledge, if it ever was.

(6) How does one determine what comes next?

(7) What do others of Chinese descent, in this forum, know about their genealogy name systems and the histories/uses of them?

[Oliver_CL]

大夢鴻林仲,

祖敦世堯舜，

楚漢一致永，

遠孝順久長

正直培綱紀,

均安禮義和,

人文恒蔚起,

發達定聯科。

yeah, Long zhiren, as what I guess and what you know, it's a 族譜. and this 族譜 is written in a format of a chinese antique poem. 族譜 is not rare in china, my family just have one. But why some 族谱 were written in format of poem, while others not?? Personally, I think if the 族谱 was very long, it usually was written like poem, but if the 族谱is very short, such as mine, 继启光明, it only four characters, and do you think it is necessary to be written like poem?? it's unnecessary definitely!! Long 族谱 which was written like poem is looks more wonderful and concise than that wasn't. So I think the some inventors of 族谱 can even cut off or add one or more characters to fit the five characters in each of the four or eight lines. And why there must be five characters each line? it's just a format of poem. You maybe saw some chinese poems with seven characters each line before, it is another format of poem.

I will show an example to explain the usage of 族谱.

my 族谱 is 继启光明, notice 继 is the first character, my grandfather is named 陈继兵, and my father is named 陈启文, his brothers called 陈启武，陈启双，陈启全, my name is 陈光雷, and my brothers' and sisters' name are 陈光哲，陈光学，陈光阳，陈光慧, and I think my kids' name will be initialled with 陈明X(I have not one yet). Do you notice the characters amid in each name? You can put them together and make them like 继启光明. What? you mean my grandson's name? Certainly it will be return to 继 and continuously circulate. My family is a small family, so we use short 族谱.

do you know that inventors of 族谱 usually use characters that they thought were lucky in 族谱, but after their assembling all the characters to make a poem, you will see nothing in the poem, I mean the poem is barely significant. So it's not necessary for you to make out the meaning of the poem. There's really nothing.

(1) If the Qing Dynasty lasted any longer, would the next set of characters have been three lines of six characters?

There will never be poem with lines of six characters or poem of three lines, it's nothing with the years the Qing Dynasty lasted. With the literary view, chinese poets like even, not odd lines, you can write four lines, or eight lines. but not 1,3,5,7 lines. As for the characters in lines, they perfer to use odd characters, and define that at the end to use only 5 or 7 characters each line. And the poets decided use 4 or 8 lines in each poem.

(2) Did these sets of stanzas correspond mainly to dynasty spans? Was a new set supposed to be generated with each break of a branch? Brace yourself. I may continue this topic under Chinese History. How common was it for entire families/clans to move from one province to another with the beginning of each dynasty?

If there are not wars or catastrophes, the families usually not move to other provinces, you know, people only move for living, if they can live there cozy, they will stay there forever.

(3) What happened with the collapse of the Qing Dynasty? Was it popular to change one's name? to what extent? Why?

Qing Dynasty became more and more decadent and corrupt in its last life. Cixi queen is fear to conflict with other countries. Most powerful countries thought it would be benefit for them to occupy china, so constricted by the averaged benefit, they set up the alliance and rushed into china.

It's not popular to change name in china, our name just like the blood inside us, we are proud of our names, except it's unavoidable to do so.

(4) How does a character in each line correlate to the names of everybody in a single generation?

answered above.

(5) Does anyone still use these? To what extent do/did Koreans use these systems?

It would be a great help to find someone who's quite familiar with genealogies. I get the sense that it is no longer common knowledge, if it ever was.

I have no idea about Koreans.

(6) How does one determine what comes next?

answered above.

(7) What do others of Chinese descent, in this forum, know about their genealogy name systems and the histories/uses of them?

answered above.

Dear Long zhiren, I hope I can help you much, but my english is not so good, so if you can't make it clearly, [admin edit] you can ask me questions here and I will try my best to answer them

[skylee]

Trying to help the OP, I searched on the internet and reached this blog which displays the poem in the banner -> http://www.wretch.cc/blog/swimrabbit

I left a message asking the blog owner about the meaning of the poem. The blog owner has been very kind and answered me twice. First he told me, "這是我家族譜...". Then when asked about the function, besides naming, and meaning of the poem, he replied -

Hi Skylee,

出自我家祖先

我家姓 "龍"

不知還有什麼意思耶 可能要看看族譜囉

Well this might not be helpful but this is all the info I have gathered.