📜 璇璣圖 - Star Gauge
蘇氏蕙若 五色 蘭圖 織錦 回文 璇璣圖
詩文讀法
《璇璣圖》最早是840字，後人感慨璇璣圖之妙遂在璇璣圖正中央加入「心」字，成為現在廣泛流傳的841字版本。 璇璣圖最早的五色已不可考，後人通過顏色區塊的劃分來解讀《璇璣圖》。因而有七色讀法、井欄讀法等形形色色的方式。下面是一幅選自《鏡花緣》的璇璣圖的五色讀本。
璇璣圖五色讀法示意圖 - Five-color Reading Method Diagram
四圍四角紅書讀法
自仁字起順讀，每首七言四句；逐字逐句逆讀，俱成回文：
仁智懷德聖虞唐，貞妙顯華重榮章，
臣賢惟聖配英皇，倫匹離飄浮江湘。
仁智至慘傷（仁智懷德聖虞唐，貞志篤終誓穹蒼。欽所感想妄淫荒，心憂增慕懷慘傷。）、貞志至虞唐、欽所至穹蒼，欽所至榮章（欽所感想妄淫荒，心憂增慕懷慘傷。仁智懷德聖虞唐，貞妙顯華重榮章。）、貞妙至山梁、臣賢至路長、臣賢至流光（臣賢惟聖配英皇，倫匹離飄浮江湘。津河隔塞殊山梁，民生推逝電流光。）、倫匹至幽房、倫匹至榆桑。倫匹至臣賢、至貞妙，至虞唐。余仿此。湘江至皇英、至章榮，至智仁。余仿此。以下三段讀俱同前：津河至柔剛、親所至蘭芳，琴清至慘傷。
中間井欄式紅書讀法
自欽字起順讀，每首七言四句：
欽岑幽岩峻嵯峨，深淵重涯經網羅，
林陽潛曜翳英華，沉浮異逝頹流沙。
深淵至幽遐、林陽至兼加、沉浮至患多、麟鳳至如何、神精至嵯峨、身苦至網羅、殷憂至英華。
自沉字起，逐句逆讀，回文。余仿此：
沉浮異逝頹流沙，林陽潛曜翳英華，
深淵重涯經網羅，欽岑幽岩峻嵯峨。
自沙字起，逐字逆讀，回文：
沙流頹逝異浮沉，華英翳曜潛陽林，
羅網經涯重淵深，峨嵯峻岩幽岑欽。
黑書讀法
自嗟字起，反覆讀，三言十二句：
嗟嘆懷，所離經；遐曠路，傷中情；家無君，房幃清；
華飾容，朗鏡明；葩紛光，珠曜英；多思感，誰為榮？
榮為至嘆嗟、經離至思多、多思至離經。
藍書讀法
自中行各借一字，互用分讀，四言十二句：
邵南周風，興自后妃；衛鄭楚樊，厲節中闈；
詠歌長嘆，不能奮飛；齊商雙發，歌我袞衣；
曜流華觀，冶容為誰？情徵宮羽，同聲相追。
情徵至后妃、周南至情悲、官徵至淑姿。
紫書讀法
自歲寒反覆讀，五言四句：
寒歲識凋松，貞物知終始；顏喪改華容，仁賢別行士。
士行至歲寒、松凋至賢仁、仁賢至凋松。
黃書讀法
自詩情起，五言四句：
詩情明顯怨，怨義興理辭；辭麗作比端，端無終始詩。
詩始至情詩、辭麗至理辭、辭理至麗辭、端比至無端、怨顯至義怨、端無至比端、怨義至顯怨。
附：武則天為《璇璣圖》所作序
前秦苻堅時，秦州刺史扶民竇滔妻蘇氏，陳留令武功蘇道質第三女也。名蕙，字若蘭。智識精明，儀容秀麗；謙默自守，不求顯揚。年十六，歸於竇氏，滔甚愛之。然蘇氏性近於急，頗傷嫉妒。
滔字連波，右將軍於真之孫，朗之第二子也。風神秀偉，該通經史，允文允武，時論尚之。苻堅委以心膂之任，備歷顯職，皆有政聞。遷秦州刺史，以忤旨謫戌敦煌。會堅克晉襄陽，慮有危逼，藉滔才略，詔拜安南將軍，留鎮襄陽。初，滔有寵姬趙陽台，歌舞之妙，無出其右。滔置之別所。蘇氏知之，求而獲焉，營加棰辱，滔深以為憾。陽台又專伺蘇氏之短，讒毀交至，滔益忿恨。蘇氏時年二十一。及滔將鎮襄陽，邀蘇同往，蘇氏忿之，不與偕行。滔遂攜陽台之任，絕蘇音問。
蘇氏悔恨自傷，因織錦為回文：五采相宣，瑩心耀目。縱橫八寸，題詩二百餘首，計八百餘言，縱橫反覆，皆為文章。其文點畫無闕。才情之妙，超古邁今。名《璇璣圖》。然讀者不能悉通。蘇氏笑曰：『徘徊宛轉，自為語言，非我家人，莫之能解。』遂發蒼頭齎至襄陽。滔覽之，感其妙絕，因送陽台之關中，而具車從盛禮迎蘇氏歸於漢南，恩好愈重。
蘇氏所著文詞五千餘言，屬隋季之亂，文字散落，而獨錦字回文盛傳於世。朕聽政之暇，留心墳典，散帙之次，偶見斯圖。因述若蘭之多才，復美連波之悔過，遂制此記，聊以示將來也。大周天冊金輪皇帝制。
歷史背景
雖然有關蘇小妍是一位才華橫溢的詩人的觀點是一致的，但這首詩的背景故事和詮釋卻在數個世紀中發生了變化。從最初是妻子思念丈夫的悲嘆，到妻子擔心丈夫在邊疆作戰，再到妻子嫉妒丈夫的情感競爭。
到唐代，蘇小妍的生平故事被歸於武則天女皇，然而這很可能是一種創意的誤歸因為敘述的效果。這包括以下對這首詩的描述: 欽州的竇滔被流放到了沙漠之中，離開妻子蘇氏。在離別之際，竇滔發誓不再娶他人。然而，他一到達沙漠地區，就娶了別人。蘇氏創作了一首圓環詩，將它編織成一塊錦緞，並送給了他。
另一個來源將這首詩稱為《玄機圖》，聲稱整個網格是一首迴文詩，只有竇滔能夠理解（這解釋了為什麼唐代的任何來源都沒有再次印刷它），當他讀完它後，他離開了他的沙漠妻子，回到了蘇小妍身邊。
Star Gauge (English)
The Star Gauge (Chinese: 璇璣圖; pinyin: xuán jī tú), or translated as "the armillary sphere chart", is the posthumous title given to a 4th-century Chinese poem written by the Sixteen Kingdoms poet Su Hui for her husband. It consists of a 29 by 29 grid of characters, forming a reversible poem that can be read in different ways to form roughly 3,000 smaller rhyming poems. The outer border forms a single circular poem, thought to be both the first and the longest of its kind.
Description
The Star Gauge consists of 841 characters in a grid. The original was described by contemporary sources as shuttle-woven on brocade. It was composed by Su Hui during a time when East Asian Mādhyamaka was one of the predominant philosophical schools in the area.
