Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 October 23

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October 23

Dating the Three Character Classic

Our article on the Three Character Classic (三字經) seems to imply that it was probably written during the Song.

But if I'm not mistaken, the original version (before updates were inserted for later dynasties) already has the lines 炎宋興，受周禪；十八傳，南北混。Now it seems to me that this can only refer to the eighteen emperors of the Song dynasty until the Yuan conquest. Chinese Wikisource links to the Yuan conquest of the Song here, and Michel Deverge makes this interpretation explicit in his French translation: La dynastie des Song, placée sous l'emblème du feu, s'éleva et recueillit le mandat des Zhou (du Nord). Le trône fut transmis dix-huit fois avant que l'empire ne fut réunifié (par les Yuan).

So how can it be a Song-dynasty text? This line would rather seem to force a Yuan-dynasty dating. (It couldn't be later because the next line mentions only seventeen histories in the original.) Wang Yinglin and Ou Shizi both survived into the Yuan; did one of them (or somebody else) write it then? Or was this line just edited early on? Double sharp (talk) 15:07, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

P.S. Herbert Giles' English translation on Wikisource agrees with me in the commentary: The Sung dynasty was interrupted in A.D. 1127 by the 金 Chin Tartars, who had been called in to exterminate the 遼 Liao Tartars, carrying off the Emperor and his heir and occupying the northern portion of the empire. Another son of the unfortunate monarch succeeded in re-establishing the line, and for greater security transferred his capital southwards to modern Hangchow. Hence the first period was called the Northern, the latter the Southern, Sung; and it is to the final reunion of the two under the Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan in A.D. 1260 that this line refers, although the last representative of the Sungs lived on until 1279. Double sharp (talk) 02:04, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

20 July plot

I've found the Oberfeldwebel Franz Kolbe (1891-1944) in this German site. Can you help me to confirm if they're the same person? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.207.168.74 (talk) 16:25, 23 October 2023 (UTC)