The outer border is meant to be read in a circle. The grid is known as a palindrome poem, and can be read in different ways to generate over 3,000 shorter poems, in which the second line of every couplet rhymes with that of the next. The largest set of such poems are 2,848 four-liners with seven characters per line. In the image below, the maroon grid is made up of 32 seven-character phrases. These may be read in certain patterns around the perimeter, and in other patterns for the internal grid. Other poems can be formed by reading characters from the other colored sections.
History of the Poem and Its Retelling
Early sources focused on the circular poem composing the outer border of the grid, consisting of 112 characters. Later sources described the whole grid of 840 characters (not counting the central character 心 xin, meaning "heart", which lends meaning to the whole but is not part of any of the smaller poems).
The text of the poem was circulated continuously in medieval China and was never lost, but during the Song dynasty it became scarce. The 112-character version was included in early sources. The earliest surviving excerpts of the entire grid version date from a 10th-century text by Li Fang.
While sources agree that Su was a talented poet, the background story and interpretation of the poem changed over the centuries, from the lament of a wife longing for her husband, to a wife worrying about her husband fighting on the frontier, to a jealous wife competing for her husband's affections.
By the Tang period, a popular story of Su Hui's life was attributed to empress Wu Zetian, though this is likely a creative misattribution for narrative effect. This included the following description of the poem:
Dou Tao of Qinzhou was exiled to the desert, away from his wife Lady Su. Upon departure from Su, Dou swore that he would not marry another person. However, as soon as he arrived in the desert region, he married someone. Lady Su composed a circular poem, wove it into a piece of brocade, and sent it to him.
Another source, naming the poem as Xuanji Tu (Picture of the Turning Sphere), claimed that the grid as a whole was a palindromic poem comprehensible only to Dou (which would explain why none of the Tang sources reprinted it), and that when he read it, he left his desert wife and returned to Su Hui.
Some 13th-century copies were attributed to famous women of the Song dynasty, but falsely so. The poem was also mentioned in the novel Flowers in the Mirror.
Historical Images 歷史圖像
璇璣圖五色讀法 - Color Index Layout showing the five-color reading method with maroon, black, navy, olive, and teal sections
璇璣圖讀法示意 - Reading Layout demonstrating traditional reading patterns and methods
璇璣圖原本 - Original historical copy of the Star Gauge palindrome poem
璇璣圖歷史手稿 - Historical manuscript showing the complete grid
“Dish Poem” by the wife of Su Boyu